S1,E31: ESPN700 Producer/ Host - Porter Larsen

Salt Lake City's sports pulse is racing with the announcement of an NHL team joining the city's ranks! On today's episode, I'm joined by ESPN 700's sports wizard Porter Larson to tackle this game-changing development and its ripple effects throughout Utah's sports universe. We're skating past the surface of what an NHL team means for the Beehive State, dissecting the strategic play behind the Utah Jazz's latest rebuild, and sizing up the University of Utah's monumental move to the Big 12. And with Olympic rings potentially twinkling on the horizon once more, we're peeking into the vision that could transform Salt Lake City into a winter sports wonderland.

Porter Larson brings his unique blend of sports insight straight from the scenic heights of Oakley, Utah, sharing how his family's legacy and love for the game guided him from the field to the press box. We trace his transition from hopeful athlete to sports journalism standout, with a special nod to Utah's rich pool of NFL talent that's shaking up the national scene. Our chat isn't just about the scores and stats – it's a deep dive into the heart and soul of Utah's passionate sports community and the transformative power of adding pro teams to the local lineup.

Fasten your seatbelts, sports enthusiasts, because Utah's athletic landscape is brimming with possibility. From the tactical team-building of the Jazz to the thrilling potential of Salt Lake City once again hosting the world's greatest athletes, we're mapping out an exhilarating sports odyssey. With every layup, touchdown, and slap shot, we're witnessing history in the making as Utah crafts its bold narrative in the sports world. So, join us for an episode that celebrates the victories, anticipates the challenges, and revels in the unbreakable spirit of Utah's fans and athletes alike.

Please be sure to like, review, follow, subscribe and share the podcast with your friends and family! See you next time 

https://smalllakecity.buzzsprout.com

Transcript

Erik Nilsson: 0:10

What is up everybody and welcome back to the Small Lake City podcast. I'm your host, eric Nielsen, and big news coming into Salt Lake City this week that we are in fact getting an NHL team. I'm super stoked about it. I'm excited to become a hockey fan, as I know a lot of people around the Valley are, and I'm feeling just like a lot of the sports that we already have in Salt Lake. We're going to wrap our arms around it and love it for all that we have.

Erik Nilsson: 0:35

So super excited for this new moment in Salt Lake sports and because I knew that this was likely going to be happening, I wanted to have someone come on the podcast who knows the most about it. So I reached out to my friend, porter Larson, who is an executive producer and host at ESPN 700, the talk show and radio station and podcast that covers all of the things sports in Utah and Salt Lake City, and you're in for a doozy. We cover so many topics in this episode, everything from the NHL coming to Utah, potential MLB team, future of the Jazz and what the rebuild looks like, the University of Utah being in the Big 12 and what that looks like and what we should be looking for, as well as being now in the same conference again with our biggest rival, the BYU Cougars, then also leaning into the Olympics, and what is that path towards getting the Olympics be here, and how? This is all part of Ryan Smith's big, elaborate plan. Hearing about him growing up in Camas, going down to Dixie slash Utah Tech to try to play basketball and ended up reporting on it and created a job for himself. So lots of really good tidbits.

Erik Nilsson: 1:43

If you want to catch up on Utah sports, this is the best place to do it. If you're a sports enthusiast, a Salt Lake enthusiast, or just want to know what's going on, we have a lot of great stuff going on for you, so excited to share this one with you, check it out and, yeah, enjoy. Yeah. I mean, there's like so much sports going on in Utah right now and I feel like every month there's some sort of new headline, whether it's MNHL, whether it's MLB, whether it's the Olympics, whether it's Utah going to the Big 12 this year, and so I feel like it's just like a good time to have almost like a let's catch everybody up, see what's going on, see where the excitement is, see where I mean the road to go, and I didn't think of anybody else besides the Porter Larson himself.

Porter Larsen: 2:25

You didn't. You didn't reach out to Ryan Smith first.

Erik Nilsson: 2:27

Uh, I may or may not, have tried desperately via four different channels, but well, it's always fun Cause, like there's people I mean let's use Ryan as an example. I have no personal connection with Ryan. It would be one of those like three or four degrees of separation text, a friend of a dad, of a dentist and like maybe, but at the end of the day, like it's not going to be coming from the right way for him to be like, yeah, I would want to be on this random podcast from Salt Lake. Um, I have had, I did get a intro to and I guess that one got shot down pretty hard by his PR team and my guy was like you just have to get it directly to him, like anything else is going to go through his team. I was like, okay, fine.

Porter Larsen: 3:03

Usually those teams just shoot it down, yeah.

Erik Nilsson: 3:06

Yeah, it's like it's not a yes unless it's a no. It's a no until it's a yes. Right, and I had a couple of people cause I want to sit down with Gail, cause like I mean Gail and Larry and everything that they've done for the city is such a great story, but obviously someone harder to get in contact with. So there's, I mean there's so many people that I want to and like there's this whole other like caliber of people that I want to have on.

Erik Nilsson: 3:36

Like I mean, can we talk like the Tony Finau, I mean the Ryan Smiths, the, the faces behind things, but I feel like as valuable as those are, it's also good to have the people who are more in the weeds and more understand the topic and like, have that more of that desire to talk about it because they spend so much time with it.

Porter Larsen: 3:45

Yeah, and just spending so much time in those circles, right, speaking with the journalists that are following Ryan Smith around every day like it's existing in that ecosystem, it gives you a good perspective on what's going on, and you mentioned all of the things. The overarching theme of sports in Utah continues to grow, right, and it's not just historically the Olympic sports, the extreme sports, it's now football, basketball, hockey is coming to Salt Lake City, right. So I think it's always been like a branding thing. State of sport, right, yes, but it's always kind of been skiing, yeah, it's like outdoor sports, like mountain biking, sporting, not like sports.

Porter Larsen: 4:31

It's now because of these people who are motivated to see it in their city, having the resources to do it, having the money to do it, yeah, usually, uh, making it happen and, right, like utah wasn't the next on the list for the nhl, they weren't saying, oh, we want salt lake city.

Porter Larsen: 4:50

It was ryan smith being a multi-billionaire and going out and making it happen and going out and making sure that things are ready for when something goes down, he can strike right, having the legislators in line and on the same page as you.

