Speaker 1: We did it, you did, miss Neil Young old man?
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, really, you know what, Porter, Let's let's
Speaker 2: fire that back up, because I know that would put
Speaker 2: him in the right frame of mind. I was debating
Speaker 2: which songs to play for you today, and I landed
Speaker 2: on Neil Young, which I figured you'd appreciate.
Speaker 1: Hi, Dad, what is hi son?
Speaker 3: But what is the right frame of mind to go
Speaker 3: on your son's radio show?
Speaker 1: Exactly?
Speaker 2: What's an excellent question. You should do this for a living.
Speaker 2: That's a good question. I mean, just put you in
Speaker 2: a good mood because you are a Neil Young fan.
Speaker 1: I am. I love that song too, great song. How
Speaker 1: you doing, I'm doing great.
Speaker 3: I just came last night from three days in Nashville
Speaker 3: at the World Congress of Sport, and it was just
Speaker 3: amazing to see so many people haven't seen in a
Speaker 3: long time, owners and presidents and people that have the
Speaker 3: commissioners that have been around sport and and and I was,
Speaker 3: I was. I was privileged enough to be to be
Speaker 3: given an honor there. I was honored as a I
Speaker 3: think they call it these sports champions, pioneers and innovators.
Speaker 3: Pioneers and innovators, and you.
Speaker 1: Were rightly honored for that.
Speaker 2: Okay, it was it was a it was a just
Speaker 2: reward that you've earn't it was a great, great honor.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for that. I it was. It was
Speaker 3: very nicely done. I have a beautiful statue at to
Speaker 3: go in my to go in my study. And then,
Speaker 3: as you know, your youngest sibling was also given a
Speaker 3: chance there by her her agents C A. A. Was doing,
Speaker 3: was sponsoring the whole thing, so they arranged for her
Speaker 3: to speak after Adam Silver spoke. I mean, here's Lily
Speaker 3: check Its Shimbashi going up on the stage to talk
Speaker 3: about her business and about especially about engaging women as
Speaker 3: fans of your team and what a positive thing that is.
Speaker 3: And then they asked me to introduce her. So the
Speaker 3: whole thing was was fun. It was really fun.
Speaker 2: Tremendously impressed with Lil's former friend of the program. When
Speaker 2: she first started sports at sports Ish, we had her
Speaker 2: on almost on a weekly basis, right, so.
Speaker 1: Does she even want to anymore?
Speaker 2: Now she's too big for us, she doesn't even return
Speaker 2: our calls. But really really proud of her and what
Speaker 2: she's built.
Speaker 1: And you know what's funny.
Speaker 2: I've had multiple people over the past few months somehow
Speaker 2: find out that were related Lily and I because her
Speaker 2: last yard, her married name is Shimbashi, and you know,
Speaker 2: so if you just see Lily Shimbashi, and I've had
Speaker 2: direct messages from women that I went to school with, like, wait,
Speaker 2: Lily is your sister. We love what she's doing. So
Speaker 2: people haven't even really made the connection. And it's it's
Speaker 2: got to make you a proud dad to see what
Speaker 2: she's built because she's worked real hard at it.
Speaker 3: It does, and I'm not sure sure it's for better
Speaker 3: for worse. But her agents represented and they basically were
Speaker 3: sold on the fact that she had to start going
Speaker 3: by Lily check at Shimbashi. And I said to her husband,
Speaker 3: I said, look, this was not me. I did not
Speaker 3: say this needed to be a hyphenated name or anything else.
Speaker 3: But I have noticed that that's what Sports Business journal
Speaker 3: calls her now and to the extent if it helps
Speaker 3: her at all in this industry of ours, I'm all
Speaker 3: for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, for sure, and I'm so proud of her.
Speaker 2: You know, watching those videos of her on stage just
Speaker 2: owned it. You know, she stepped up and did a
Speaker 2: really good job. So exciting news broke last week, and
Speaker 2: you've been working on this for a while now with
Speaker 2: the Eccles family, who of course sports business royalty in
Speaker 2: our state, and often say Spence Ecles does not receive
Speaker 2: the credit he deserves for a myriad of things. I mean,
Speaker 2: his name is on building, his name is on a
Speaker 2: bunch of buildings at the U. But take us through
Speaker 2: this process, your new partnership with the Eccles family and
Speaker 2: what should the community know about what's coming up next?
