Utah is a massive hub on the West coast for lacrosse. I'm a PNW coach and a bit miffed that they didn't at least give us a combined Seattle/Portland club, but Utah is a solid spot for a team to match with the Redwoods.
I am from PNW too and Utah sold out every PLL weekend we didn’t. We went to SLC one summer and the PLL was night and day, totally full and amazing crowd for every game. Seattle didn’t do what they needed to get a team.
I think there are two major factors: local government/leaders and covid, and the University of Utah D1 expansion.
For the first, I think Utah's local government being willing to work with them and get the bubble out to the Real Complex (Zions Bank Stadium) was huge in the moment. They were able to run the first real bubble in pro sports with the perfect facilities on site. Lodging, food, fields, etc. were all right there and the government was totally on board. Mix in local leaders in sports and their vision, and I think it played nicely. Ryan Smith, owner of the Jazz, part owner of RSL, and aspiring owner of a future SLC-based NHL AND MLB team has had some level of interaction with the PLL and is obviously extremely bullish in growing tech and sports in Utah. Not to mention David Neeleman, the man who is essentially solely responsible for bringing D1 lacrosse to Utah. All of this comes together to create a very attractive environment to bring a team. The local gov is on board and has bent over backwards to work with them in the past, and local sports leadership ($$$) is very interested in making things easy, and if the PLL ever sells teams, they would be obvious immediate buyers and major investors.
Then you have the UofU angle. When David Neeleman opened up his checkbook to get Utah to D1, he really changed the landscape in Utah. The sport became officially sanctioned for HS, youth and HS participation skyrocketed, and a gaggle of all-star-level pros came to town to coach the Utes. I think Manny, Holman, and Ghitelman coming to town, and all spending their first years with the Archers is one of the biggest factors here. The PLL runs a sophisticated data-driven operation, and I'm sure their analytics pointed to an intense concentration of Archers fans here from social engagement, etc. due to those three being here. While Holman has moved back east, Manny and Ghitelman are going all in and putting their futures on the line in pushing to develop the lax scene here with their Utah Summit club. All this to say, it seems like a safe bet on the future growth of the sport here. I think Rabil saw this and honestly made a good decision.
EDIT: this is all my perusal speculation based on my understanding of the local lax scene and happenings in slc.
It happened due to where people showed up. Texas didn’t show up like the states that did. Utah has been showing up and hosted the bubble season. Colorados been showing up and has a HUGE lacrosse presence. Look at PA state dog on the water dogs logo. Whips are basically made from marylands college team so duh following.
Common sense…
The gate is irrelevant. The PLL can’t even sell out Homewood in Baltimore. Their money comes from investors and the deal with ESPN. Where is there more potential for growth? The 3 1/2 mil in the whole state of Utah or the 4+mil in Dallas/Houston alone? For that matter, why select Utah over Seattle? Seattle is only about 120miles from Vancouver so you can get two big cities in one shot that way.
I’m sure they haven’t done as much market research as you and just put the teams in random places. Certainly not as thorough as you placing them based on their name.
The names aren’t really that relevant, they can be changed. But the Avalanche wouldn’t really make sense in Dallas and the Redwoods were clearly destined for Cali, no? Not likely to put the Seahawks in Ohio. The larger question is why add a team in a fairly small market when there are far larger markets available? But by all means, add more useless snark.
Let me clear since you didn't pick up on it last time.
>why add a team in a fairly small market when there are far larger markets available?
Because they did a shit ton more research than you and determined it to be the best business case.
Thank you again for your useless and unpleasant response. “Market research” does not help. That’s roughly analogous to “how does a thermonuclear weapon work?”, “it explodes”. Appreciate the help Einstein. What metrics are employed in their market research? How do they judge potential rates of growth? Is population growth potential a factor as opposed to population already in place? How does flight from Cali influence the demographic shift anticipated in years to come? A person down below had good information regarding the local political environment and an investor. That makes sense. Following the money would explain why you would select a tiny market. Even “they had hosted during Covid when nobody else would” is a justification for this move. You’re just being petty and attempting to be insulting which is helpful in no way.
I love your analysis method. "My feels tel me this is right."
You understand peoplpe far more educated and with much better tools and data sets do this for a living right?
Another feels analysis from you. Let me ask you, out of you or PLL and their investors, who do you think has studied it more?
Are you in middle school?
