32 Thoughts: The Podcast - “We’re here. We’re ready to go.”

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

Ryan Smith is the owner of the Utah Jazz and Real Salt Lake. He is also the executive chairman and co-founder of Qualtrics, an experience management company based out of Provo, Utah. He has expressed interest in owning an NHL team and has had conversations with the league about why he feels Utah is ready for the NHL.Jeff and Elliotte chat with Ryan about his journey, how he got into sports ownership, relocation or expansion, why Utah makes sense, surrounding himself with smart people, taking risks, working with Danny Ainge, some of his mentors, what he’s passionate about, and his friendship with Wayne Gretzky and Jon Cooper.Email the podcast at [e-mail] or call The Thought Line at 1-833-311-3232 and leave us a voicemailThis podcast was produced and mixed by Amil Delic, and hosted by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman.Audio Credits: Columbia Records & TNT.The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Sports & Media or any affiliates.

No, it was super cool. We got a good draw. We played with Ricky Fowler and Joel Damon. We had a little magic. There was like 20,000 people out here at this event. It was pretty cool just on a Wednesday, but Steph Curry was right behind us, so that might add something to do with it. Welcome once again to 32 Thoughts, the podcast presented by the GMC Canyon AT4X. Merrick Friedman-Delich with you once again. And Elliot, this is a special edition of 32 Thoughts, the podcast presented by the GMC Canyon AT4X. Merrick Friedman Delitz with you once again. And Elliot, this is a special edition of 32 Thoughts Pod here. Our conversation with Ryan Smith. Who is Ryan Smith? Ryan Smith is a billionaire. Ryan Smith is a sports owner,

NBA, MLS, and maybe even the NHL as well. It wasn't that long ago that on this podcast, you talked about him meeting with Gary Bettman, NHL commissioner to pursue and have conversations around bringing the NHL to Salt Lake city. This is one of the most interesting interviews, Elliot. I think we've ever done on this podcast. He's a young entrepreneur, passionate about sports as you're going to find out here in a second. But as we sort of chum the waters for what's going to come here in this

interview, what are some of your thoughts on Ryan Smith, who really is a sort of new breed of sports owner in the universe here? I just wanted to say I was really blown away by him and his honesty. This was an interview where I learned a lot. We jumped around in a lot of directions. I expected that he wouldn't answer certain questions, but that absolutely did not happen. He was honest and he didn't run away from anything. And I'm really appreciative he gave us this time and I hope the audience will be too. One of the things you'll find out in this interview here, I don't want to bias the jury too much before you listen to it, but one of the things that really impressed me here, Elliot,

was how no matter what question we asked, Ryan has a natural inclination to go big picture with every answer. And when you look at how he thinks and how he behaves as a businessman, it should come as no surprise. He is a big picture thinker and you're going to hear that now. Here's Ryan Smith, maybe future owner in the NHL

on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. Listen to the 32 Thoughts podcast ad free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. First of all, Ryan, thanks so much for doing this. I know your schedule is very busy. Thanks for carving out a slice of your day

for me and Elliot. I know Elliot's going to ask all about my dinner with Gary and from the apps to the entree to the afters, he'll probably want to know about all of it. But I'm really curious about what's attractive about being a sports owner? I understand that there's a distinction

between traditional business and then sports ownership. I understand that there is a distinction between traditional business and then sports ownership. What does it for you? So first, guys, thanks for having me on. I grew up, I was pretty focused on the task at hand for 20 years, which was starting a tech company in my parents' basement in college and really didn't look up to do anything else. And for me personally, sports was the only thing that really kind of took my interest outside of what I was doing to do something else. And the way it happened was kind of unique. You know, we have a platform and a technology platform.

And, you know, I always believe that business is the best way to help government states, organizations, countries is really kind of help move things along. You can bless the lives of people. But as we started working in sports with the different leagues, with our platform and our technology, I realized, holy cow, there is another platform out there that is bigger than tech that actually brings communities together that people can come and forget about life for a while. And that was sports. And I'm a junkie. I love sports. I grew up playing everything. And I said, wow, if there was ever a day that I had a chance to work in it, probably just

like all of you, wouldn't that be cool? And, you know, here we are. There's going to be a day, I believe, where you are a part of the National Hockey League. So how would you describe yourself to hockey fans and how you got here? So, look, I'm Ryan. I was born in Eugene, Oregon, and I grew up in Provo, Utah. Both my parents were professors. I was a kid who was kind of a late bloomer, didn't really understand who I was until I