Speaker 3: Okay, So it was twenty twenty one when your mom
Speaker 3: and I returned from England after three years serving as
Speaker 3: mission leaders there, and it was just one of the
Speaker 3: great experiences of my life. Seven hundred volunteers, fifty four countries.
Speaker 1: COVID language. You were COVID mission presidents.
Speaker 3: Yes, so we had twenty months without COVID and sixteen
Speaker 3: months with. But I came home just exhausted because I
Speaker 3: there wasn't a single week that it wasn't like working
Speaker 3: ninety hour weeks. Just that's what's necessary to do that job.
Speaker 3: And so I'm glad that they they're calling younger and
Speaker 3: younger guys and women to do that. But anyway, when
Speaker 3: I came home, I knew a couple of things. One,
Speaker 3: I wanted to work with my sons. Two, I wanted
Speaker 3: to work with my daughters. I wanted to I didn't
Speaker 3: want to jump into the industry right away. It's now
Speaker 3: been three and a half years since we've been home,
Speaker 3: and earlier this year I started to think that I'd
Speaker 3: like the last chapter of my career the last ten years,
Speaker 3: because I think I'll work another ten years, but I'd
Speaker 3: like the last ten years to be in a situation
Speaker 3: where I have a significant sports fund and can invest
Speaker 3: it in the many opportunities that I just uncover literally
Speaker 3: weekly that are good places to invest our industry. Even
Speaker 3: during COVID, when the rest of the world was in
Speaker 3: financial crisis, sports continued to grow seven percent a year
Speaker 3: during COVID. During COVID, when the financial crisis of COVID
Speaker 3: and everything that stopped, but sports continued to grow. And
Speaker 3: so this is an industry I've been in for a
Speaker 3: long time. And so it became about identifying who would
Speaker 3: I like to do this with, because I felt like
Speaker 3: the firm that I founded in New York has a
Speaker 3: lot of really good people, but it's lacking the kind
Speaker 3: of investment expertise that it would take to both raise
Speaker 3: a large fund and to invest a large fund. And
Speaker 3: I was out here actually in Deer Valley, and it
Speaker 3: was a conference put on by a private equity fund,
Speaker 3: and you came up and interviewed me. When we talked
Speaker 3: about sports and collegiate sports and where to invest.
Speaker 1: In sports, Rick new heisl on the panels. That was fun.
Speaker 3: And then the next night Mitt Romney came up and spoke,
Speaker 3: and I've you know, I've known myt since my days
Speaker 3: in Boston and Vane a million years ago, but I've
Speaker 3: never seen him so relaxed as he was that night.
Speaker 1: He came up and spoke.
Speaker 3: He you know, he has a lot of concerns about
Speaker 3: our country, but we'll leave that alone. We could go
Speaker 3: for hours on that because I'm right with him on
Speaker 3: his views. But anyway, at the end of it, a
Speaker 3: lot of people ask him questions, and one question.
Speaker 1: Was where will you invest? Now?
Speaker 3: What are you going to do? He said he was
Speaker 3: moving to Florida. He wanted Anne to ride horses. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to share anything that I don't think he
Speaker 3: would want shared. But he when he talked about how
Speaker 3: he was going to invest, he said, I'm no longer
Speaker 3: looking at internal rates of return. I'm not looking for
Speaker 3: track records. I'm looking for people that I trust. I
Speaker 3: want to do things with people that I trust. And
Speaker 3: you have to understand, when I came to saw Lake
Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty three to try to save the Utah
Speaker 3: Jazz and turn it around, my one friend in town
Speaker 3: consistently was the president Heir Security Bank and the chairman,
Speaker 3: Spencer Ecles, who's now ninety years old. He's still skis.