Porter Larsen: 5:07

That's something that Oakland couldn't figure out. That's something that Portland, nashville, all these other teams that are looking for either base, or all these cities that are looking for baseball or hockey. Uh, a little behind on, yeah, right, and and Ryan did a really good job of getting all the pieces aligned before the opportunity was there, and then, at that point, you just got to sign on the bottom line and and, barring any unforeseen circumstances, I'm not sure when this podcast will come out. It's gonna happen, right, yeah, it's, it's uh, a board of governors vote away from from being official. Uh, I'm told that the the coyotes players are already planning on, and a lot of the staff are already planning on, coming out here for a press conference or some sort of event right after the season which they're finishing tonight. It's like so what's? The press conference or some sort of event right after?

Erik Nilsson: 5:56

the season which they're finishing tonight. It's like so what's the press conference? Oh it's wonder. I wonder what it is right.

Porter Larsen: 5:59

So it's. It's been impressive to see him be able to have everything in alignment right and be ready to strike when the iron's hot and make this happen. And you talked about it, larry. Larry Miller did it as well. Larry had to take out loans for money that he didn't really have, like it was a guy who had a dream and went out and made it happen.

Porter Larsen: 6:22

And with sports, you get more of not that it doesn't happen in some other parts of business. Right, there are people that are very passionate about restaurants and clubs and whatever, but with sports, like, you grow up with a fandom, you grow up passionate fans of the sports teams, and Ryan, from a young age, has always talked about having a basketball team and having a hockey team in Salt Lake City. It just so happens he became a billionaire and now has the resources and the connections to make it happen, and it's exciting. It should be exciting for sports fans here. It should be exciting for really any residents here. Uh, there is, you know, pros and cons to everything. I think there is a conversation to be talked about and we'll get into this as as we go about developing and growing responsibly and in a way that it, you know, doesn't leave all of the great things about this state, which are, you know, not in real estate and not in it's like almost the hypothesis of it.

Porter Larsen: 7:26

Yeah right, exactly there, there is a weird dynamic where so much of this, this state, is outdoor space and and, uh, you know, I think there's a stat that it's like 67 federal land in yukaw, which that's a different debate, that's a different conversation, but it's land that we can go and use, right, and you go around the state and you're seeing golf courses built everywhere, you're seeing people trying to build ski resorts everywhere and you're seeing downtown what is going to be a huge, huge change, which, yes, it's going to revitalize that area, it's going to give us new arenas, but it may also push people out of homes, it may like. There's a huge conversation around that. That is not just cool. Sports team, yeah, money to be made, right, um, and I do hope that we don't lose sight of those conversations but we can also acknowledge how cool it is that there is a utahn who has pride in this city, in the state, and wants to see his dream come to a fruition.

Porter Larsen: 8:31

Uh, but, uh, but yeah, there's a a whole bunch of different conversations that come off of that, just because of how big it is, right, how big of a story it is and how intertwined it is. Yeah, we talked about that, right the venues and the arenas. This is also part of trying to get the olympics here. It's not just getting hockey here, they're trying to get the olympics back here in 2034. So, um, there's a lot of overarching conversations on public transit and sustainable and reasonable growth that have to go alongside. You know, the the cool conversations that we're having that aren't very much, yeah.

Erik Nilsson: 9:08

And it's so interesting to like that point of Ryan where I mean, obviously he's proven himself with Qualtrics I mean the one of the biggest exits in Utah history. But then he goes on to like, enter this other level of like, oh, I want to be the backbone of bringing professional sports into back into Utah, bring the Olympics back into Utah, work with legislatures, work with developers, work with investors and all at the same time having everybody agree, like you said, cause there's other places that couldn't figure it out right. But then also to the point where it's like almost I mean in the words of will wayne, like real g's move in silence like lasagna and like nobody knew until the coyotes were like hey, by the way, we just told we're probably relocating and everyone's like wait what it?

Porter Larsen: 9:46

we heard rumblings of it, we heard whispers of it, but the thought was like three, four years, right, NHL figures some things out, major league baseball figures out Oakland and Tampa and their CBA as well. Um, you know, NHL is is. We thought the expansion would probably happen before a team moved, yeah. And then, like you said, the uh. The officials in Arizona and the voters in Arizona, coincidentally in Tem Tempe said nope, In Utah the legislators don't really care how you vote. So they decided it was happening. It's happening, and Ryan Smith was able to get the sign off there and it's happening.

Erik Nilsson: 10:34

Yeah, Before we get too much more into it, kind of want to give everybody a taste of kind of like who you are, where you came from and all of that. So I mean Utah native grew up a little bit Northeast of here in, I mean, Camas Oakley area. I mean, what was that like? What got you into sports? Uh, what kind of like set that stage for you growing up?

Porter Larsen: 10:50

Yeah, I mean I. I grew up with a family that were completely invested in in in sports. My mom was a OG captain of the U S snowboard team.

Porter Larsen: 11:03

before you could like, before you could snowboard right when it was like frowned upon and the resorts wouldn't let you on, um, she was winning national competition in the mid eighties and early eighties in in snowboarding, right, she had to to use like a split board where it looked like skis and when she got up on the mountain she could clip together and snowboard without getting caught Like interesting, very OG stuff, right. So I grew up with the extreme sports side of that. My dad was a football player, football coach, so the sports angle was, from the beginning, not really by choice. I was born into that, right. But then growing up in Oakley, utah, in the foothills of the Uintah Mountains, I just got to wake up every morning and walk outside into what is like one of the great last frontiers in the country, in the world. Right, and I just always felt like a bone deep connection to those mountains, to this, this outdoor space, right, um, and and growing up there was was able to just completely embrace that.

Porter Larsen: 12:09

And you know, play football, play basketball. Had a few opportunities to to try to play some college hoops. Was in Ephraim for a semester at Snow College and was on the practice squad. Shout out to Coach Nielsen down there. Went to St George trying to chase those same dreams. They recruited a bunch of really good guards that year so I ended up covering the team right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Porter Larsen: 12:32

Instead of playing for the team. And was that like the first time you ever were like in an official place of, yeah, following sports? I mean, I always was someone who, like the second twitter came out, I created an account to tweet about to tweet about basketball, right.