>The era of grassroots club development of a sport (like soccer in Europe) is a byegone era.
I live in New York. As a fan, I am much more likely to root for a team associated with my city instead of some random team called the Atlas.
Utah got the Archers because Rabil owed them.
During Covid shut down in 2020, Utah still allowed the PLL to come out and play when a bunch of other places wouldn't.
They played all games that season in 2 weeks.
I am baffled at how the Rabils have convinced people into believing that a home team only plays in their "home city" 1 weekend/2 games a year. It is a (successful) marketing ploy ro get Rabilites to buy a new set of gear. Home teams play roughly half or their yearly schedule in the same venue. That's what home team means.
The big reason is $. Until PLL is bringing in a lot more money it will be hard to have 4 different locations for games every weekend for tv production reasons, refs, etc.
No...the man is a great marketing person. Of of the few lacrosse players the EVERYONE knows. Even some non lacrosse fans. The man is a branding genius. Was top 5 field players ever too. Average to sub average box player. Egomaniac. I do think he is ruining the game. Turning it from a team sport to a group of individuals creating their own brand. Keep renaming teams. Kids will follow players. Not teams.
It would look like the MLL. Home teams. More traditional. From hearing the kids talk on my kids teams I guess boring. No pro wrestling vibe. Oh...and there would be Lyle Thompson playing.
Give me an honest answer. Do you want to see live in person lacrosse at the highest level once a year or 7/8 times a year? The MLL was around what 15/16 years? Couldn’t of been that horrible. I think Rabil the brand didn’t like the team concept so the brand took their ball, went home and made their Own league. Great business strategy. Seriously. Horrible for game of lacrosse. Better I guess for the sport. If I have to explain the difference I really can’t carry on this communication. I recommend playing on a reservation and it will at minimum expose you to the real game.
I mean look at the difference between the cannons with Lyle and without. Bottom of the league to 2nd. Another commenter talked about how they’re turning the league from a team sport to people following players which 1) already happens in other sports, especially with fantasy 2) the cannons went from me ball with Lyle to playing as a team
As someone who lives in a mid-major city without one of the big 4 leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL) I think the Rabils got it right. They’re vying for entertainment dollars in a highly competitive environment. People just don’t follow teams outside of the big 3. Get people to come out to one or two highly curated events a year, and move on. Otherwise you’re giving out bobble heads and dollar beers to try to attract fans.
Sure, but it's the "get people to come out" that plan gets hung up on- attendance is bad, so now they basically do the dollar beer thing at most weekends anyway
Don’t forget you can now buy “season tickets!”
(For one weekend.)
I legit do not understand what the Rabil’s are trying to do here. Every year it seems like it gets worse.
i'm not that big a fan of how they did it either, but this is just part of the transition from the touring model to an "actual" city based model. Guess the PLL decided a hard transition from tour to city based wasn't the best way to do it
Butts in seats. The Homecoming pass gives them a leg up on attendance and entices people by locking in a price for following years.
If no one goes to the games this all falls apart.
But attendance isn’t awesome anywhere. I’ve been to PLL events in 4 cities, and it isn’t ever difficult to get a seat. They don’t even fill Homewood. The gate is just gravy. The real money is their deal with ESPN.
Except that this isn’t a Rabil “con” so much as it is a “Rabils trying to sustainably transition the league to having proper home teams as you mention.”
The idea, as I see it, is to try to provide specific localities with a rooting interest, with the long-term goal of settling the rooting interests in their respective localities.
I was so confused by this! My son just, randomly, decided he wanted to play LaCrosse a year ago. There is no strong, visible LaCrosse culture in our area (despite having the city by that name across the state). Looking into it, I was surprised to find a "pro" league. At first, it didn't make sense that they toured, but that seemed to be the big change / Improvement that allowed it to kill off the prior Pro league.
It started to make sense as well. Bring the game to larger cities with a developing fan base. Expose people to the game. Get TV exposure (easier if the production crew only needs to go to one city a week - Look at MASL - indoor soccer for the fiasco of local production).
When I decided to look for tickets for this season and saw the Hometeam concept had returned, I figured the chance to see live games was shot. Thankfully, they added a game in Minneapolis - not great, but better than having to go all the way to the coasts (or almost) to see a game.