was late, graduated high school, wasn't a great student in high school, pretty much dropped out of high school. My parents got divorced when I was a young kid and kind of had to grow up a little bit quickly. And I ended up going to Seoul, Korea to teach English. And that kind of set my path. I learned a lot over there and then came back and decided I wanted to go to college, went to Brigham Young University and was fiddling around one day and saw a good opportunity. And we started Qualtrics, which was a tech company that has helped people provide better experiences to be able to run their organizations from kind of the outside in instead of the inside out. We always think we know what the world is, but we actually live in a world where we can go and we can understand people's hearts and minds very quickly

and have the ability to be right. At BYU, I met my wife who's from Las Vegas. And she said she didn't know what you were going to do or what job I had or whatever it was. And this little tech company ended up becoming something. And so we've been pretty focused and heads down. I have five little kids ages six through 15, you know, families first. And we're just trying to be happy. Right. And I think I think that that's me and the type of the owner or person that, you know, when I came into the NBA, that was probably one of the first questions I got. So like, what's your style? What are you going to be? What's going on? And I've been a founder of a company and leadership for a long time. And there's only one style. And that's you. I'm not someone else. I'm not like this. I'm Ryan. It's who I am. Good and bad. You get it all. And we're just trying to do the best that we can with every decision what we make. And I don't know everything at all. I just try to surround myself with really smart people who are fun to work with and who want to go do big things. And that's how I view the world. I wanted to follow up on one thing there.

Your journey is important because I believe you can divide the world into two lines. On one side is the people who figure it out in high school and the other side is those who don't. Like, I never finished my university degree. I dropped out of university before finishing my degree. I still don't have it. But I was one of those people who definitely didn't.

And I guarantee to you there's a lot of people in this podcast who are on that side of the line. Like, they didn't figure it out in high school. And I think advice to those people is very important. What advice would you give them? I'd go back to the advice that Billy Joel gave, right? The scenes from an Italian restaurant where it's like, he sings that song where if you actually listen to the words of it, where he's basically saying you don't want to peak too early.

Things are okay with me these days. I got a good job. I got a good office. where he's basically saying you don't want to peak too early. You can never look so nice after so much time. You can never those days hanging out at the village green. Engineer boots, leather jackets, and tight blue jeans. And life's long. And I'll never forget, like, I think that provides a lot of people a lot of hope because life comes at you differently and and I also think that there's a lot of hope to that for a lot of people and I think we're we need to get a little bit back to that where people have hope and we're cheering for each other a little bit more than we are in these days because it doesn't seem like a very popular thing

right now but I'm super grateful for those people who were cheering for me and didn't give up on me because, I mean, high school was not, even the first part, like, those were not, there was not a whole lot of highlights. And, you know, in raising kids, you're seeing that as well. And, you know, being in sports, I mean, if you actually think about it, I mean, our basketball players are 20 years old on the soccer side. We've got 15-year-olds, and it's like, hey, chill out.

Rome wasn't built in a day. You see these great stories, and just focus on one thing and get better, and let's just keep building. I want to pick up on what you said there about don't peak too early and the Billy Joel advice, Pat Quinn, famous NHL coach used to call players morning glories. They look great in the morning at practice. And then later on at night, the game would start. And it's like, what happened to that guy that I saw skating at 930 this morning?

So I think we get what you're at, what you're going for here. So who would you count as sort of inspirations? You know, people that, you know, along the way either helped you, helped motivate you, you look at and you say, you know what, I like this person's style. Part of my personality is because of this person or this situation. Who would that be for you, Ryan? Yeah, first of all, I think mentors are one of the most undervalued assets people can have. And I try to make a point where no matter what phase I am, I collect mentors. Like there's not – you can't have enough of them because no one's really perfect at everything, right?

And so as you move into basketball, you know, Danny Ainge was always one of my mentors. I happened to play a lot of golf with Danny. As crazy as this is, this was the guy who got me sucked into this business of sports. Two years into the Jazz run, I get a chance to work with him every day as our CEO. I just look up in the air and go, how in the world am I this great? This guy has been in the league for 46 years and he's been to the conference finals like 14 times.

And that's who I get to talk to five times a day and just talk and go play golf with or on the business side. But the key for me when it comes to inspiration are definitely people who have scaled all of their life, right? Like life's hard. And it's easy to scale one aspect or do really well at one aspect. But the goal is kind of you get it all across the finish line.

