‘Holy cow. What’s going on in Utah?’ Inside the Hockey Club’s plan for long-term success

SALT LAKE CITY — There are two versions of Ryan Smith. There’s the public-facing 40-something billionaire tech mogul who answers questions in a way that can be direct, earnest and open to admitting he might not have the right answer … or an answer at all.

That’s the version most people see. But there’s also another version of Smith that’s unapologetically Utahn. That version comes out in the way he talks about Salt Lake City, the state of Utah and the preconceived beliefs many people have about a place that they’ve likely never visited.

While the first version of Smith is the reason the Utah Hockey Club exists, it’s the second version that is hell-bent on ensuring that the franchise is going to thrive in the most Utah way possible.

“I put everything in Utah. They said we couldn’t build tech here, and we’d have to move to the Bay Area,” Smith said. “We couldn’t get venture funding here. We couldn’t IPO a company from here. We couldn’t sell. We proved every single person wrong.

“Then I think that people started believing, ‘Holy cow. What’s going on in Utah?’ That’s incredibly gratifying when you’re fighting for a bigger cause.”

This is the mission facing the Utah Hockey Club when it comes to achieving success long term. While the UHC is a new venture, the team relocated from Arizona where they were the Coyotes. Before that, they were the original Winnipeg Jets, relocating to the desert in 1996.

The club is trying to prove that Salt Lake City and Utah as a whole can support the NHL. It’s trying to prove that it can make hockey a staple, just like the Utah Jazz have been doing in the NBA for several decades.

Perhaps the most important point the Utah Hockey Club could make is that as Salt Lake City keeps growing, so could the city’s professional sports landscape.

“Utahns especially want to show they are more than a flyover state,” said Josh Furlong, a broadcaster and the sports director for KSL. “They recognize they are not going to be Los Angeles, Seattle or New York. They want to showcase what Utah has to offer. You have a rabid fan base that will support your team. I think you have a bunch of people who want to showcase that. I don’t know if it is some type of FOMO situation where they feel like they’re not being included. But they want to be in that mix among the best places.

“You want people to feel what you see. You have this beautiful landscape, friendly people and a great atmosphere for sports culture.”

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“Utah! Getting bigger and better. Utah! Always leading the way. New technology is here. Growing faster each year. This is the place!”

Those are lyrics from “Utah … This Is The Place.” Written in 1996, it later became the state song in 2003. At the time of the song’s creation, Utah was on the verge of announcing itself to more of the world, using sports and entertainment as a mechanism.

The Jazz reached three straight Western Conference finals from 1996 through 1998, with two NBA Finals appearances. Salt Lake City received international exposure during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. In 2005, the University of Utah was the first school to have the No. 1 picks in both the NBA and NFL drafts in the same year, with Andrew Bogut and Alex Smith. The state’s fortune was also extended to film in 2004 when a few graduates of BYU’s film school made the coming of age cult classic “Napoleon Dynamite.”

Decades later, it appears Utah could once again be following a similar path, but with more to gain.

Utah Hockey Club president of hockey operations Chris Armstrong didn’t quote the lyrics from the state song when asked about the future. But his words resemble a similar sentiment when he mentions Utah having the nation’s No. 3 economy and the youngest state based on median age (30.7 years old).

“It’s a unique moment in time where we’re building something new from the ground up and we get to do it with everybody here,” Armstrong said. “So that is why we see a successful and thriving future. It’s only continuing to grow that outpaces most cities in North America, and we think that’s a great opportunity for a new sports franchise.”

The history of sports fandom in Utah began with major college programs BYU and the University of Utah establishing athletic programs. Smaller schools such as Southern Utah, Utah State, Utah Valley and Weber State have also built followings in various sports.

Professional sports came on the scene in 1979 when the Jazz relocated from New Orleans and eventually became one of the NBA’s most successful franchises throughout the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s.

MLS came to the area in 2004 with Real Salt Lake, which averages 20,291 fans per game, and extends to the Utah Royals of the NWSL, a team that was revived in 2024. The Royals’ first game drew 20,370 fans which set a state record for the most fans at a women’s sporting event.

Both RSL and the Royals are owned by Smith, a BYU graduate, along with Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils managing partner David Blitzer.

In 2034, Salt Lake City will join Athens, Beijing, London, Los Angeles and Paris as one of the few cities to host multiple Olympics when the Winter Games return.

“Utah is crazy for sports,” said Eric Schulz, a senior lecturer in marketing and strategy at Utah State. “I think it will probably be the same pattern that Denver had. Denver just had the Nuggets and the Broncos for a long time. Then the Rockies came to town and then the Avalanche came to town. There’s been a lot of growth in Utah over the last 20 years with people who have come from other parts of the country. Look at Las Vegas. Who thought a hockey team in Las Vegas would do so well?”