Erik Nilsson: 12:44

Well, it's funny you mentioned that because, like I like every time I think I have a guest that I like want to have, I'll always like put some feelers out or some friends. So I have this like group text with my friends and I was like, do you guys know who Porter Larson is? Like yeah, yeah, sports Twitter, what's up? And I was like, all right, good, like check Right. And so it was funny that you say that, because that's kind of how people know of you.

Porter Larsen: 13:04

I was kind of doing it already for free for my own, like entertainment. I wanted to at some point cover sports in some form. But I was just a student in St George. They didn't have much of like a sports journalism department, but they had a school newspaper. They had a school radio station, yeah. So I went to the school newspaper, uh, director, went to the school radio station director and was like hey, let me do sports. And they gave me like free reign to do sports and by the end of that year I was calling games on the local television station there. That's amazing. I was doing full broadcasts at the radio station and writing for the newspaper, right, and they gave me a scholarship. I wasn't getting a scholarship to play hoops, so I ended up getting one to cover it and that's the start of that. Ended up transferring up to the? U to finish school and got an internship with ESPN 700. Up transferring up to the, to the? U to finish school and got an internship with espn 700.

Porter Larsen: 13:59

And it's been seven years covering utah football, jazz, rsl, whatever it may be, uh, full time. But all through that while I've been so like my professional and working life has been all so tied into sports. I've still remained like unexplainably tied to the mountains, like every time I clock out, I leave and go up city Creek, I leave and go up Mill Creek Canyon, I leave and go up into the mountains, hopefully the Uintas, if I have enough time, and I don't think that's ever going to stop Right. Um, so there's a tie, that is is. It just feels so much deeper than you know. I just grew up here. Yeah, it's, it's a place that I really do think is special. Um, and, and it goes back.

Porter Larsen: 14:44

I talked about my mom and like my direct family ties, but on my dad's side, my great, great great grandfather was actually a mountain man hired by the mormon church. He was hired by joseph smith and brigham young to go and scout land. His name was jackson redden. Interesting, yeah, and years before the, the pioneer companies the vanguard company was the first one to do it traveled across the plains. He came across alone with his dog and his horse, got as far west as carson nevada, almost to the california border. There's a place called jack's valley if folks are familiar with that area, that's jackson redden. They called him return, that's what joseph smith and brigham young called him.

Erik Nilsson: 15:31

That was his nickname because they sent him out into, like their craziest dangerous jobs and he'd return every time which is like like I always think of things like that like I could do it I was a legal scout. But it's one thing to go drive up a road, to go to a trailhead and go this, but be like I have to bushwhack every step of this.

Porter Larsen: 15:50

Think about how I'm getting down and through everything and this was in 1841 was the original time that he decided to go West and at that point he was in Nauvoo. But it was a mutually beneficial relationship because he was also a fugitive, wanted in Mississippi for a lot of unsavory things, and he found the church and they said we need someone to go West. So he's like I'm sure I'm on the run, I'll go as far as I need to. Yeah, he almost got to the coast as far as 1840. At that time it was before the Donner Party had gone west. It was for the Pony Express before the Gold Rush. It was literally a few mountain men, Native Americans and indigenous people.

Porter Larsen: 16:33

Here there was some recording of of Spanish settlers that had gone up into parts of the Uinta mountains, but other than that it was, it was the mountain men like, uh, like my great great grandfather and great I'm missing the great in there Um, and he was the first of the Mormon pioneers to see Salt Lake Valley. Yeah, and it was just interesting to hear that story. I didn't know about that growing up when I was younger, so when I kind of learned about my family history, my grandmother was adopted. So there was kind of a disconnect there on some of it. I don't have the contact with my grandfather who that relation is through. And I was like, ah, I don't have the contact with my grandfather who that relation is through.

Porter Larsen: 17:17

And I was like, ah, I don't know if I believe in generational ties and like feelings, but it makes a lot of sense if that's like why I feel so tied to these mountains, when my blood was literally the first of the the pioneers to to cross through it. Yeah, it's great. He, he, in his journal he talks about, uh, indigenous people telling him to use the Uinta mountains that we call. Now is his compass right? Cause if you're trying to cross the Rocky mountains, it's a big wall in front of you. There's one mountain range that runs East and West and it's the Uintas, and he listened to only indigenous people that knew the land and was able to get to Echo.

Porter Larsen: 18:01

Canyon and eventually to Salt Lake. Pretty crazy story. And for me to learn that it definitely was like ah, maybe that's what this is my family, then. Okay, even if it's not real those generational ties and stuff it's a good excuse for it.

Erik Nilsson: 18:12

No, I love that. I love that you kind of have these things that connect you back to your heritage and keeps you grounded with it. Because I remember when I spent some time in Oakland, the Camas area, I remember I was driving through, I was going down through Brown's Canyon and coming through and I was like, all right, let's think about this. This place has been inhabited maybe 100 years, 120 years, and again I mean, there's Ken's Cash, there's the road. You used to work there, by the way.

Porter Larsen: 18:38

No way the cashier at Ken's Cash. That would be my plan From like age 14 to 16. That's funny.

Erik Nilsson: 18:43

I would always go there and be like I just need a snack from civilization. That's where I'm going Penny candies, oh the best. But it's like so funny because, like that place is gorgeous, like I love getting that far out you can see all of the stars, you walk at night and it feels like it's almost day. Right, the elk are like doing their mating calls at night and it's terrifying. It's just like so raw and it's one of like to your point, it's like one of the few places where you do feel like that frontier aspect to it.

Porter Larsen: 19:09

I mean, I would, I would hear you hear nature out there, right, so you go outside my back back door coyotes, just the craziest noises, and it just it sounds like it wouldn't be pleasant. Yeah, it's so much more pleasant to me than hearing car horns and sirens and and all of that, but it is, uh, a little bit. Traveling back in time, which is always apply, always been something that I'm attracted to, right, so hopefully get back there. Um, I am living downtown right now and I know that salt lake is. We talk about salt lake growing and becoming this, this big little city. Yeah, for me it's funny because salt lake's not a little city. This is like, oh, like I come to salt lake and I'm walking downtown and I'm like anxious about how tall the buildings are yeah, I've.

Porter Larsen: 19:55

I've never been to New York, never been to. I've been to Los Angeles, so I know what big cities are. But existing and living in Salt Lake is it's a big city.