And those people become a little more rare where it's like, okay, wow. And so I have great mentors. There was an old CEO of American Express named Ken Chanel, who I love is a great, great soul. And I just love speaking with him. I really like old people. Like, I feel like, I feel like old people, old people are like the hidden gem in our society that we don't use enough. And it's like, hey, what are we going through?

What are we going through on interest rates? You've all been here before. It's like, I bought my first house and it was like 16% interest rate. What'd you do? We act like they haven't seen the movie. And there's parts of it that they haven't seen the movie and there's and there's parts of it that they haven't like they don't understand social and tiktok and and like where everything's going but at the same time like they've seen a lot and so i always try to listen um and be in learning mode all right so let's get

to the nhl you are the owner as you mentioned of of the Utah Jazz and also Real Salt Lake of MLS. There you have an NHL connection. David Blitzer is a co-owner, and he's a co-owner of the New Jersey Devils. We have heard a lot about your interest. Tell us about your interest in the NHL. First, Blitz is a complete gem. I love Blitz, and he's a great partner and um we're having a lot of fun he owns a lot of soccer teams and is part of it but he also if he if he tells you

he has one night it's gonna be at the devils right like he he says that that's like his favorite thing look and i'm fortunate enough to have crossed paths with a lot of folks in the nhl whether it's john cooper or gretz or you know tom dundon you know these are folks that i know most of it's through golf and uh if i look at in our market like i think utah and salt lake city i mean we're the fastest growing state with the number one economy in the country right in the u.s And we have been one of the fastest growing states for a long time. And the growth in our state is really unprecedented. And so this isn't the Salt Lake that Utah sports that maybe you saw on the last dance of basketball or something like that, like the whole world's

changed. And with that, it's really shined a lot of light on who we are and what we can become. And I think if you look at what we offer as a state, you've got that growth. And you also have what I would call the winter sports capital of the world. The Olympics are coming back here. Almost 7 million people are coming in every year for winter sports. Almost every single winter sports is headquartered right here within 20 minutes of Salt Lake City one way or another. And then if you look at the success we've had and how much people like to go out, it's a very family-focused environment where people love to go to games. We've got 240 straight sellouts at the

Utah Jazz. And during that time, there's a lot of different makeups of teams. Last year was not our best year because we kind of went through a rebuilding and it didn't matter. The place was full. And so if you look at that and you say, okay, I think hockey is really kind of mesmerizing a lot of people right now. And I think the growth of it, I also think it's on the back of a growth of people wanting in-person experiences. We're seeing that with retail and the way people shop. We're seeing that with different things people buy and the pickup of travel and experiences on what this new generation wants. So you've kind of got this perfect setup for hockey. We're also the youngest demographic in the United States.

And I think from our standpoint with our group, we kind of had to ask the question, are we into basketball? Are we actually coming into sports and can we actually build out a broader business and basketball was the first I thought it was going to be soccer but actually was basketball was the first part of what we call Smith Entertainment Group SEG and we just see hockey fitting in perfectly we think the market's going to be as receptive as what you've seen in Seattle or Las Vegas. And we also think we can be phenomenal partners with the NHL. I mean, we're one of the youngest groups in the NBA, for sure. We think about it differently. We just hosted the All-Star game and it was incredible. And we think Utah is ripe for it. So that's where the interest comes

from, kind of where we're at. I'm curious what fans have told you in Salt Lake about hockey and a desire for it. When we hear Salt Lake City plus hockey in Canada, we think of Olympics and we think of 2002. Now, I grew up, I'm in my mid-50s now, and I grew up in an era where the Salt Lake Golden Eagles were like farm teams for the Seals and the Bruins. And it doesn't matter, the Western League or the IHL, this is a great farm team market. What has the local fan base told you about their sports appetites specifically around hockey? I'm just curious how much of a clamoring there is for hockey there. hockey? I'm just curious, like, how much of a clamoring there is for hockey there?

So I think with any new franchise or new platform that comes in, I mean, there's definitely somewhat of an education process, whether that's hockey or baseball or soccer. Like, we've seen it with MLS, right? You know, I've got a pretty good read on where fans are with social media obviously because i get blown up all the time like let's go let's go bring hockey bring hockey like we want it we want it i'm buying season tickets but we also we have a history of hosting not only whether it's the grizzlies or the golden the golden eagles but we've got Kings and Golden Knights, the preseason that's here. I mean, October 5th is, I think, when they're coming, the Frozen Fury that we have.

