'The same passion': Hardcore South American Jazz fans travel to Utah to see team

SALT LAKE CITY — Patricio Caumont may be a big soccer fan.

In his native Uruguay, as in the rest of South America, it's far and away the top sport, practically coursing through everybody's veins. But it's not his only sports passion.

Back in the 1990s, when the Utah Jazz made several strong playoff runs, including two appearances in the NBA finals, he started splitting his allegiances. "There wasn't even cable in Uruguay. There wasn't cable TV. (Over-the-air) channels broadcast some of the games, and I fell in love with the Utah Jazz," he said.

Around the same time, David Huerta, who lives in Santiago, Chile, started taking note of the Jazz, particularly the team's appearances in the National Basketball Association championship series against the Chicago Bulls in 1997 and 1998. Maybe soccer garners the lion's share of attention, but he became a fan of basketball as well and liked the idea of rooting for a team trying to knock off the Bulls, an NBA juggernaut at the time led by Michael Jordan.

"I always liked watching teams that weren't the favorites, the underdogs," he said. "Seeing Jordan's team against the (Jazz), who weren't the favorites, I became a fan of the team."

Utah, undoubtedly, is the heart of the Jazz fan base, but the team's appeal isn't limited to the state. With the reach of NBA basketball expanding around the globe, the Utah squad has a hardcore pocket of fans in South America, and 32 of them, including Caumont and Huerta, are currently in Salt Lake City to see the team live and in-person. They arrived last week — invited guests of the Jazz — and had seen three games through last Saturday's loss to the Miami Heat. They were to see three more this week, plus a couple of Utah Mammoth hockey games, before heading back to South America.

"We are having a great time. I couldn't imagine that it was going to be like this," said Francisco Di Teodoro Castillo, a fan from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

At Saturday's game, dubbed Hispanic Heritage Night, the traveling group basked for a moment in the spotlight at midcourt of the Delta Center during halftime, holding a sign reading "Utah Jazz Uruguay." Twenty of the 32 visitors come from the small nation tucked between Argentina and Brazil. Given their fanatical, soccer-style chanting during the game, they also got time on the Jumbotron.

Credit Juan Baracco of Montevideo, Uruguay, with helping make the NBA field trip happen.

His first exposure to the Jazz came from playing NBA video games as a kid, and he seized on the Jazz as his team after they started appearing on TV in Uruguay. Then, about 10 years ago, he launched a social media account on what is now called X, @UtahJazzEspanol, in search of like-minded spirits.

"I was like, 'Am I the only Jazz supporter here in South America? Is this real?' Because I didn't know anyone. Everyone was like a Lakers fan, a Celtics fan, a Bulls fan," he said. "I really wanted to understand if I was the only one."

Other fans started coming out of the woodwork, following the X account, and now the Latin American Jazz fanatics keep in touch across South America via apps like WhatsApp. They've created their own community, regularly messaging each other to trade notes on the team. "We breathe the Jazz basically every day. It's really cool because it's an everyday thing for us. We're kind of friends," Baracco said.

Jazz owner Ryan Smith learned of the group and reached out to Baracco during a recent visit to Uruguay, laying the groundwork for the trip, bankrolled by the team as a way of saying thanks for the support. He wasn't sure exactly where Baracco was based when he made the call, but it turns out he was only five minutes away. "So I invited him and his friends to dinner. While we were there, I said, 'We have got to get these guys to Utah,' and the rest is history," Smith said.

'It's about belonging'

While soccer may be king in South America, fans like Baracco, Huerta and Caumont say basketball sits in the second spot in the continent, with its popularity on the rise as the NBA bolsters its outreach efforts around the world. Parallel to that, the Jazz has paid close attention to the growing Latino population in Utah via live radio broadcasts of the team's games on Spanish-language radio and more.

"It's about belonging, you know. When you hear that the Jazz are doing Spanish broadcasting, that means you belong here," said Nelson Moran, who has done the Spanish-language play-by-play for the team on Utah radio since 2010. "That means you are represented by them."

The Jazz is a global team, Moran went on, noting that he, too, was a fan of the Utah team growing up in his native El Salvador, watching John Stockton play. "It's a worldwide brand, and that is why you see these fans from South America. They are passionate about soccer, but they are also passionate about basketball," he said.

Indeed, Baracco said he hopes the Utah fans he comes across during the visit here come away with the impression that they are equally fanatical about the Jazz. "We're trying to leave a mark here and respectfully let them know that we understand the Jazz, and we love the Jazz, and we feel the Jazz a different way in South America. But it's still the same passion," he said.

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