Erik Nilsson: 20:04

Oh yeah, I mean, and it's like I feel like if you're from here, you've kind of been told it isn't that big, and then you've kind of it's like this you kill a frog by gradually increasing the heat, not throwing in hot water, and so people are like, oh, it's still a small city, still a small smitty. You're like, well, it is getting big though oh yeah, I mean, you look at like I mean 111, that goldman put in, 222, that goldman put in.

Erik Nilsson: 20:22

You see, the new, um, I mean they're in. I mean this skyline has changed so much and there's so many cranes and it's like, hey, like where's that threshold, like where are we calling this? Yeah, I mean especially having I mean again been in camas and then e from saint george and here I did.

Porter Larsen: 20:36

I did see technically, there's no skyscrapers yet.

Erik Nilsson: 20:39

Yes, it's supposed to be like 500 feet plus and we're like right on the the edge there I know because, like I always remember and this might be one of those like urban legends, but they're like couldn't build any buildings taller than like the church office building because of, like, the earthquake that was always going to come. But then now I heard it's like, hey, we have technology to solve for this. Like, can we just like, you know, just like, keep building, yeah.

Porter Larsen: 21:32

I think they're doing that. I think the, yeah, the, the building they're building right now, which I'm going to affectionately call Carl's junior tower forever. Yes, cause that's where, and if that doesn't tell you exactly where, that's the tallest building in Utah, yeah.

Erik Nilsson: 21:51

So you come back to Salt Lake, you get this first job here. I mean it's so awesome that you essentially end up at Utah Tech now, dixie, then and being like, okay, well, I don't get to do this dream I wanted to do. How can I make the best of this and still be here? And then, essentially, I mean calling your career and just being like I'm just going to keep reporting on this, be like, hey, I recognize you're doing a good job. How about you keep doing it up here and just having like I mean, a life that aligns so well with all of your I mean personal interests and everything that you've done? I mean I can't imagine having a job like that, where it's like I could still go home and watch sports and still be like just as interested, right, that's, and that's an interesting balance because it is, you know, it is fun, it's awesome, but it is a job, right.

Porter Larsen: 22:36

So sometimes I have to balance that where I'm not like forcing myself to watch all the sports. I'm not going overboard in that regard. I know it sounds crazy, but you, you can burn out from it, right. So I've I, I made a decision a couple of years into it, probably pandemic wise, that timeframe right, because there was no sports going on and I wasn't having fun doing a job where you had to really stretch to talk about sports.

Porter Larsen: 23:03

Um, I made the decision then to like make sure I have that balance where I'm still having fun when I'm watching the game, I'm still, you know, enjoying being out in those crowds and in those arenas, and if I'm ever not, I'll just go off in the mountains somewhere, right, I've made sure I found that balance.

Porter Larsen: 23:19

And doing it in in Utah, I think, is important, cause I don't know if I could find that balance If I didn't have this escape, this, this land that I know so well to, to go out every day and enjoy. I don't know if I would, I would be able to find that balance. So, for sure, I actually almost feel like, although I've, you know, I've had certain few opportunities elsewhere to to go cover different sports or different teams, I've never had a inclination or a motivation to leave Salt Lake because cover a team I'm familiar with. You know, a lot of my family grew up loving these teams and these universities, so there was, there was never a real motivation to leave and and I guess that's kind of what's what's kept me here is that it's a good place to be able to have that balance.

Erik Nilsson: 24:06

And it's like an interesting thing too, cause, like a lot of people would be like, well, why? What if you got the opportunity to go to LA and cover like all of that? Or what if you could?

Porter Larsen: 24:12

go to. I love LA. I love Santa Monica. I go there every almost annually for the Rose Bowl, but if I'm there for 48 hours I start to feel a little crazy.

Erik Nilsson: 24:24

And like what I was going to say is it's like it's also like this is no longer like something you have to settle for, like there's a lot of things going on and a lot of cool like beats to cover, like I do want to be here.

Porter Larsen: 24:33

That's the other part. It's not like, why would you cover sports in Utah? I'm like, well, I also do some work. When these kids are done playing college, shout out to my my good buddy Skylar, main, uh in the draft preparation, right? So Britton Covey, zach Moss, all these guys you hear the second, they're done with college football, they're done at the university of Utah. The time between that and the draft, the combine pro days they spend with with my buddy Skylar and I helped with with a lot of that. Right, and it's it's. It's not something where you're settling for, uh, covering mediocre sports. We have the most NFL draft picks per capita in the world. Right, it's football. So in the country, more NFL players per person come out of Utah than anywhere besides Florida, alabama and Mississippi even beats Texas, even.

Erik Nilsson: 25:33

California. Those two were the ones that were going through my head. I was like, yeah, that checks out.

Porter Larsen: 25:39

And you have an NBA team who they're in a down year, they're in a down process, but I hope that fans understand why that is. I hope that they understand that in today's NBA, the middle is purgatory. The middle is where you want to avoid. There's a very intentional reason for what they're doing now and they actually have a potential of being really, really good If this plan comes to fruition. They're bringing in a hockey team that is in kind of a similar position. They're not good right now, but they have a lot of really young pieces that are good. They have a lot of draft picks, a lot of assets to. If they hire the right people, if they bring the right people in into the organization, they can be awfully good in three or four years, byu Utah moving to the big 12, having you know at least for now, with whatever college football looks like in the next five, 10 years, a good landing spot with access to the college football playoff.

Porter Larsen: 26:37

Real Salt Lake is a team who won an MLS cup in the last 15 years. I mean, this isn't a market where you feel like you're stretching when it comes to sports coverage. It may have been that way, you know, before. I would say, 2000,. But around, really, the jazz run you go 1995, 96, 97, the jazz are in the finals. University of Utah is in the final four. Two years after that, the Olympics are here. Two years after that, the University of Utah hires Urban Meyer right, they go to the Fiesta Bowl and go undefeated. They bring in Kyle Whittingham right after that. He goes to the Sugar Bowl and goes undefeated.

Porter Larsen: 27:17

Four years later, rsl wins the MLS. The year after that, right. The year after that, utah gets admitted into the Big 12 or the Pac-12. And then we've had this steady, steady growth where this is a legitimately awesome sports market and to enter it in it was about 2017, uh, and have my whole career so far covering this story in this sports market's been. It's been awesome and, like you said, yeah, it's. It's by no way, uh, settling for anything. Yeah, I could go cover the knicks, who I'm a big fan of, go to some big market and live in a big city with all the stars, but you're going to get just as many cool storylines in in a place like this and especially at a time like this.