That normally sells out. This isn't that new. I mean, we're pretty well calibrated. The arena that we have right now is able to put ice down pretty quickly and turn it. I mean, there's some seat restrictions to where it would be optimal, but our fan base has been receptive. And I actually believe that what we could do with the sport, especially in the winter outdoor, really turning it into something

actually really excites me. You know, we had such an incredible winter and I would love to say, Hey, how do we activate the community a little bit more? Cause I, I mean, as a kid, I used to play roller hockey all the time, like all the time. Like, you know, there was never a sport that I got more injured at, but, uh, it was like, it was one of our favorite things to do. And so there's like these cultures here but no one's ever said hey look we have this team and we're going to set up all the other functions around and really build this out like what are you what are you talking about there ryan like what i'm very curious about this what are you talking about there the utah jazz and the miller family who owned it before

we have the largest youth and oldest i think ongoing we have 60 000 kids that play junior jazz basketball and you know utah we're not struggling on the kid front and uh so if you actually look at the education process that how cool would it be if these kids grew up with the opportunity to jump in and hockey was an option, right? And so if you back your way into that and say, all right, we have this incredible model with junior jazz. Obviously, it's easier to grab a soccer ball and a basketball and go. But how do you make that similar? And I could easily see a world where my kids are older and we look back and go, holy cow, like Utah, this should

have happened years ago in this way, right? Like, how do you build out that infrastructure? How do you do it in the winter? How do you set it up indoor? And we have land here. It really fits, like it seems logical, right? And everyone I talked to about that is like, well, this is like super logical. Yeah, it should be hockey, right? First, arena. You mentioned the seating isn't perfect now. Do you see the day when the Olympics come that there will be a new rink for the Jazz and the as-yet-unnamed hockey team?

Oh, for sure. Like if we're rolling in those two together, that's no question. And whether that's in the existing spot or a new spot, I think that's part of it. But the good news is, I think some of the land struggles that you see in other places, I think we're a little more set up for that for whatever reason. And it doesn't mean there's a whole bunch of empty land. It's just more of the structure of our city and state.

There's a little bit more opportunity in the way that it's kind of grown out i think in the current spot i don't know what we fit at the frozen brewery like 14 000 13 5 so it's not nothing right like it's doable and a good incredible experience but there's definitely like as someone who comes from the experience space, there's a better experience. You're smart enough to know what I'm trying here, but existing team relocated or expansion team? Is that a question? Yes. Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

Look, I mean, with the existing team relocation, I think my message has been consistent to Gary and Bill. It's like, look, we're a partner. We're a willing partner. We're here. We're ready. We're here to help, however we can be helpful. And whether you should come out and say that or not, I am who I am. We're here to help, however we can be helpful. And whether you should come out and say that or not, I am who I am.

We're here. We're ready. We're ready to help however we can. If there's a part of the process that they need and we can be helpful, I'm ready to go. We've already made that decision that we're here to help. Wow. But it's hard to not look at Seattle and Vegas and go, what an incredible job that any league's done on expansion and the action. I mean, holy cow, that's a playbook to how to do it. end up with an NHL team expansion or relocation, whatever it might be, what type of owner is the NHL getting? I mean, first of all, I think a lot of people listening to this will say, wow,

Ryan doesn't sound like any of the owners in the NHL that we've ever heard from, but from your approach, what is the, what would the NHL be getting by, by waving the magic wand over you? So I think I answered that a little bit at the beginning, and I've got a little bit of a track record. And by the way, this isn't an uncommon question, right? It came up. I told you every interview I did on basketball, it's like, what are we kidding? Are you Mark Cuban or Steve Ballmer? Are you like, I think I'm 20 years younger and I'm in a different phase of life than both of them. So you're getting someone who cares deeply, deeply, deeply about their state. Like deeply, almost like to a fault. I care about this community. And I think when you

break down in life and you get older, you say, hey, what are the things I really, really am passionate about? And like, I'm passionate about my family. I'm passionate about my faith. I'm passionate about golf. And I'm passionate about my alma mater. And I'm passionate about my state. Like you can't choose those. You either have it or you're not. Like I am super passionate about that. And then it comes down to like your style of leadership. And I think if we look at the Jazz, I think, you know, we came into a team

who was the number one team in the regular season, probably similar to, not quite to the Boston Bruins, but similar. Imagine coming in this year to the Bruins right it's your first year that was us like and we haven't won a championship in in Utah ever you know we were kind of at the end of a run or had to make some decisions and we ended up basically moving on and trading and both of our all-stars and that was hard especially when you're hosting the all-Star game the next year.