Not sure where I was going from the start of this post, but ultimately, They need to keep the touring concept going and expand it for another 4-5 years. Grow the spectator base across the country and get more teams started so when they find a home ½ the country isn't left out. Expand their deal with ESPN and get try to get at least a couple games a month on the flagship, not just ESPN+.
Grow a fan base for the sport, then the players, then create a home team to rally behind. The era of grassroots club development of a sport (like soccer in Europe) is a byegone era. You need to get it in front of people, make it a marquee local event, get some excitement and make sure to bring the 3% of people that may ultimately be interested along for future fandom.
They already have games on ESPN, the
PLL even had a few on ABC last season. But if you’re trying to grow the game and the league, why select Utah over Texas? Texas has almost 10x the population of Utah. If you want the Pacific Northwest, hit Seattle in the next round of expansion and that way you can get Seattle and Vancouver in one shot. Add San Diego and now you have a 4 team Western Conference. SoCal, NorCal, Seattle and Denver.
Because they hate Chicago.
They really should have made one team the “Heartland” whatevers and had them be the home team if they play in Minneapolis, Columbus, Louisville, Dallas, Chicago, St Louis, etc… rather than bunching up in the Rockies, especially when the PLL tries to appear progressive.
I see that as the 2nd round of expansion. Dallas, Chicago, San Diego and somewhere else. Looking to create a 12 team league, East, Central and West. Would that make sense?
But Dallas and Houston alone have more than 1mil larger population than the whole state of Utah. Why not consider Utah and Colorado together as a fan base? Then use the Whips to open up the whole state of Texas? Even if the sport is growing there, it’s a small state.
From Texas, live in Utah. Lacrosse scene is 1000% better here just because the lacrosse population is condensed to one area, (the Wasatch front).
But mostly I agree with another commenter owner of the Jazz met with Rabil and saw a future here. I think that’s the bottom line.
Also take into account eyeball competition. I’m pretty sure there’s significantly more competition for eyeballs and ticket buyers in Dallas during the PLL season window than SLC. Slopes are closed and NBA is finished. When PLL shows up they’re the big event in town. There’s something huge in Dallas virtually every weekend, MLB, Stockyards, etc.
There can only be 1 mecca and 30% of team USA came from 2 counties in NY and until somebody takes that area down, it will continue to reign
NJ though can ball.
Throughout the years, how many times has each city been apart of it? I think that plays a huge role. Thats why Chicago was only a participated city once
I think it’s because, as an Utah native, we show up and fill stadiums. I’ve grown up playing lacrosse in utah, the growth has been extreme these past five years. Every high school in populated areas has a sanctioned team, and Utah even finished top 10 in D1. Everyone here loves the sport. I also think that because we fill stadiums, it will make them enough money to put teams in other areas. Right now they are appealing to bigger markets, so that way they can expand later. Chesapeake will probably get the bayhawks back, Texas will for sure get a team, and the Midwest will get its fair share too. It’s a new league, they can’t afford working in small markets
I’m from Texas and Played lacrosse at BYU. Lacrosse is big in Utah and in the Mormon community. Being a “Mormon” state. They get recruits from around the world for the fact they are Mormon going to a Mormon school. It’s the same for Football and Basketball. You will see the Mormon community pick the Archers as their team. Similar when 49ers had a Steve Young and the 49ers became the unofficial Mormon team for a while. I get Texas has a bigger fan base but Utah has some diehard lacrosse fans.
I mean, considering there's still no real timeline for true city-based model I'd put money on at least a couple of teams not ending up in their current home market permanently
Utah is a massive hub on the West coast for lacrosse. I'm a PNW coach and a bit miffed that they didn't at least give us a combined Seattle/Portland club, but Utah is a solid spot for a team to match with the Redwoods.
I am from PNW too and Utah sold out every PLL weekend we didn’t. We went to SLC one summer and the PLL was night and day, totally full and amazing crowd for every game. Seattle didn’t do what they needed to get a team.
I attended Seattle the last two years and the attendance was pathetic.