Armstrong said the Utah Hockey Club received more than 30,000 season-ticket deposits. It’s a similar figure to that of the Seattle Kraken when they garnered more than 32,000 deposits ahead of their first season.

Armstrong also said that the franchise “feels very confident” in that it could finish this season as both a top-20 revenue team and a top-20 ticketing team in the NHL despite playing in at a basketball-first venue that has around 5,000 obstructed view seats.

“I don’t know too much about what the perception is, but I can tell you that on the ground that all you see is growth around you,” Armstrong said. “I think the culture of hockey lends itself to the community of Greater Salt Lake and of Utah. Hard-working, honest, passion, camaraderie, pride in team, pride in state. … I think that speaks to the response that we’ve received with season-ticket deposits.”

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THERE WILL BE challenges along the way.

Those Jazz teams with Karl Malone and John Stockton created a generational fandom that has played a role in why the Jazz still continue to be such a massive draw.

Harnessing that fandom became an instant priority for the Utah Hockey Club. Exactly a week after the Coyotes’ last regular season game, the team was flown to Salt Lake City, where they were greeted by 12,000 fans at the Delta Center.

In the offseason, the club organized an online poll encouraging fans to vote on its future team name. In June, the SEG announced 520,000 fans had participated, before narrowing it down to six potential options.

Chris Barney, the Smith Entertainment Group’s president of revenue and commercial strategy, said the club will market to everyone. But they’re concentrating on attracting young people so that they can grow those generational fans.

Part of that plan is creating a youth hockey program. Many of the NHL’s teams playing in nontraditional markets — especially Western Conference teams — have used these programs over the past 30 years. The short-term goal is to drive new, young fans to the sport. The long-term goal is to make the youth of today the season-ticket holders of tomorrow.

What makes the Utah Hockey Club’s plan different is their connection to the Jazz. The Junior Jazz is the NBA’s largest youth basketball program, with more than 60,000 members spread across Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Montana and Nevada.

Barney, who grew up playing in the Junior Jazz, said that the Jazz designate 1,800 tickets every home game for program participants.

“Our goal is to develop a youth hockey program in which there’s an Auston Matthews playing somewhere in the NHL [in the future] that’s a product of Salt Lake City with the infrastructure that we have built,” Barney said. “That might be one of the most important things. It’s not right in front of our face, but we have a five-year strategic plan. Developing and building it out is darn near the top.”

Barney explained that there are county recreation departments that are incubators for youth who end up playing sports in the community. With SEG already having those relationships in place through the Junior Jazz, they hope to do the same with the Utah Hockey Club when it comes time to introduce ice hockey and street hockey throughout the community.

The most recent USA Hockey membership numbers show that Utah had a combined 4,869 players between males and females. Of those 4,869 registered players, there were 3,168 who were younger than 18, while 2,073 were under 14. In 2016-17 — the final period before the Golden Knights arrived — the state of Nevada had 1,699 combined registered players. In 2023-24, there were a combined 5,560 male and female players, with 2,861 of them being 18 and younger.

“We’re all in,” Barney said. “We’re not going to dip our toe in. We’re all in.”

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ANOTHER CHALLENGE IN building a fan base is that while Salt Lake City and Utah as a whole are growing, growth does not come cheap, which sets up a dichotomy that exists for many franchises in 2024.

“Utah has a ton of rising costs. Especially in real estate,” Furlong said. “There is a real pain point here with things being overpriced, and the housing market being really tough. Utahns love to get things for free or for cheap. The cheaper you make it, the better it is going to be. That said, you have someone like Ryan Smith who is trying to appeal to other people in the tech world who have limitless amounts of cash.

“The general fan wants it to be as cheap as possible because there are other factors, but tech people want to showcase this as a premier destination.”

Chris Hartweg is the publisher and CEO of the Team Marketing Report, which produces the Fan Cost Index, a model that calculates what the cost would be for a family of four to attend a sporting event.

Hartweg said recent history shows that new teams — whether they be expansion or relocation — were more expensive than the league average when they debuted. He said that the Nashville Predators (1998-99), Columbus Blue Jackets (2000-01) and Minnesota Wild (2000-01) were all within 3% above the league average ticket prices in their first season. Those are the outliers in recent NHL history.

The Atlanta Thrashers (1999-2000) were 34% above league average. The Vegas Golden Knights (2017-18) were 30% higher, while the Seattle Kraken (2021-22) were 58% higher.