To go from having two locked-in players to the experience. And we ended up getting a guy, Lowry Marken, back, who ended up starting the All-Star game. I mean, you can't make it up. And now, a group of players that shine bright on any stage they step on, voted in by fans all over the world. Southlake City, here are your starters. Making his All-Star debut in a breathtaking breakout season

from your own Utah Jazz, the finisher, Lowry Markkinen. But that wasn't me who did that stuff. I think that was the people we put around. And I come from a world in tech where it's not about who's right. It's about that we get it right and we're all in together. That's one of the principles I have is like, whatever we do, we are all in. And it is full sin all the time. Cause you just don't want to work with people that aren't all in or committed.

And, you know, I don't, I don't think we expect perfection at all. You know, I'm not someone who's like, Hey, I'm going to scream out.

We've got to win at every, like you have to win, win, win, win, win, win, win.

The most competitive humans that you don't want to be around. i'm super duper competitive like to a fault but at the same time you don't last very long if you can't table that in a healthy way and no one wants to work with you so you've got to be able to like actually channel how we move um you know our new head coach we hired we ended up doing a coaching search and as part of this and we hired the youngest coach in the NBA at 34 years old and Will Hardy and we were in that process and I was like look someone bet on me and in my first my first gig let's go and we're gonna all do it together and one of the things I love about Will who was who's been with Greg Popovich for 11 years and was

with the Celtics for a year and what I love about Danny is they still like to have fun and we want to have fun as a community as a team so we're fortunate enough to be in a spot where we're doing that the number one thing that I think everyone will see is we're going to be competitive as hell and we are going to have fun. Our fan base is going to have fun. The players are going to have fun. It's an underappreciated thing as you work. And that's been my mantra in tech. And we've done incredibly well in tech, but we also like the journey was epic. The end of the journey when we sold our company the first time, because it seems to keep going and I keep operating. I realized this moment,

the culminating moment of when you're done and someone buys you out, like you're looking back and all you have is a journey. And I had no regrets of how much fun we had on that ride. We won. It was great, but that journey is all we have. And so when you look at it, the journey and the stories you're going to be able to tell or all you're going to be able to take back with it, I think that's how you operate. So I don't know. We'll see. My first week on the job would be just finding the smartest people I know in hockey that I feel like would be fun to work with who are competitive and want to win and like bring them in Jeff already asked

me for your email so I could send his resume just so you know that okay now so I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that you you mentioned that like I reread a book about Danny Ainge when he traded for uh Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen and brought them to the Celtics. You did the reverse. As you said, you had a top team there, and you traded Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert. And you talked about the success of your company. A lot of people who own sports teams, they say what you don't realize is when you do big things in your companies, your private companies, nobody really knows or cares. But when you make moves like that with a sports team,

everyone is all over you. What was the toughest thing about dismantling that version of the jazz publicly or privately that you had to deal with? Yeah, you're really getting at the heart of it. I mean, imagine coming in as a new owner and having to make those decisions. It's like a recipe to like destroy it. You couldn't do worse, right? But I think we had a realization together that we didn't have, for whatever reason, timing or everything, that we didn't have what it took with that existing core to go to the next level. And to get it, not that we couldn't go get it,

but to get it, what we would have to give up with the hope was a little bit of a stretch and it would have dug us down further. And so we could have stretched out, but we would have had to probably give up all of our future assets. And I think given where we were in looking at that decision framework, it was kind of like, all right, like we all want to go in, we all want to rally it, we all want to double down, we all want to chase it. But at the same time, like we got to have a little more certainty if we're going to go sacrifice the future of it all. And, you know, Danny had done a lot of big trades, but I think one of the things that he

told me is like, I've never traded our best player, right? Like, like I'm on the other end of that sometimes, not, not doing that, but you know, Donovan's a great kid with a bright future and just a smart, smart kid. And an opportunity came up. I mean, Cleveland came all in on him. And, you know, I think it was about as win-win of a trade as you can get. And then it was similar in Minnesota. And now as we look out, we made the hard decision.