Erik Nilsson: 28:04

Yeah, no, I totally agree. It's been fun to see I mean it's fun to have like that Um, uh, oh, my gosh timeline of Utah sports and then, like it's like, sometimes, if you don't bring that timeline out, you don't realize how cool it was for that 10, 12 years.

Erik Nilsson: 28:20

No, it's so interesting.

Erik Nilsson: 28:21

I do kind of want to pick them all apart a little bit one by one, but, and kind of start with because it's interesting, because Utah doesn't have a big hockey presence, which is wild to me because we are the winter capital, greatest snow on earth, we've had the Olympics here.

Erik Nilsson: 28:36

Yeah, like I've never understood that. Like I remember when I did summer sales in Texas like you know, I mean they do it here now, but they used to. They do it in like Texas and other schools where they have signs outside the house of, like my son plays football, did this and I'd see these hockey signs I was like the hell, you mean, you play hockey, this is Texas. And then understood more as it came by. I was like, okay, like I get it, but like why don't we have this? Like my sister played hockey all growing up with boys and like I saw it. But like again, like I don't really have any close friends that played hockey in the same way where it is in all these other markets. So I'm so excited that we have another reason to get more excited behind it and support that with the NHL coming.

Porter Larsen: 29:13

And this is a conversation that's happening in, like all sports right now. Right, we're talking about women's basketball having a moment, having a moment because there's infrastructure in place, there's support behind it, there's something there, there's a, there's a starting point. You, you don't have it until you have a starting point. Right, you don't have a hockey market until you have hockey here. Um, we, we.

Porter Larsen: 29:33

Soccer was the same way. How much soccer was in Utah before RSL? There were big schools had a soccer team. I played two, I was into a. There was like a couple schools that had soccer teams. Roland Hall, um, our school actually, I think, created a soccer team not long before I was there. So it was, it was starting, it was, it was becoming a thing.

Porter Larsen: 29:54

But you know, it was a lot of clubs, right, as far as the universities go, they had a club team, not a soccer team, not a NCAA team. And once that institution is in place, they have an Academy, they have fans, they have kids watching their games on Saturdays, wanting to play on Monday and Tuesday, and then you get a community that that follows suit. Now, there's always going to be some people. Right, there was always a couple kids that played hockey that I knew in camas, but they had to go travel to denver to play in these tournaments. They had to go practice and find ice time um in park city at the olympic arena, where, when no one else was using it, there wasn't a organized infrastructure in place for them to play hockey, so it never grew, it never got the chance to grow.

Porter Larsen: 30:45

Now that there's a team here, that's going to happen more and more, just like you saw with RSL and with soccer here. But it takes time. That's the other thing. Right, it does take time to really get that going. What I don't think will take much time is the fan part. Oh no, I think folks are really excited and once they see soccer or see hockey in person, it's a different story.

Erik Nilsson: 31:07

Utahns are some very easily entertained people. Yeah, and it's a great thing, because hockey is something like if, cause I'm not the biggest sports person, like I don't, I'm not the person who comes home every day and like sees what's on and watches a game, right, but you put me in a hockey arena and I will be the most excited person there. It's fast.

Porter Larsen: 31:24

It's physical, it's loud. I have pretty undiagnosed ADHD. I haven't oh, I have diagnosed.

Erik Nilsson: 31:33

ADHD, I got you.

Porter Larsen: 31:34

I don't adhd, I got you, I don't. I'm so adhd, I don't need the diagnosis. Pretty much where we're at like, tell me what I don't know, I'm like I don't, I'm not, I'm, I don't take medications at all, so I'm like I'm not interested in necessarily diagnosing it. Pretty sure, pretty sure, I got you doctor. Yeah, um, for me, a lot of times it gets to intermission and then I forget that I'm watching a hockey game. That part is adjusting to that. They take like two full 15 plus minute breaks during the game. As a guy who watches basketball and then fast forward right to the third quarter, that's. That's something I have to adjust to. But during the game it is as entertaining, as fast as fun is any sport that I've I've watched and I I am not a hockey guy either. I'm definitely not hockey hockey expert, like I've had to do with soccer. I'm going to have to start learning and watching it because I'm gonna have to start covering it. Yeah, um, but I'm excited to do that as well because it is on TV. Sometimes it can be hard to follow because it is so fast, the puck is so small. Uh, if you don't know the rules, it's confusing at first, but once you go in person, I think you're going to have a different feel of the sport. Uh, you're, and you're going to go back and you're going to watch them on tv. You're going to go buy the jerseys.

Porter Larsen: 32:43

That's the other part that I'm curious about, though. Yeah, marketing, um, image and a first impression are huge in sports. So what ryan smith and what this group unveils as we know, the coyotes are not coming in that form, which I think is unfortunate, because that's an awesome logo. I do like it what they unveil is going to be really important, because that is a huge part of today's sports world is the product you're putting out, the digital part of it, right, and the brand. People want to wear your brand. They're not going to wear it if it's ugly Exactly had some lessons there in that regard in the last few years, yeah, so I'm interested to see how they go about that, because it is a whole new franchise. They don't have the jazz mountain jerseys they can lean on to look at. They've got to build something from the bottom up and seeing what comes to fruition. There is something I'm interested to see.

Erik Nilsson: 33:40

Yeah, and it's. It's interesting to see kind of these examples that we've had in recent memory of of uh cities getting an NHL team. I mean we have Vegas, who Vegas has wrapped their arms around every chance They've done really good with that product.

Porter Larsen: 33:53

Yeah, like every single person, which, yeah, very good product.

Erik Nilsson: 33:55

Yeah, like every single person which yeah, which, yeah, always helps, and I so I'm excited for that because I do feel like Utahns we've. I mean there's always these side conversations that get togethers and gatherings or whatever, where it's like, if we could have another pro sports team, what would it be? Cause it couldn't be the NFL for obvious reasons and kind of going down that talk track. And now it's like actually here and it's like well, are you ready to go to games? Are you ready to support this? And fundamentally I think so because, like when I was living in Seattle, that was a fun sports city because I mean, if there's a soccer game on, everybody had their scarves on, if everybody wears Seahawks colors on Friday, like it's just so embedded in it.