Speaker 3: I see him up at the Ute Games. I see
Speaker 3: him at the Jazz Games, and every time I see him,
Speaker 3: we go back to the old days and we talk about, hey, Spence,
Speaker 3: if you hadn't done that eight million dollar loan when
Speaker 3: no one else would help us, and we weren't making payroll,
Speaker 3: and we were losing a fortune, and we were drawing
Speaker 3: six thousand people a night, and no one told me,
Speaker 3: not even David Sterned, that this club was on the
Speaker 3: verge of bankruptcy. But it was Spencer Ecles who understood
Speaker 3: that if Salt Lake lost the Jazz, we would we
Speaker 3: would go a long time before we ever got another
Speaker 3: NBA team. And I think he pushed his board into
Speaker 3: making a loan that no elsewood because Larry Miller was
Speaker 3: the borrower. Larry Miller owned exactly two dealerships. Larry Miller
Speaker 3: didn't have the net worth to borrow that money. But but,
Speaker 3: but Spencer was so impressed with the things we were
Speaker 3: starting to do with the team, and with Larry's earnest
Speaker 3: desire to keep it here. He found a kindred soul.
Speaker 3: He made the loan, we paid off the debt, We
Speaker 3: put two million dollars into the bank. I remember that
Speaker 3: day thinking, oh my gosh, the heavens have opened up.
Speaker 1: And today that's pennies. But back then you needed it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And that's on the heels of in eighty
Speaker 3: four drafting Stockton and eighty five drafting Alone. Everybody thought
Speaker 3: we had a future suddenly, and all we needed was
Speaker 3: the right capital. And it was Spencer Ecles that made
Speaker 3: it all happen. So with that in mind, and thinking
Speaker 3: about what Mitt said that it was going to be
Speaker 3: totally about who your partners are, I went to Spence Els,
Speaker 3: Spencer p. Eckles, his son, who I'm really good friends with.
Speaker 3: I met Randall Corels, who is the chairman and former
Speaker 3: vice chair of the Federal Reserve enormously qualified Davis Polk
Speaker 3: of one of the America's premier law firms, thirty year lawyer.
Speaker 3: These two gentlemen sat down with me listen to my
Speaker 3: dream about finishing by investing a billion dollars or more
Speaker 3: in sports, and the conversations went really very quickly, and
Speaker 3: already we have places we can invest. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of work to do to finish up all of the
Speaker 3: administrative side of a fund, but the one thing when
Speaker 3: I go to sleep at night now is I know
Speaker 3: I've got the best partners I could ever ask for. Yeah,
Speaker 3: these they run a great firm. They're very six sucessful
Speaker 3: in their own right. They didn't need to do this,
Speaker 3: but they're excited about it because you know what the
Speaker 3: Echos family has meant to the University of Utah, to
Speaker 3: southern Utah. They're all over the place. That's why I
Speaker 3: said my quote in the press release is you know
Speaker 3: they brought the way. They were instrumental in getting the
Speaker 3: Winter Olympics here and financing so much of that. They
Speaker 3: were key in keeping the jazz here, and they've built
Speaker 3: great collegiate programs across the state. So so now to
Speaker 3: pursue this fund with them is I couldn't be happier.
Speaker 3: I couldn't be more optimistic about the things we're going
Speaker 3: to do. And I'm all And since the press release,
Speaker 3: my phone has just blown up from people all over
Speaker 3: the world that I've done business with in the past,
Speaker 3: in Japan and in certainly in London, in Germany and France.
Speaker 3: And I'm going to be over there next week and
Speaker 3: start the process of creating a real flow of deals
Speaker 3: coming to us.
Speaker 2: So certainly, and I had a chance to see Spence
Speaker 2: up at the Utah spring football game. He sat with
Speaker 2: Ron McBride and shook his hand. He's still skis as
Speaker 2: your reference just turned nine years old. And certainly with
Speaker 2: a fund as large as this and the goals you
Speaker 2: have that are as big as they are, only time
Speaker 2: will tell what the execution looks like and what you
Speaker 2: invest in. And if it's teams here in state, if
Speaker 2: it's teams across the landscape of the country, or maybe
Speaker 2: you do some international deals. Obviously those things will manifest
Speaker 2: themselves when they do.
Speaker 1: It's not going to happen tomorrow, but I'm.