And we have the most first first round picks in the NBA through 2029 with a lot of way up. And so there's a lot of opportunity. We have three picks in this draft and then it spreads out. But I would say that it was more of Danny, myself, Justin, we were aligned and that's what matters. And as long as we're aligned and we're confident in that decision, then I'm good. And there's going to be public scrutiny one way or another, but we were all in it. Ride or die, let's go. We were all in. And I think that that's who you want to go about. I don't expect people to see it all and understand it all and understand everything behind the scenes. So the scrutiny is part of the job. If you don't want the scrutiny,

then you probably should get out of leadership. I remember asking Mark Zuckerberg a question on a panel once, like, do you feel like you're getting blamed? This was a couple of years ago. Do you feel like you're getting blamed for the whole internet? Because people were coming after Facebook for everything a couple of years ago. And I was like, what's going on after Microsoft? What's going on? And he actually, he actually, I was so surprised with his answer. He said, that's leadership. And when you take on a sports role, a lot of times people misconstrue you're signing up for the public image. No, no, no. You're signing up for leadership and that's what you're signing up for. And with that comes a scrutiny. The public image debate, all right, I get that. But

there is no debate that you're signing up for a leadership role. And so I think he was right in that situation where, you know, that's part of it. But it's time to put our heads down and build. And we have a good saying around our tech company, Waltritz, that time bears things out. And we've got to go make time be on our side. What's the team name? The Utah what? Oh, geez. Oh, my word.

I can't give away all my secrets. I could run through social media and show you about 7,000 of them. Have you trademarked any of those suggestions? That's probably the better question. Not yet, but there's some cool ones, I'll tell you that. I think the Kraken have done a phenomenal job in the way they branded it. I mean, you see their stuff everywhere in the color scheme, and boy, it would be fun.

Okay. We're not getting that answer, Jeff. That one, we're not getting that here. Nice try. Let's see if I go on this fishing trip, if I can pull one into the boat here. What can you share about your dinner with Gary Bettman, NHL commissioner? Yes. Look, I mean, I met with Gary a bunch and I had met with Adam a bunch.

I'd worked with Adam a bunch. I'd worked with Adam for a while on the tech side. So I know everyone else kind of freaks out about it, but it's a big part of the decision process when you come into this is understanding who you're working with and, and other, other folks as well as just not Gary, but Bill, like, and, and other folks that you'd be sitting around the table with. And I've been fortunate enough to know Tom and know Ted Leonsis and Blitz, obviously. And I think that's equally as important as well as getting to know, say, hey, who are

your partners with in a way? And so, Gary, we've had great discussions. I mean, I think, as I said's it's it's a little obvious to a lot of people right i mean the nhl is sending 25 teams in the in the u.s and so there there are markets like salt lake who it's sitting there it's a hub it's you know you can jump on the plane and head right to london or amsterdam or asia like you can everywhere. It's not a small market. It's branded a little bit of a small market, mostly because of just how the capital city works.

But if you actually think about it, people come to Salt Lake to buy a house and spread out a little. But if you look at the growth and where we are, especially when it comes to the league and the NBA, we're definitely creeping into top 10 in almost every category. And so there's a different set. It's more mid and hopefully upper market when it comes to that. Is he a big meat eater? Is he one of those wimpy vegans like Jeff?

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I mean, you guys should know that better than me. Believe me, I've never been invited to go to dinner with Gary Bettman. I can tell you that. He's going to dinner with you. He's not going to dinner with me. We just talk. What's the toughest question that he asked you?

I mean, he's really good at what he does. Really good at what he does. I mean, he's taken the league through a lot of hard times as well. And I think we talked a lot about that. We talked a lot about, you know, times when they weren't playing and different ownership structures. And I think there was a lot of more questions. They're not tough questions, but I think some of the questions

that you asked here were very much along the same lines. Like, what are you about? Who are you? What are you doing? And like, why do you believe this? Like, we understand the market, like the market makes sense. Like, okay, what are you doing? What are the things you're bringing? But I'm also not a stranger to him from a lot of folks that are close on both sides to both of us. Like, it's a small world. And we're at the same conferences, to both of us like it's a small world and we're at the same conferences the same events like it's a small world so it's not this this strange speed dating process that people want to i've tried that speed dating never works i i just i also wanted to ask

you just you said something before about thinking differently ryan. I like that. I think it's important that everybody thinks differently to grow. So when you look at hockey and you look at the NHL, what can you bring in terms of thinking differently that can help hockey and the NHL grow? Well, look, I come from a space where we have 20,000 customers and these customers come to us from the largest companies in the world to small startups and say, hey, the only real moat that we have around our businesses, because everyone's got product and engineers and developers and can outsource stuff and can source product. But the experience which we provide is like the most important thing.