Erik Nilsson: 34:30

And I think Utah is ready to become that sort of city. And I mean you look at it now. I mean Utah has like a lot of reasons to be divided in a lot of ways, but there's things that bring. Well, I guess Utah and BYU sports bring people equally as a part. But everybody loves the jazz and so the more that we can have these like iconic teams and brands bringing people together and saying like, yeah, I don't care, like, do you want to watch the game. Do you want to go? Do this.

Porter Larsen: 35:05

And just just something else, to have a little bit more of that community within it, right, um, and I like that you bring that up because it is, it is a a team that can be statewide, it can be. Everyone in this, uh, in this metro can come and support this team and, yeah, it doesn't have to include a rivalry or any of that vitriol. Um, I'm and I'm excited how well they come together, not at first, at first, you know, first season they're going to sell that place out. They're going to there's going to be a lot of excitement. But, as we've talked about, this is a team that's in a rebuild. They're not going to be great for a few years. So, if it's a you know, a bad hockey team without a history in this city, without the 30 plus years of Jerry Sloan and Quinn Snyder and now Will Hardy and you know Larry Miller and Ryan Smith, without this built-in fandom, what does it look like after two or three years?

Porter Larsen: 35:51

What is the staying power? And I think that will actually tell us a lot about these other questions we have about baseball, about the olympics, about uh, people have mentioned football. I would, I would be head over heels. Don't think that's happening. Yeah, um, I don't know if you guys have seen utah in january, but I am interested because it would tell us a lot about how ready utah for the real big time, not just supporting one team in the jazz, not just supporting your college in BYU or Salt Lake, but supporting a complicated mix of several different professional sports franchises, uh, in a way that that Denver has, that Seattle has, uh, without having quite those populations. I'm curious to see how that goes.

Erik Nilsson: 36:40

And I'm also curious to you because it's interesting that we have our face and obviously we don't know the timelines of both of them, but looking ahead and seeing an NHL and an MLB team and with NHL there's a lot of momentum and traction in NHL right now so many people are becoming fans. One of my good friends who lives in Portland he went back home to visit his family in Minnesota, took his wife and two kids to a hockey game. His wife fell in love with it. His kids were screaming because they didn't want to leave, and so now they're like diehard hockey fans and so you kind of see that happening. But I feel like the optimistic trajectory that the NHL has it's almost the opposite. With the MLB and so, and also with the MLB and so, and also with the MLB, it's so much more of a marathon of a season and very different business, and so I'm curious to how much we can not just like, support both, but what's going to drive success for both of those teams here and make them feel supported?

Porter Larsen: 37:30

Right, and it's. It's not just about putting fans in the seats, right. It's about corporate money, it's about contracts, it's about the the availability of all of those things in a market. It dries up, it it runs out at some point right.

Porter Larsen: 37:45

Look at the PAC 12, right? If you have 12 pro sports teams in your market but you don't have enough restaurants and insurance companies to sponsor them, those teams are going to go under, those teams are going to relocate. They're not going to, they're not going to last long. So, um, that's why I do think that this is a very good litmus test. This, this hockey experiment for baseball, right? Um, even though they're in very different places as far as the leagues go, I think that's more of a overarching conversation about the sport, about the business of the sport. The market's going to dictate that differently in every city, and Utah has a decent baseball following, probably better than hockey, probably better than than stalker for a while.

Erik Nilsson: 38:31

I mean you go, I mean you lived in St George. I mean to me, when I go to St George, this is a baseball city because of the weather and a lot of things, and so I feel like there is because I completely agree, I think there's more people. If you were to pull the state, be like, how many of you played baseball, how many of you played hockey? I think baseball would be a resounding larger number. But yeah, it's like there's so many reasons to say both would succeed for different reasons.

Porter Larsen: 38:52

And that's why I think it's interesting that Ryan got this to the finish line so quickly because, as I mentioned, those corporate dollars do dry up those. You know, these things happen in very like unpredictable timelines, right? Sometimes, uh, uh, an owner of a team is going bankrupt. It has to liquidate his assets for reasons that you have no clue of a la rsl a couple years ago. Right, there's there's a lot of reasons where the wheels could start turning for a change in in baseball, and the millers are ready for that as far as you know, striking when the iron's hot, like ryan did.

Porter Larsen: 39:34

But I I wonder if there was a race to the finish line, because they know this market is somewhat limited.

Porter Larsen: 39:41

Just because of how many people here, right, how many sponsorships there are available out there, I think that getting to the finish line first is actually huge, because for the Millers now there's less for the taking in those regards, right, there's, uh, there's just not as much on the table to make the MLB to to make the decision makers. They're attracted to your market because there's one other competitor now here in the NHL. Uh, so I do wonder if, even though a lot of folks see these as like, even though a lot of folks see these as like parallel trains, right, where we're going towards NHL, we're going towards MLB and they're working together. I almost feel like there may be a pull in the opposite direction where, because Ryan made this happen so quickly, we may now not see baseball here because there isn't that incentive, isn't that urgency. There is now another pro sports team here. Um, now, if it's a resounding success and there is a lot of money on the table and this is a team that's winning a title in a couple years, then baseball be like hell.

Erik Nilsson: 40:51

Yeah, salt lake's burgeoning, yeah we'll go there actually with ryan, like we don't know that, yeah, exactly, and it's like in kind of going into something we talked about before. I mean, ryan is in such a unique situation where, let's say, nhl is a massive success, mlb is like, hey, we see this, like, if we can make this happen, let's do it. Like Ryan is so much more able to personally do it than I mean with Larry being like okay, I will take loans. I think this is a good thing, and that I mean translates to speed, because if long as you're the one making the decisions on everything and you have the money to do it, then there's no other person that needs to really get involved. And so, yeah, I'm curious about how it's going to go.

Porter Larsen: 41:25

Now the timeline with baseball is different, because they don't want to expand right now. Yeah, they want to figure out Tampa Bay, figure out Oakland, and then they have a potential lockout and CBA they have to figure out. It's not until after that that they're going to add another team and for that reason the Millers didn't have the option to expedite the process. Right, you can't jump all of those things in line. Yeah, the the pro baseball world is way too big to, uh, you know, have them adjust to, to the whims of a family who wants baseball and daybreak, right? Um, that's something that would happen in 2030 or so. So there's also now.