Speaker 2: Sure people are curious if you have any tangible plans
Speaker 2: with one point two billion which is the goal we do.
Speaker 3: So we love teams, but we will probably not be
Speaker 3: buying any majority piece of a teams where we determine
Speaker 3: how to run things. But I do think we'll get
Speaker 3: involved because that's that's what I've done sure, so, so
Speaker 3: we'll get involved with teams where they're in good markets,
Speaker 3: they have excellent operators, and.
Speaker 1: They they work hard.
Speaker 3: This is the this is the eCos value that is
Speaker 3: going to run through our organization. How are they doing
Speaker 3: in the community and are they caring about the community
Speaker 3: and are they making a difference in the community. So
Speaker 3: that will be on the team side. We'll look for
Speaker 3: media assets during this transition from from you know, cord
Speaker 3: cutting and cable and satellite into streaming and what happens
Speaker 3: and direct to the consumer, which ESPN is now doing.
Speaker 3: As all of this happens, there's going to be a
Speaker 3: tremendous capitalization of media assets. We want to be in
Speaker 3: the middle of that. I've I've spent my life running
Speaker 3: MSG network, buying companies like Gravity Media, so I'm very,
Speaker 3: very keen to do some things in sports media. There
Speaker 3: are startup leagues that I think are interesting. The three
Speaker 3: on three unrivaled thing I think is very interesting. There's
Speaker 3: startup volleyball. There's so many places to invest, and I
Speaker 3: don't think we'll have one hundred by any stretch investments.
Speaker 3: It's more likely that will take significant positions in sports
Speaker 3: assets that have value and will continue to accrue value
Speaker 3: where we can make a difference.
Speaker 2: So over the course of your career, one of the
Speaker 2: things that I've always found interesting is, excuse me, when
Speaker 2: you were here, you work with Larry and then you
Speaker 2: go to New York and after a stint with David
Speaker 2: starting in the League office, you land with the Knicks
Speaker 2: in Madison Square Garden, where you work with a lot
Speaker 2: of different owners, four different owners, and the first three
Speaker 2: I think you I enjoyed working for and the last
Speaker 2: one was probably a little a little sticky from time
Speaker 2: to time. Right, and Jim Dolan still owns the New
Speaker 2: York Knicks and and also the New York Rangers and
Speaker 2: Moonlights playing the kazoo for his band.
Speaker 1: That's a true thing.
Speaker 2: You also spent some time working with Jerry Jones, so
Speaker 2: you've had a bunch of interesting relationships and synergies with
Speaker 2: a lot of different owners with a lot of different styles.
Speaker 1: My question to you is what makes a great owner?
Speaker 3: Well, that's that's a great that's a that's a wonderful question.
Speaker 3: I think the great owners are people who create a
Speaker 3: culture not of winning, but of championships. And that means
Speaker 3: they create a culture of high levels of trust and
Speaker 3: high levels of expectations. If you if you've watched the
Speaker 3: whole family and the way that they have owned the
Speaker 3: San Antonio Spurs, they've got the same general manager. And sadly,
Speaker 3: you know, Greg, Papa bitch, looks like he may not
Speaker 3: be able to push on much longer.
Speaker 1: He's not in good health. And I just feel so bad.
Speaker 3: But look at the years they've had for championships, the teams,
Speaker 3: and and they have done it right. And it's by
Speaker 3: the way, both Larry and I knew this when we
Speaker 3: came in. When when when I brought Larry in, we
Speaker 3: started to talk about the teams that had really done well,
Speaker 3: and we could see that they had very little turnover
Speaker 3: in coaches and general managers, very little turnover at all,
Speaker 3: very little turnover in owners. That's why Larry, when Frank
Speaker 3: Layden stepped aside and we put Jerry Sloan, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean Jerry Sloan coached here for twenty three years.
Speaker 1: Yes, so, and had a.
Speaker 3: Great, amazing history, you know, making the playoffs pretty much
Speaker 3: all the time. It was just a regular thing. So
Speaker 3: good owners take a back seat. They they step back,
Speaker 3: They hire really great people, They show them a tremendous
Speaker 3: amount of respect and trust, but they also want them
Speaker 3: to know that, you know, there are expectations here to win,
Speaker 3: not a free ride. We're here to win, and we're
Speaker 3: here to win all the time, and we're you know,
Speaker 3: this is not the place to debate whether losing to
Speaker 3: try to get you know, the first pick in the
Speaker 3: draft is a good strategy.