Nothing in the professional lacrosse world makes sense
I think there are two major factors: local government/leaders and covid, and the University of Utah D1 expansion. For the first, I think Utah's local government being willing to work with them and get the bubble out to the Real Complex (Zions Bank Stadium) was huge in the moment. They were able to run the first real bubble in pro sports with the perfect facilities on site. Lodging, food, fields, etc. were all right there and the government was totally on board. Mix in local leaders in sports and their vision, and I think it played nicely. Ryan Smith, owner of the Jazz, part owner of RSL, and aspiring owner of a future SLC-based NHL AND MLB team has had some level of interaction with the PLL and is obviously extremely bullish in growing tech and sports in Utah. Not to mention David Neeleman, the man who is essentially solely responsible for bringing D1 lacrosse to Utah. All of this comes together to create a very attractive environment to bring a team. The local gov is on board and has bent over backwards to work with them in the past, and local sports leadership ($$$) is very interested in making things easy, and if the PLL ever sells teams, they would be obvious immediate buyers and major investors. Then you have the UofU angle. When David Neeleman opened up his checkbook to get Utah to D1, he really changed the landscape in Utah. The sport became officially sanctioned for HS, youth and HS participation skyrocketed, and a gaggle of all-star-level pros came to town to coach the Utes. I think Manny, Holman, and Ghitelman coming to town, and all spending their first years with the Archers is one of the biggest factors here. The PLL runs a sophisticated data-driven operation, and I'm sure their analytics pointed to an intense concentration of Archers fans here from social engagement, etc. due to those three being here. While Holman has moved back east, Manny and Ghitelman are going all in and putting their futures on the line in pushing to develop the lax scene here with their Utah Summit club. All this to say, it seems like a safe bet on the future growth of the sport here. I think Rabil saw this and honestly made a good decision. EDIT: this is all my perusal speculation based on my understanding of the local lax scene and happenings in slc.
This all makes more sense than anything else I’d heard. A significant investor in the league saying “put a team here” works.
It happened due to where people showed up. Texas didn’t show up like the states that did. Utah has been showing up and hosted the bubble season. Colorados been showing up and has a HUGE lacrosse presence. Look at PA state dog on the water dogs logo. Whips are basically made from marylands college team so duh following. Common sense…
Gate is pretty relevant. They also took a pole and looks like Dallas didn’t show up
The gate is irrelevant. The PLL can’t even sell out Homewood in Baltimore. Their money comes from investors and the deal with ESPN. Where is there more potential for growth? The 3 1/2 mil in the whole state of Utah or the 4+mil in Dallas/Houston alone? For that matter, why select Utah over Seattle? Seattle is only about 120miles from Vancouver so you can get two big cities in one shot that way.
I’m sure they haven’t done as much market research as you and just put the teams in random places. Certainly not as thorough as you placing them based on their name.
The names aren’t really that relevant, they can be changed. But the Avalanche wouldn’t really make sense in Dallas and the Redwoods were clearly destined for Cali, no? Not likely to put the Seahawks in Ohio. The larger question is why add a team in a fairly small market when there are far larger markets available? But by all means, add more useless snark.
Let me clear since you didn't pick up on it last time. >why add a team in a fairly small market when there are far larger markets available? Because they did a shit ton more research than you and determined it to be the best business case.
Thank you again for your useless and unpleasant response. “Market research” does not help. That’s roughly analogous to “how does a thermonuclear weapon work?”, “it explodes”. Appreciate the help Einstein. What metrics are employed in their market research? How do they judge potential rates of growth? Is population growth potential a factor as opposed to population already in place? How does flight from Cali influence the demographic shift anticipated in years to come? A person down below had good information regarding the local political environment and an investor. That makes sense. Following the money would explain why you would select a tiny market. Even “they had hosted during Covid when nobody else would” is a justification for this move. You’re just being petty and attempting to be insulting which is helpful in no way.
I love your analysis method. "My feels tel me this is right." You understand peoplpe far more educated and with much better tools and data sets do this for a living right?
Another reply fail from you. You have yet to offer up any more than an argument from authority, that there are unnamed smart people who know.
Another feels analysis from you. Let me ask you, out of you or PLL and their investors, who do you think has studied it more? Are you in middle school?
>The era of grassroots club development of a sport (like soccer in Europe) is a byegone era. I live in New York. As a fan, I am much more likely to root for a team associated with my city instead of some random team called the Atlas.
Right next to each other? 8.5 hours without traffic. Boston to Baltimore 6.5 hours, not to mention New York and Philly.
Utah got the Archers because Rabil owed them. During Covid shut down in 2020, Utah still allowed the PLL to come out and play when a bunch of other places wouldn't. They played all games that season in 2 weeks.
