Smith owns two teams in Salt Lake City.
There could be a bidding war in Salt Lake City in the non-existent race to land one of two possible Major League Baseball expansion franchises. Ryan Smith, who is the owner of the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League Utah businesses wants to own Salt Lake City’s MLB franchise, if MLB owners decide to expand and place a team in the Salt Lake City market. A group called Big League Utah has been pushing for an expansion franchise but Smith wants in and has the resources to buy an expansion franchise.
“Our group will be pretty aggressive in how we pursue sports. I think that’s probably all I’ll say. We do it our own way. We don’t do a lot publicly. I actually think that’s not the way expansion really gets done. Salt Lake is ready for it. We will be aggressive if there’s an opportunity there,” Smith said. Big League Utah has a stadium site picked out. The group wants to build a stadium-village in west Salt Lake City. In Utah, state elected officials are willing to kick in $800 million to go into funding the construction of a Salt Lake City baseball park. It is unclear whether the proposed stadium spending is limited just to the Big League Utah group. Major League Baseball has not committed to adding two franchises although Commissioner Rob Manfred has said that he would like to see two new franchises on the field but that probably will not happen during his tenure which ends in 2029. Manfred and the 30 owners need to reach a deal with the players on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with the present CBA ending in December. Manfred has suggested that MLB needs to add a team in the east and one in the west.
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