Porter Larsen: 42:07

If you're the Millers, you're looking at the jazz, you're looking at the NHL team, you're looking at properties that you used to own and you're really hoping that they succeed and succeed well, because if they don't, you're not getting a baseball team. Right, if this NHL thing is not a success, if the Jazz are in the dumps for the next three years and this rebuild doesn't work at all, this market's not going to have the appetite for more sports. Now, if BYU and Utah go and have success in the Big 12, if we do secure the Olympic bid stay tuned next month for that, if NHL and the Jazz is a, you know, a net positive over the next five or 10 years, there's a much likelier scenario of baseball coming here, yeah.

Erik Nilsson: 42:53

So it's also interesting that they're the Millers, who have all this ready, who have a plan kind of at the, you know, at the mercy of all of these other things which are out of, and I'm curious too with I mean let's transition over to the Big 12 conversations. I mean I'm curious from your perspective of what you think this is going to mean outside of us being one of the best football teams in the conference and us traveling a lot more. It is going to be different.

Porter Larsen: 43:32

I'm going to miss the LA and Seattle and it was a pretty great travel trip. The Pac-12 was perfect for that. I am excited to see some of these, uh, these college towns that I've never been to like, uh, Oklahoma state and Boone. Pickett stadium is a historic venue right there. There's some cool parts about the big 12, but, um, you're going to have to adjust to the travel. Uh, you're going to have to adjust to this calendar, which, for me, is guy who's on pregames going to have to be up at like 7am for pregame shows pretty, pretty often. Uh, that'll be an adjustment. But the football you got to be really optimistic If you're a Utah fan, especially in 2024, 2025, you have a team coming back that has every tool in the toolbox to win that conference will they?

Porter Larsen: 44:19

that's a different question up to health, up to a whole bunch of different variables, and I do want to let utah fans know that you know, maybe didn't watch big 12 ball or some of the other pack 12 teams. Kansas state's going to be good. K Kansas is actually going to be pretty good. Arizona looked pretty good at the end of the year. I know there's some things that have changed there in the time since you always have to be up to play your rival in BYU, whether they're good or not. This year they're going to play you really well.

Erik Nilsson: 44:53

It's always a different game.

Porter Larsen: 44:55

There's teams that are going to make it tough on you. It's always a different game. There's teams that are going to make it tough on you. Mike Gundy and Oklahoma State are still in the Big 12. He's as consistent in that conference as Kyle Whittingham has been in the Pac-12.

Erik Nilsson: 45:03

Yeah, good comparison.

Porter Larsen: 45:04

Not going to be an easy out on any given Saturday. So I do think that they're in a position where they can be really, really good. But we're also in a kind of a weird spot with Utah where it feels like kind of a last stand for what they have right now. Right, whittingham is no more than five years away from retirement. Yeah, cm Rising is in his sixth, seventh senior year, right, grant Keithy you look at their roster and they're very much lining up to go into this first 12 team playoff intentionally. But it also does kind of feel like after that, not sure what it looks like. I don't think kyle retires after this year, but I don't think there's a huge window after that.

Porter Larsen: 45:53

Um, and, and what college football looks like at large, five, ten years down from the road, down the road, I think it is still in question. You, you have a good landing spot right now with the big 12, yeah, but there's a lot of rumors that that's not something that's going to be here in five to ten years. Right, just like the pac-12 was. That was a uh a. It wasn't the only thing that's going to happen when it comes to conference realignment, and I think it was jarring for a lot of folks, because the PAC 12 literally fell under all the way outside of the two schools that are remaining there. Yeah, but it wasn't new.

Porter Larsen: 46:30

The whack, the big East you go back through the history of college sports, this is the conferences that have disappeared. Right, this is not new and it's a trajectory that's going towards some sort of college football super league, um, and that's going to look a whole lot different than the big 12. And that's not that far on the horizon. If you talk to folks like Kyle, uh, that's, that's kind of the thought that this is the direction that the college sports is going in, and and so, short-term, you should be really excited about the Utes and the Big 12. Long term, I don't know what the Utes look like, I don't know what the Big 12 looks like. I don't know what college football looks like, which is kind of crazy to say as someone who gets paid to cover college football but there's no other answer because they're in courtrooms every other day. They're going through antitrust lawsuits that are going to dictate the direction this goes, and we don't know what direction that is until until we get more info.

Erik Nilsson: 47:23

Yeah, I mean so much dust to settle Cause, I mean with the PAC 12 going under, I mean it's not like that's it Everything's over.

Porter Larsen: 47:30

We're good now.

Erik Nilsson: 47:30

It's just going to be normal for the domino effect and we don't even know what dominoes are falling, how and when, right until they start to. So yeah, I mean I'm optimistic about it. I think it's going to be fun to have because I mean, we were in the pack 12 long enough. You're like okay, yeah, okay, this again we're back down here, back to do this run in the pack.

Porter Larsen: 47:48

12 too. Yeah, I mean, that's a historic conference and utah ran it's leasman football.

Erik Nilsson: 47:53

They ran that thing for the last half decade, oh yeah we showed up and up and I mean I can't think of a season, because I was talking to someone about this Cause. Like my pipe dream for Utah is to once again become a Nike school and I'm like, if you're like proposing Utah to, I mean it could be whatever partnership you want to. It's like look at our football team. We're one of the few teams that has consistently been in the top 25 for the past decade been in the top 25 for the past decade.

Porter Larsen: 48:17

You look at the modern football and I look at, I like to look at the playoff era because it's it's a little more parody, it's apples and apples.

Porter Larsen: 48:26

Yeah, gives you a good market delineation and it kind of coincided with Utah coming to the, the PAC 12, and I'm going to. I'm going to pull up that list, please. I if I can find my. I'm going to. I'm going to pull up that list, please. I if I can find my. I'm not going to pull up the list cause I don't know where my phone is.

