By Brice Wallace
By the time you read this, the Utah Jazz season is underway and the team may have worn a new uniform design.
But whether new uniforms happened already or not, expect it to occur at some point. And it will be among many other changes for the NBA franchise, according to its new owner.
Ryan Smith, who also is the executive chairman of Provo-based Qualtrics, revealed his thinking about the Jazz brand and operations during the recent Silicon Slopes Summit at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City. Speculation about a rebrand — with new black-and-white uniforms — had been fueled in recent days by the “Jazz note” sculpture outside the Vivint Smart Home Arena being painted in a black-and-white scheme, matching color changes at the team’s practice facility and on its website banner.
Smith purchased the Jazz less than a year ago from the Miller family, so are any pending changes a way to put his mark on a legacy franchise and business operation beloved by the people of Utah? The way he sees it, he’s carrying on a tradition started by Larry H. Miller.
“I think the evolution of the brand of the Jazz has been something that’s pretty consistent,” he said, noting that Miller “pushed” by bringing the team to Utah from New Orleans, by having games played in Las Vegas, by shooting lay-ups with the players before the games, and by building what once was known as the Delta Center.
“The Millers have left us this beautiful asset in a great spot, and we’re going to push. We’re here to push,” Smith said. “We’re not going to just keep everything the status quo. We will push.”
That will come in the form of a new look for the Jazz dancers, two new clubs in the arena, various construction projects and reworking the look at the practice facility, he said.
It also takes shape by the Jazz having the league’s sixth-highest payroll. “That’s a push, right?” Smith asked.
“So, I think that’s the one thing you can expect from us is we’re going to push, because nothing great happens” without it, he said.
“I would be really concerned if I was a fan for a team where ownership was not pushing, and I want to challenge our team at the Jazz [to] push. Push, push, push. And if you mess up, great. I want it safe for them to mess up. If the font works or doesn’t work, no problem, because that’s the same thing we’ve done at Qualtrics.”
The Jazz community is “incredible,” but he also acknowledged that “different segments of people like different things.” The team’s uniform designs have changed over the years, from the Mardi Gras look left over from the New Orleans Jazz days, to the more-recent Red Rock, Dark Mode and City Edition versions cooked up by NBA uniform supplier Nike. Along the way, the uniforms have been dark blue, light blue, yellow, purple and green. The City Edition featured a gradient from yellow to red and Dark Mode a gradient from yellow to a black base.
Smith said he likes “all the genres of the Jazz” but the team has been thinking about what it will be like over the next 20 years, keeping in mind “a difficult but awesome” Nike contract that has been creating designs and brands “in a pace that’s hard to keep up,” Smith said.
“Everything that we roll out becomes like doctrine for our fan base, which we love. … What we’re trying to do is hone it all in. We’re not just going to have two colors. It’s not just going to be black and white. But we’re going to have a good base and then we’ll continue with Nike to have City Edition-type stuff. But we’re super-excited on the direction.
“We also know that, look, we have a super-passionate fan base, which I love. I love. I mean, people are talking about the font we’re using in pre-season, for hell’s sake. That’s incredible.”
Another change Smith wants to see is how people perceive Utah and the Jazz. Utah has always had a mentality that it is a small market, but he countered by saying “there are very little things that we’re a small market at.”
In the real estate market, people in Utah “are paying California prices.” Utah’s hospitality and tourism market is not small. The state will host the Winter Olympics again. It has world-class skiing. The state’s job growth, upward mobility and tech-sector growth have been strong. The Salt Lake City International Airport allows for outstanding travel.
“If you look at the tech renaissance that’s coming, like, there’s nowhere else like Utah right now and every venture capitalist knows that because they’re all hanging out here. … So, we’ve got to get this small-market mentality out of our heads,” he said.
As for the Jazz itself, Smith made it clear that experimentation would be a focus going forward.
“We didn’t come into something that was broken,” he said. “We came into something that we can just continue to push on, just like Larry did.”
