Billionaire Ryan Smith burst onto the national sports scene when he bought the Utah Jazz in 2020.
After shelling out $1.6 billion for the NBA franchise, the 45-year-old co-founder of Qualtrics and his wife, Ashley, bought Real Salt Lake for about $400 million and revived the Utah Royals of the NWSL for $2 million. He teamed with private equity investor David Blitzer, co-managing partner of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and NHL’s New Jersey Devils, on the latter deals.
Just last week, the Smiths completed a unique $1.2 billion transaction to move the Arizona Coyotes hockey team to Salt Lake City.
Owning four sports franchises, including two among the “Big Four” leagues in the country, places Smith in some elite company. Few people own multiple major league teams. As Front Office Sports put it, his company, Smith Entertainment Group, is “already starting to stack up nicely against rival heavyweights in the industry,” including Kroenke Sports & Entertainment (L.A. Rams, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche, Colorado Rapids) and Fenway Sports Group (Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Penguins, Liverpool FC).
But is it too soon to call Smith a power broker in the sports industry?
“Smith is a rapidly emerging and important voice throughout the sports industry. While his stature is certainly already high, it will grow much higher over time as he further entrenches himself in league matters,” David Carter, principal at The Sports Business Group and an adjunct professor of sport business at the University of Southern California, told the Deseret News via email.
“As his tenure as an owner increases over time, his influence over league policy and related issues will also grow, provided his ownership has been successful. It’s the combination of franchises owned and how they have been run, as well as and the length of ownership that results in true power broker status.”
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