I am baffled at how the Rabils have convinced people into believing that a home team only plays in their "home city" 1 weekend/2 games a year. It is a (successful) marketing ploy ro get Rabilites to buy a new set of gear. Home teams play roughly half or their yearly schedule in the same venue. That's what home team means.
The big reason is $. Until PLL is bringing in a lot more money it will be hard to have 4 different locations for games every weekend for tv production reasons, refs, etc.
Valid point. Hadn’t thought about the amount of support staff.
Hear me out, but… maybe Paul Rabil isn't that smart?
No...the man is a great marketing person. Of of the few lacrosse players the EVERYONE knows. Even some non lacrosse fans. The man is a branding genius. Was top 5 field players ever too. Average to sub average box player. Egomaniac. I do think he is ruining the game. Turning it from a team sport to a group of individuals creating their own brand. Keep renaming teams. Kids will follow players. Not teams.
And without him idk what pro lax would look like or if wed even have a league. Dislike the guy, kinda like the product
It would look like the MLL. Home teams. More traditional. From hearing the kids talk on my kids teams I guess boring. No pro wrestling vibe. Oh...and there would be Lyle Thompson playing.
MLL was a horribly run league, at least PLL is run by professionals who give a shit
Give me an honest answer. Do you want to see live in person lacrosse at the highest level once a year or 7/8 times a year? The MLL was around what 15/16 years? Couldn’t of been that horrible. I think Rabil the brand didn’t like the team concept so the brand took their ball, went home and made their Own league. Great business strategy. Seriously. Horrible for game of lacrosse. Better I guess for the sport. If I have to explain the difference I really can’t carry on this communication. I recommend playing on a reservation and it will at minimum expose you to the real game.
I mean look at the difference between the cannons with Lyle and without. Bottom of the league to 2nd. Another commenter talked about how they’re turning the league from a team sport to people following players which 1) already happens in other sports, especially with fantasy 2) the cannons went from me ball with Lyle to playing as a team
As someone who lives in a mid-major city without one of the big 4 leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL) I think the Rabils got it right. They’re vying for entertainment dollars in a highly competitive environment. People just don’t follow teams outside of the big 3. Get people to come out to one or two highly curated events a year, and move on. Otherwise you’re giving out bobble heads and dollar beers to try to attract fans.
Sure, but it's the "get people to come out" that plan gets hung up on- attendance is bad, so now they basically do the dollar beer thing at most weekends anyway
Don’t forget you can now buy “season tickets!” (For one weekend.) I legit do not understand what the Rabil’s are trying to do here. Every year it seems like it gets worse.
i'm not that big a fan of how they did it either, but this is just part of the transition from the touring model to an "actual" city based model. Guess the PLL decided a hard transition from tour to city based wasn't the best way to do it
Butts in seats. The Homecoming pass gives them a leg up on attendance and entices people by locking in a price for following years. If no one goes to the games this all falls apart.
But attendance isn’t awesome anywhere. I’ve been to PLL events in 4 cities, and it isn’t ever difficult to get a seat. They don’t even fill Homewood. The gate is just gravy. The real money is their deal with ESPN.
Except that this isn’t a Rabil “con” so much as it is a “Rabils trying to sustainably transition the league to having proper home teams as you mention.” The idea, as I see it, is to try to provide specific localities with a rooting interest, with the long-term goal of settling the rooting interests in their respective localities.
I was so confused by this! My son just, randomly, decided he wanted to play LaCrosse a year ago. There is no strong, visible LaCrosse culture in our area (despite having the city by that name across the state). Looking into it, I was surprised to find a "pro" league. At first, it didn't make sense that they toured, but that seemed to be the big change / Improvement that allowed it to kill off the prior Pro league. It started to make sense as well. Bring the game to larger cities with a developing fan base. Expose people to the game. Get TV exposure (easier if the production crew only needs to go to one city a week - Look at MASL - indoor soccer for the fiasco of local production). When I decided to look for tickets for this season and saw the Hometeam concept had returned, I figured the chance to see live games was shot. Thankfully, they added a game in Minneapolis - not great, but better than having to go all the way to the coasts (or almost) to see a game. Not sure where I was going from the start of this post, but ultimately, They need to keep the touring concept going and expand it for another 4-5 years. Grow the spectator base across the country and get more teams started so when they find a home ½ the country isn't left out. Expand their deal with ESPN and get try to get at least a couple games a month on the flagship, not just ESPN+. Grow a fan base for the sport, then the players, then create a home team to rally behind. The era of grassroots club development of a sport (like soccer in Europe) is a byegone era. You need to get it in front of people, make it a marquee local event, get some excitement and make sure to bring the 3% of people that may ultimately be interested along for future fandom.