Speaker 1: For me.
Speaker 3: I could never live that strategy. And I'm very much
Speaker 3: like building the pat Riley. You know, Miami just keeps
Speaker 3: somehow squirting in and getting in the playoffs and competing.
Speaker 3: Even after that Jimmy Butler trade here, they are still
Speaker 3: in the playoffs. And that's the kind of culture that
Speaker 3: I respect. Mickey Rison and I have had our differences,
Speaker 3: certainly when he stole a pat from us, but I
Speaker 3: give him a lot of credit. Pat's been down there
Speaker 3: twenty years. He's had you know, the same people around
Speaker 3: and and they're very that's a very successful franchise. So
Speaker 3: what's a great owner. I think an owner is someone
Speaker 3: who hires really smart, really good people, shows them a
Speaker 3: high level of respect and trust, does not try to
Speaker 3: do the job for them or get involved, and and
Speaker 3: it steps back and establishes that kind of culture and
Speaker 3: rewards the people that win for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I always I often think of the pat Riley line.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of a lot of pat Riley lines.
Speaker 2: But in the NBA, there are two things. There's winning,
Speaker 2: there's misery right right and so and look, unfortunately, the
Speaker 2: incentive structure and pro basketball mostly rewards winners, but if
Speaker 2: you're not in that small group, it also rewards if
Speaker 2: you lose. And that's the complicated thing because it's hard
Speaker 2: to you know, find that cornerstone, transcendent piece when you're
Speaker 2: building a team in Salt Lake City, if you don't
Speaker 2: get it through the draft and so, you know, if
Speaker 2: you can get number one in Cooper Flag, the pain's
Speaker 2: worth it. But if you can't, you're spinning your wheels
Speaker 2: for a while. But we have an interesting dynamic in
Speaker 2: our market because there's new ownership with the Jazz with
Speaker 2: Ryan Smith and SEG Group, But there's also new ownership
Speaker 2: out in Sandy at the soccer club now the soccer
Speaker 2: club that you founded. And it's wild to think that
Speaker 2: we're twenty plus years later and now this is the
Speaker 2: fourth ownership group of RSL. So Jason christ is back
Speaker 2: with the club. John Kimball, after spending some time with
Speaker 2: the Jazz, has been running the club now for I
Speaker 2: think five years. Maddy Raider's back. Shout out Trey. We
Speaker 2: need to say Trey's back. A lot of the old
Speaker 2: guard is back at RSL, and people that you know
Speaker 2: very well, the Millers and Miller Sports Entertainment has taken
Speaker 2: over the controlling ownership stake of the club.
Speaker 1: The Blitzer group.
Speaker 2: Maintains their portion, and Ryan and Ashley Smith and the
Speaker 2: Seg group will focus on their project downtown.
Speaker 1: I know you, doctor Steve quite a bit.
Speaker 2: You also are helping them bring Major League Baseball here,
Speaker 2: which Spinger's crossed. I hope that happens. But how have
Speaker 2: you digest did this whole story? And what would you
Speaker 2: say to RSL fans about how you think the Millers
Speaker 2: are going to handle this?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 3: Steve was nice enough to invite me out for that announcement.