It's our competitive advantage. And so looking at sports in the NHL from an experience standpoint, from the little kids that we talked about growing to what is the NHL experience and what is it for everyone and what could it be in Utah? What could the player experience be here in Utah? What could the coaching experience be here in Utah? What is the visiting team experience when they come into Utah? What is the fan experience when they're watching games? You know, we're walking into a pretty gnarly and interesting time in television. And I'm leaning in very, very heavily to where's the puck going here?

Do we need to take a step back to take a couple of steps forward, especially when it comes with local media? And what is that experience? Right now we're producing jazz games to 40% of our market. Well, I've stood up publicly and said, that's not going to fly this next year. Like we're going wall to wall in the state, 3 million people, like we're going, everyone's going to have access. If you've got, you know, rabbit ears on your television, you're going to be able to watch the games. And that's super important to me because we'll figure out how to offset the revenue contract

for that another way. But our players and our coaches and the other team they're working way too hard to not have their games be viewed by the masses and really get the movement going and I think we're seeing the art of the possible a little bit with hockey right now um I was going Celtics game and the Vegas game side by side the other night. And I was just like, I was just glued on like, oh my gosh, like this, this is unbelievable. And we really like can turn up that movement. I'm a believer. I'm sold. Like, I know that it'll work and I think the future can be incredibly, incredibly bright.

I also think that there are some natural headwinds like television, but that's also an opportunity. And I also think there's some tailwinds like the the physical manifestation of social media is to go somewhere live. You know, everyone wants the selfie. Everyone wants to be there. Like everyone wants the experience. They don't want to do that. If they could just pop in and be like, hey, I'm at the game. This is what's going on. I also think that people want to go do something together. Especially that's what we're seeing as families and everything else. Nothing is replacing that. And I'm long on that. I think that's a tailwind that people are saying, hey, this is where I want to put my money. This is where if there's discretionary income, this is what we want to go do.

Let's go forget about life for a while and like be present on something. And that is seeming like this is a compelling event for everyone to focus and be present on something when they're not on the phone. That's a real thing. So I think there's a lot of opportunity. I'm bullish. I'm excited. Like I wish I was going to work on it today, but we're patient and willing to help. Okay. Hang on. You, you, you open a door there and I, I have a question that is legitimate and I know is going to make Elliot groan. So I'm going to satisfy two things here. So here we go. Prepare to hear Elliot groan.

If I came to you one day and said, Ryan, I think the color of the ice needs to change. What would you say? I can't believe you're asking this. I just did. Ryan, the color of the ice needs to change.

What do you think? I'll never, do you remember that shot tracker they used to do in hockey? Like that thing? Dennis Hopper said, I don't know what the big deal is. I've been seeing this for years. Like, I'll never forget that. I was like a kid.

If he was like on there commentating, he was like, oh, that was like a big thing. Look, I believe that we need in all sports that we need to really be our own activists in a way and disrupt ourselves. I think we've seen it with baseball and the pitch clock. Personally, I think it's way too late. They should have done it earlier. I think you're seeing it, the NBA, where we've done a play-in tournament. And now in the finals, we have a play-in team in the finals. Oh, yes. I am with you. With you. And the reason why is because if you actually

just take a step back, it's really truly about the experience. And if we manage it from the outside in and we say, hey, what would be the best experience? I mean, there's a line of the integrity of the game, but there's a lot of sacred cows in a way that really aren't that sacred in a lot of organizations. I see that as, I've got a new CEO that's running Qualtrics and I'm the chairman and they're like, oh, don't touch that. I was like, if you knew how that came about, there was nothing sacred about it. It was just what we came up with. Like, go invent your own. Like, it's not this like thing you can. So I believe that most people, if something really changes the experience of the game, would get behind that. And there are some people who don't like to change.

Well, then it's everyone else's job to, especially if they're in prominent roles, to bring data that shows that it's better for the experience. And that's a big piece of it. Like the fact that the pitch clock is all of a sudden unanimous across everyone in baseball makes me go well why the hell didn't they do this five years ago when there was 80 percent of the people wanting to get behind it with all of the different hockey leagues and junior hockey

leagues and everything else there's a lot you can try without maybe disrupting so i mean my model would always be that you're always innovating you're always testing you know we're always testing in markets and different markets and so i i would never probably take the color of the ice and go change nhl games but if that was something that a lot of really smart people thought would really help the experience, well, why wouldn't you pioneer it in some of the minor league systems or around and test it out or college, right?

