Sports in Utah - Sports

Sports

See also: List of professional sports teams in Utah

The Utah Jazz of the National Basketball Association play at EnergySolutions Arena in Salt Lake City. Utah is the least populous U.S. state to have a major professional sports league franchise. The team moved to the city from New Orleans in 1979 and has been one of the most consistently successful teams in the league (although they have yet to win a championship). From 2007–2011, Orem was host to the Utah Flash of the NBA Development League as well. Salt Lake City was previously host to the Utah Stars, who competed in the ABA from 1970–1976 and won 1 championship and to the Utah Starzz of the WNBA from 1997 to 2003.

Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer was founded in 2005 and plays at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy (they won a championship in 2009). The Utah Blaze began play in the original AFL in 2006 that folded before the 2009 season, then returned to play when the league was re-founded in 2010. They compete at the Maverik Center in West Valley City.

Utah also has several minor league baseball teams, the most prominent of which are the Salt Lake Bees, who play at Spring Mobile Ballpark in Salt Lake City and are part of the Pacific Coast League, which competes at the AAA level, meaning they are one notch below Major League Baseball. The Ogden Raptors (who play at Lindquist Field) and the Orem Owlz (who play at Brent Brown Ballpark) compete in the Pioneer League, which is a rookie league (the fifth and lowest level of the "affiliated minor leagues"—i.e., leagues that are part of Major League Baseball's official development system). The St. George RoadRunners play in the independent Golden Baseball League. Utah also has one minor league hockey team, the Utah Grizzlies, who play at the Maverik Center and compete in the ECHL (which is generally considered the third tier of U.S. hockey).

Utah has six universities that compete in Division I of the NCAA. Three of the schools have football programs that participate in the top-level Football Bowl Subdivision: Utah in the Pacific-12 Conference, Utah State in the Mountain West Conference (starting July 1, 2013), and BYU as an independent. Two more schools participate in FCS football: Weber State and Southern Utah (SUU) in the Big Sky Conference. Utah Valley, which has no football program, is a full member of the Great West Conference.

Salt Lake City hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics. After early financial struggles and scandal, the 2002 Olympics eventually became among the most successful in history from a marketing and financial standpoint. Watched by over 2 billion viewers, the Games ended up with a profit of 40 million dollars.

Rugby has been growing quickly in the state of Utah, growing from 17 teams in 2009 to 70 teams as of 2013, including more than 30 high school varsity teams. The growth has been inspired in part by the 2008 movie Forever Strong.