Speaker 3: I just couldn't make it. There was no way it
Speaker 3: could be here. But look, Salt Lake owes a giant
Speaker 3: debt of gratitude to David Blitzer. Yes, because he came
Speaker 3: in stabilized the whole situation there, put John Kimball in
Speaker 3: permanently as president, and John's you know, RSL runs deeply
Speaker 3: in John's blood. He was first employee. Maybe other than you,
Speaker 3: I don't. I think it was right around the same
Speaker 3: time that both of you joined. I think we give
Speaker 3: it to John, Okay, I think we'll give that in.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 3: So John is an extraordinary guy and now, and you know,
Speaker 3: Dave Blitzer also let run within the organization a lot
Speaker 3: of people who understand what it was like in the
Speaker 3: early days to fight through and create a championship team
Speaker 3: YEP in two thousand and nine in a brand new
Speaker 3: venue and all that it took to get there. So
Speaker 3: Tony Beltran, for instance, is in the organization. Hamas and Nolave. Yeah,
Speaker 3: these guys that played for us, and then to bring
Speaker 3: Jason back was just a brilliant move. So I'm very
Speaker 3: optimistic about what's happening there. I want to be helpful
Speaker 3: to them if I can. Time will tell whether that
Speaker 3: works for them. But the Miller family were tremendous stewarts
Speaker 3: for the Utah Jazz for many years. I said that
Speaker 3: my speech at the Utah Sports Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: I said to Gail, she was sitting right there.
Speaker 3: I said, Gail, you guys have been the best stewarts
Speaker 3: the Jazz could ever have. Have lent permanence, have built
Speaker 3: a building and then redone it and made it beautiful.
Speaker 3: Now Ryan's going to do even more with it with hockey.
Speaker 3: So and not only that, but Utah has become like
Speaker 3: one of the most desirable sports markets in the world
Speaker 3: with the success of the college teams and the Big Twelve,
Speaker 3: and even the success of Weber State and Utah State,
Speaker 3: and and you know, there's a there's a level of
Speaker 3: excellence here in athletics. I hope the Jazz can can
Speaker 3: get the guys they need to get back back at
Speaker 3: it over a long period of time. I know that's
Speaker 3: what they want. And I love you know how I
Speaker 3: feel about Danny Ainge and one of my dearest friends. So, so, look,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of great things happening here. With this fund,
Speaker 3: will we have an opportunity to invest here? I think
Speaker 3: we may if we get a baseball team, for sure,
Speaker 3: but even more than that, you know what's next and
Speaker 3: where are their opportunities. And I've built stadiums of you know,
Speaker 3: I've bought television properties. This gives me a chance literally
Speaker 3: around the world, but but in Salt Lake, if it
Speaker 3: so happens to to really get back and back in
Speaker 3: the game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's tremendously exciting.
Speaker 2: And like you, my phone has also blown up from
Speaker 2: a lot of people wondering what this looks like and
Speaker 2: very excited for the possibilities of I will not call
Speaker 2: it the final chapter of your career. From as your
Speaker 2: oldest son, I view you working for another thirty years. Okay,
Speaker 2: so I'm not going to do the ten year timeline,
Speaker 2: but I know you've got to go.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you one more question. I'm good to
Speaker 1: buy time time wise okay.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, BYU needs a new athletic director, Tom
Speaker 2: Homo after twenty years of stepping aside, and he has
Speaker 2: done a tremendous job.
Speaker 1: Yes, traversing through independence.
Speaker 2: I mean that when I found out that that was
Speaker 2: going to be their path, I went, Okay, let's see
Speaker 2: how this goes Utah gets the Pac twelve invite BYU.
Speaker 2: I think out of necessity did what they had to
Speaker 2: do and they found their landing spot in the Big twelve.
Speaker 2: And it feels like everything down there is in a
Speaker 2: really good spot. Nil has changed the game. Kevin Young,
Speaker 2: former NBA assistant, had a really good first year Sweet
Speaker 2: sixteen team They've got Gary Parrish put him as his
Speaker 2: number five team in the country. Next year, Colotte had
Speaker 2: a really good year two in the Big twelve, and
Speaker 2: they appear to have a good team coming back.
Speaker 1: As you like to remind me, you went to.
Speaker 2: Both schools, so I know you don't have any allegiance
Speaker 2: one way or the other. But people are wondering whether
Speaker 2: or not you have been contacted to potentially be the
Speaker 2: athletic director BYU.
Speaker 1: Any insight there.
Speaker 3: The insight is absolutely not. I have no contact about
Speaker 3: that at all, and I'm not surprised, actually, I think
Speaker 3: they're probably I don't know what they're thinking. I am
Speaker 3: on the President's Leadership Council down at BYU and have
Speaker 3: been for a long time and have great respect for
Speaker 3: Shane and for Keith. Shane Reese, the president, Keith Warkink,
Speaker 3: who is over the Athletic Department, among other things great
Speaker 3: great people. I love Tom Homo and Chad Lewis and
Speaker 3: Brian Santiago. Those guys down there are great.