Is there anything uppermost in your mind that you've thought about that you would do? What would you do? You want to change the color of the ice? No, please don't go any further with this. Oh my God god i can't believe he opened the door with his last answer i had to jump in i had to i had to i personally

like the color of the ice but you know i'm a huge play-in guy we're talking about a mid-season tournament yeah to make the regular scene games matter more because similar about 82 games is a lot like how do you incentivize i love the idea that we're just testing it because if it even has a chance to be what the plan did, like, holy cow, that was such a wild success. And it didn't take that long to do. You just got to pioneer it somewhere else and then bring it up to the big stage.

So I don't think we know in sports and in general and media and consumption and experience what all the next obstacles are going to be. No one knows. No one's been there. And with the fast pace of how experiences are moving and they're being driven as premium assets in people's lives, we just need to be ready to tailor the personalized experience to the fan and the audience and do the same thing from the organization standpoint for the players and coaches. And I think that's how you create a phenomenal organization. And that's going to change all the way. I mean, it's going to be constantly evolving and the fun is coming up with stuff that hasn't been done before to

really help that you mentioned you're friendly with gretzky uh donden and john cooper mainly from the golf world is there a story about one of them in particular that you would want to share that they would either laugh their heads off or be embarrassed that it was included on this podcast i haven't even thought through that. There's stories about all of them. I think Gretz is like, first of all, just walking around, just the ability to go and talk with someone who's been at that level is incredible. I remember going through those trade discussions and things happening

and kind of hanging my head down. And he's like, look, the organizations that I wasn't a part of afterwards survived. That's really good. Back in 99 and go, there's a little bit of hope there. And I was like, wow, that's actually a super interesting perspective. Coop's a smart guy. Like, unbelievable. Like that story.

I call it Ted Lasso. Right. Uh, and Tom, Tom's an innovator, man. He is an entrepreneur's entrepreneur. That guy creates everywhere he goes and finds a way.

And so having amazing people like that around a sport is, and there's so many more is, um, it's pretty special. I know a lot of hockey players from golf cause they're all good. They're all good. They all hit it well. They all hit it well. And it doesn't take them a long time and they hit it far. And so, um, it's, there's a lot of similarities and I, I love golf. So, so with those two, this is my last question for you, right? With

those two beer first hires, Tom already has a hockey team. Your first two hires, John Cooper and Wayne Gretzky, true or false? No, they'd be my first calls. They'd be my first calls. They'd be like, hey, what the hell did you do? I wouldn't even call them. I'd just fly and be like, okay, sit me down. Dump. Brain dump.

Brain dump. I'm an intern. Can I be your intern? Listen, this has been a lot of fun and really informative and educational and really been great to get to know you a little bit. Like Elliot says, it's probably only a matter of time here before you're fully ensconced into the NHL as an owner. Thanks so much for stopping by the podcast today. Really appreciate it. Some great, great stuff. Best of luck with the jazz. Best of luck with Real Salt Lake and best of luck in the future with the NHL. Yeah. Thanks guys. And good luck in the finals here. It's been a fun couple of weeks. Ryan, it was a real honor. Thank you very much. Yes. Thank you very much. All right. Take care. Bye.

It was one of those interviews, Elliot, that I wished would never end. He was really generous with his time, gave us a full hour. This is a very important person whose time is at a premium. And he parked an hour of his day on Wednesday for you and me. Any other big takeaways from this? Like, I think he's one of those people that when you hear this podcast with him, hockey fans will say,

we can really have him as an owner in the NHL. Like for real, your thoughts. You know what this says to me, like after this is all over, Jeff, this is happening and we better be ready for it. This is going to happen based on everything I just heard over the last hour. It's a really good thing for the NHL. Absolutely. One thing I wanted to mention here, our schedule for the NHL preview

podcast. So the reason we're dropping this interview with Ryan Smith is because Thursday we're traveling. We are in Vegas for Media Day. So we'll be recording our playoff preview podcast at some point on Friday and hopefully dropping it as soon as we can. I think Emil's going to work on it on the flight back home sometime Saturday morning. So look for that wherever you listen to this podcast.