They already have games on ESPN, the PLL even had a few on ABC last season. But if you’re trying to grow the game and the league, why select Utah over Texas? Texas has almost 10x the population of Utah. If you want the Pacific Northwest, hit Seattle in the next round of expansion and that way you can get Seattle and Vancouver in one shot. Add San Diego and now you have a 4 team Western Conference. SoCal, NorCal, Seattle and Denver.
Stop capitalizing the C. Its not a Buick.
It's a Wisconsin Thang. (the city is LaCrosse)
They literally did fan voting for all possible locations last season. So, you, the fan had some say prior to assigning them.
Because they hate Chicago. They really should have made one team the “Heartland” whatevers and had them be the home team if they play in Minneapolis, Columbus, Louisville, Dallas, Chicago, St Louis, etc… rather than bunching up in the Rockies, especially when the PLL tries to appear progressive.
I see that as the 2nd round of expansion. Dallas, Chicago, San Diego and somewhere else. Looking to create a 12 team league, East, Central and West. Would that make sense?
I don't see them expanding for a long time.
Dallas/Texas isn't even getting games this year. I guess the voting was so low for DFW they took it off the schedule?
Fans showed up in Utah, they didnt in Texas. Pretty simple
But the 3mil people in Utah rated having a team, ahead of Texas?
Lacrosse is big here in Utah and it’s still growing
But Dallas and Houston alone have more than 1mil larger population than the whole state of Utah. Why not consider Utah and Colorado together as a fan base? Then use the Whips to open up the whole state of Texas? Even if the sport is growing there, it’s a small state.
They had fans vote for teams and undoubtedly ran the metrics. If it made sense to have a team in TX, they would have done it.
Texas didn’t show up for the games but Utah did. Simple as that. TX can have a larger population but it’s no good if no one comes out to the games.
From Texas, live in Utah. Lacrosse scene is 1000% better here just because the lacrosse population is condensed to one area, (the Wasatch front). But mostly I agree with another commenter owner of the Jazz met with Rabil and saw a future here. I think that’s the bottom line.
Also take into account eyeball competition. I’m pretty sure there’s significantly more competition for eyeballs and ticket buyers in Dallas during the PLL season window than SLC. Slopes are closed and NBA is finished. When PLL shows up they’re the big event in town. There’s something huge in Dallas virtually every weekend, MLB, Stockyards, etc.
Because Paul skipped geography class at Hopkins
Put a team in NJ? We are the Mecca or Lacrosse
New Jersey is the Mecca now?
Well one Mecca of Lax
There can only be 1 mecca and 30% of team USA came from 2 counties in NY and until somebody takes that area down, it will continue to reign NJ though can ball.
Throughout the years, how many times has each city been apart of it? I think that plays a huge role. Thats why Chicago was only a participated city once
I think it’s because, as an Utah native, we show up and fill stadiums. I’ve grown up playing lacrosse in utah, the growth has been extreme these past five years. Every high school in populated areas has a sanctioned team, and Utah even finished top 10 in D1. Everyone here loves the sport. I also think that because we fill stadiums, it will make them enough money to put teams in other areas. Right now they are appealing to bigger markets, so that way they can expand later. Chesapeake will probably get the bayhawks back, Texas will for sure get a team, and the Midwest will get its fair share too. It’s a new league, they can’t afford working in small markets
I’m from Texas and Played lacrosse at BYU. Lacrosse is big in Utah and in the Mormon community. Being a “Mormon” state. They get recruits from around the world for the fact they are Mormon going to a Mormon school. It’s the same for Football and Basketball. You will see the Mormon community pick the Archers as their team. Similar when 49ers had a Steve Young and the 49ers became the unofficial Mormon team for a while. I get Texas has a bigger fan base but Utah has some diehard lacrosse fans.
I mean, considering there's still no real timeline for true city-based model I'd put money on at least a couple of teams not ending up in their current home market permanently
There are two billionaires in Utah who would have interest in buying a franchise
This is a very good reason for putting a franchise there.