Speaker 1: And that is I.
Speaker 3: Did wear that uniform, so he did, so I kind
Speaker 3: of have have always cheered for them. But what Taylor
Speaker 3: Randall has done and uh and the Utah Athletic department
Speaker 3: and coaches and everything else, and and their plans, which
Speaker 3: I know something about, are are just off the charts.
Speaker 3: They are progressive, they are smart, they are they are
Speaker 3: engaging the community in a way that I don't think
Speaker 3: has happened before. And you know, I don't I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's their football team had the first tough year and
Speaker 3: it seems like forever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that Kyle spoiled everybody. The standards are sky high.
Speaker 2: When I was in school, there are five six wins
Speaker 2: Bowl game.
Speaker 1: You know, it's different now. It's different now.
Speaker 3: I know for him to be coming to the end
Speaker 3: is actually that's going to be a hard thing because
Speaker 3: he has been a tremendous in the state. So but
Speaker 3: but Spencer, when I stepped back and look at how
Speaker 3: the state is as opposed to the mid eighties when
Speaker 3: I was here trying to save the jazz. It is vibrant,
Speaker 3: The economy is number one in the country. The population
Speaker 3: is young and energetic, and there's there's really nothing to
Speaker 3: derail it other than you know, petty jealousies or you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's nothing better than a good rivalry. But
Speaker 3: let it be a good rivalry and be glad that
Speaker 3: we have all this excellence. I mean the by U
Speaker 3: basketball team and they I mean when when when their coach,
Speaker 3: When when Mark Pope left and went to Kentucky. That
Speaker 3: was a really pivot old time. They reacted quickly and
Speaker 3: got Kevin. Then Utah went and got you know, really
Speaker 3: a great young coach who played there. I mean, these
Speaker 3: are all all the right things, all the right steps.
Speaker 3: They're they're doing great things, and it is a It's
Speaker 3: a terrific time to be in the state. And one
Speaker 3: of the one of the blessings of this partnership with
Speaker 3: the Echols is I think I'm I'm going to be
Speaker 3: here more. I think Mom and I will be more
Speaker 3: in Utah than we have been. I don't think we'll
Speaker 3: move from Connecticut, but but we'll be here more, and
Speaker 3: we'll be bothering you more. You know asking you if
Speaker 3: there's an empty bedroom upstairs.
Speaker 2: There is, there always is, but no, it's it's all exciting,
Speaker 2: and I think you should feel really used about the
Speaker 2: potential with this partnership. So we'll set you loose, though.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you stopping by, and yeah, all the insight.
Speaker 2: I wanted to give you the space to express other
Speaker 2: because everyone's asking me like what, so, what's the deal?
Speaker 2: And so I figured i'd give you the space to
Speaker 2: to kind of unpack it.
Speaker 1: So, but I know you're busy and I'll see you soon, Okay.
Speaker 1: Can I say one last thing? You can say as
Speaker 1: many things as you'd like.
Speaker 3: Can I say, I'm really proud of you and how
Speaker 3: long they've done this show and how important you are
Speaker 3: to people in this community. They tell me this all
Speaker 3: the time. Everybody wants to know what you're thinking about
Speaker 3: every item, and I'm really proud of the way you've
Speaker 3: handled everything.
Speaker 2: No, I appreciate it, and I think it depends on
Speaker 2: who you ask, whether or not they're a fan. But
Speaker 2: that's okay. It's a phenomenal coup. It's a great way
Speaker 2: to make a living. But it's kept me around the
Speaker 2: things that I've always loved you know that.
Speaker 3: No, listen, you're not going to make everybody happy, and
Speaker 3: if you were making everybody happy, you wouldn't have this
Speaker 3: job because even if they disagree with you all the time,
Speaker 3: they still want to know what is he thinking?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: Sure, okay, Well again, congratulations and thanks for coming in.
Speaker 1: We'll see you soon.