“With dynamic pricing, (teams) know where all the price points are,” Hartweg said. “They know they want to move this many more season tickets if they go to this level. They know going in what’s the most that they could get before diminishing returns. That’s business. It happened in Seattle.”

Hartweg pointed out that the Kraken lowered their prices for the second season, but were able to charge a hefty premium for two main reasons that could also apply to the Utah Hockey Club: a new team, and a new venue.

Hartweg said it’s possible that UHC’s fans could be in store for a pricey first season, with the possibility of an uptick in prices once the Delta Center renovation project is completed in 2027.

Then there’s the role of the secondary market. Hartweg said the average family looking to go to a game might purchase tickets on the secondary market, and they might not know where to find the strongest deals.

Utah’s upcoming three-game home stand against the Carolina Hurricanes, the Vegas Golden Knights and the Washington Capitals offers a wide range of price points for the cheapest available ticket.

A cursory glance across numerous secondary ticketing sites shows that the composite least expensive ticket at Delta Center for the Nov. 13 game versus the Hurricanes is $37, while the least expensive ticket for the Nov. 18 game against the Capitals is $58, should fans want to watch Alexander Ovechkin continue to chase Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record.

It’s a contrast compared to the demand ahead of the Nov. 15 game against the Golden Knights, a perennial Stanley Cup contender that could become one of the UHC’s chief geographic rivals. Those sites list the least expensive ticket for the game on Nov. 15 against Vegas as $119.67. The composite cheapest lower-bowl tickets with an unobstructed view is $248.

“When a new team comes in, it’s Christmas Day,” Schulz said. “They can come in and buy the best seats and put in orders for blocks of a hundred and resell them on the secondary market. If they can get their hands on them, they only have to resell a quarter of the season and they already have their money back. If a team goes to the playoffs, it’s like 12 Christmases having those tickets.”

Barney said the franchise has a “multiyear strategy” when it comes to how ticketing will work for fans from various economic backgrounds.

He said that adding 6,000 unobstructed seats once the Delta Center renovation is completed will help with making the UHC more accessible. Another step is to work with community partners to ensure they’re getting UHC tickets in the hands of fans from underrepresented groups so they can also have access.

They’ll also continue to sell those obstructed view seats that Barney also called the “partial ice” seats or “single-ice seats” — in reference to the steep angles behind each goal — that will start at $19 per game.

“We want to make sure we’re being strategic about how the tickets are being distributed,” said Barney, who grew up in nearby Kaysville. “I think the move to make sure that concessions are also more affordable for people was also really important.”

Hartweg said it’s common for teams to provide more cost-effective food and drink offerings to help offset the price of a game ticket. He said there are places that offer $5 beers, but it might come with the caveat that it’s in the 700 section of the arena.

Delta Center has what’s called a “Mountain Menu” which is a fan-friendly pricing option in which a bottle of water is $2 while hot dogs, ice cream, nachos and popcorn are $3. There were also other options such as Chick-fil-A, with 30 nuggets for $30, while a chicken sandwich and waffle fries cost $16.

“It’s worth the price,” said Christian Priskos, who grew up in Salt Lake City. “We have a Tier 1 NHL team that’s in downtown Salt Lake City. It’s not only boosting the local economy with local business, local bars and local restaurants and everything you want to do. But it’s also boosting the social scene as well. People want to say ‘Salt Lake is a sleepy town.’ But, we’re not. We’re a Tier 1 city and the Utah Hockey Club is another step toward showing that.”

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WHILE THE FOOD and drink prices might be new to Utah Hockey Club fans, those are the prices that Jazz fans have grown accustomed to paying over the years. And the SEG can take components of its playbook from running the Jazz to serve Utah hockey fans.

On the ice, they are boosted by a strong collection of young talent — and the ninth-best prospect pipeline. A playoff appearance in Year 1 is a real possibility.

From a fan engagement perspective, both Armstrong and Barney shared how going to the Delta Center for a Utah Hockey Club game could be a first for a number of people in the area. At present, the Jazz are in a rebuild yet have sold out for 296 consecutive games. Delta Center, which holds 18,306 fans for basketball, had more than 14,000 fans attend a preseason basketball game less than 24 hours before the first game in UHC history.

Armstrong said that element of demand coupled with how historically engaged fans across Salt Lake City and the state of Utah have been could also play a role in the Utah Hockey Club having long-term success.

“There’s a lot of Utahns who haven’t been able to experience a live sporting event in the building because the Jazz have sold out so many consecutive games,” Armstrong said. “It gives people another opportunity to be part of this world-class venue in Salt Lake they have not been able to access with the Jazz. … Now we’ve given them that new product that gives them that chance.”