Porter Larsen: 48:43

Um, if you look at the, the all time appearances in the college football playoff right, the, the, the top 25, where it's the committee that's picking the final four, uh, the appearances in the in that ranking it's Georgia, alabama appearances in that ranking it's Georgia, alabama, oregon, ohio State, clemson and Utah. Those are the top seven schools and I didn't bring up the list. So you're going to have to maybe test me on this and fact check me. It's a very close combination here of those seven schools with the most appearances in that ranking. They are the most consistent school on the West Coast outside of maybe Oregon, and year in, year out they're competitive in a Power 5 conference and are going to continue to be so. So, yeah, I mean, there's no reason to believe that's going to stop anytime soon as well with a big 12 edition. So I I'm excited to see how they continue that without a kyle whittingham. But again, that's a conversation for years down the road big shoes to fill.

Erik Nilsson: 49:44

I'm curious how those are going to go to you and like there's always one fact that I mean they always say like every game over the past 10 years, but for some reason it's like never made an impact on me until like now. But I mean you go to any football game. It's like, oh, we just sold out for the number of whatever 60 something game in a row and every game since 2010 season over.

Erik Nilsson: 50:05

Yeah, and like cause. You can look at it, be like cool, everybody shows up to games, we don't have sports, whatever. But then you start to look at all these other places where, again, they have a down year or they're not ranked or they start to have something bad happen and fans aren't there. And you see that, like the one that always comes to mind to me is like Florida State, like if they're doing great, it's jam packed, if they're not doing great, it's empty. And so I think that's the side of Utah fans that I'm excited to see.

Porter Larsen: 50:27

I did miss a school. Okay. So as of the end of this last regular season, the most appearances in the college football playoff top 25, tied at the first, is Alabama, ohio State, clemson, oklahoma that was the one I missed Notre Dame, georgia, utah.

Erik Nilsson: 50:44

So those are the top six and it's like you look at all of those and you're like now, which one of you doesn't feel like it belongs Right, and it's Utah.

Porter Larsen: 50:51

You're like now, which one of you doesn't feel like it belongs? Right, and it's Utah. It is Utah. They've proven they belong, but they now want to and this is Kyle's last stand is prove that they don't belong, but that they can go out and compete with those teams, not in a sugar bowl, not in a one off fiesta bowl. They want to go do it in the playoff and that, with this playoff, they're gonna they're going to have a at least a good chance to get there, uh, and that's an exciting prospect for for fans here.

Erik Nilsson: 51:19

Yeah, and especially you're talking about with the roster coming back and I I feel like cam's gonna come out with a chip on his shoulder and really want to prove something. I mean it's his last, like literally his last stand before he potentially goes to the league and if I mean he is always someone that delivers under well, not always delivers under pressure, but pretty consistently, yeah pretty consistent when, when he hasn't, it's usually been because of injury, like to be fair, yeah, no, completely right.

Erik Nilsson: 51:43

So I think it's again, with the increase of odds of getting the playoff, because it's expanded, mixed with our unique situation, we find ourselves in with like an objectively easier conference. Granted, there's still people to be worried about, right, and then, uh, have those, all those three factors like, yeah, like stars are aligned, we can probably do this and if we get loose, we get to the. I like to think we'd be like a LeBron James of playoffs, where it's like, as long as we get in, we'll probably get to the finals, but we'll see Zero, dark, 30 or whatever.

Porter Larsen: 52:15

Lebron goes into playoff mode. Exactly did it last night. He's almost 40, it's still doing. It's ridiculous, uh.

Porter Larsen: 52:18

But yeah, I mean they are a team that feels like they. You know when the pressure's on they're built for more of that style of football. Right, it's physical, you can run the ball, you play good defense. Right, it's not a game where it feels like a a track meet, where you've seen a lot of big 12 teams go from winning that conference and then go to the playoff and get their doors blown off of them like oklahoma, because they don't feel like they have that identity to match up with in alabama. Yeah, utah does feel like they resemble that more, but they still don't necessarily have the five-star kid on every position that Alabama has, that Georgia has. So you're still an underdog.

Porter Larsen: 52:59

But because of the way that Kyle Whittingham builds his teams physically, you match up better, I think, with the teams that you probably would be contending with in a national conversation, would be contending with in a national uh conversation. Now you have to get through the big 12. You have to get through whatever the playoff looks like before that for that to be a conversation. But yeah, your point is well taken. They they do feel, even though they look out of place on that list, they're there for a reason because the idea, uh, the identity and the, the kind of way they play football totally and kind of want to pivot.

Erik Nilsson: 53:30

So we talked a lot about near term stuff with, I mean, the big 12 being rolled out, nhl staring in the face. But there's also a lot of traction with long-term more of the Olympics, which sounds like it's part of the Ryan Smith plan of sports in Utah. But I mean, what else do you think we need? I mean needs to happen or it is kind of on this to-do list between now and then to get ready for that kind of on this to-do list between now and then to get ready for that this.

Porter Larsen: 53:54

This is where the earlier conversation of kind of like the responsible growth, the you know, keeping in mind the parts of our state that are are historical and and you know the base of our state of sport and that way, for a reason.

Porter Larsen: 54:08

Um, this is the part where that comes into play. Where you know, I do want to see Salt Lake put on a good show and put on a good face and be the world stage of sports for that year. I think it would be awesome for me, as it's done responsibly, where you know you're not just throwing a gondola in the canyon to get people up to an event you know a few times a year, you're not using public funding for a bunch of very private or, you know, very temporary things. Right, there's a way that we can look at the Olympics 10 years away and use that momentum, use that money, use that attention that's going to be here, use that influx on the economy to do things that help us beyond 2034, when the Olympics are here. Right, the the investment in public infrastructure and public transport in 2002 is still seen today. Track, we can run, runner, we can advance upon that.

Porter Larsen: 55:21

Um, I I really wish that this is a much larger conversation than just salt lake, but it's as a country is globally. We understood what we had in rail travel. Right, there used to be a train that ran through Salt Lake, up Sugar House, up Parley's Canyon, into Deer Valley. There used to be a train that did that, by the way, it ran up through Park City, old Town. If we had that today, go up the back of the canyon to Guardsman, to the other resorts as well, we'd be set. You wouldn't need a gondola, you wouldn't need an extra bus lane, you wouldn't need to fight about it in the state capital. I hope that, specifically, rail travel is seen as something that can help the Olympics. That is also a sustainable, a responsible and common sense approach to solving a lot of the issues we have both in like a day-to-day thing air quality, energy and it can make it very easy and really great for the Olympics, right. I don't know how likely that is, I don't know how real that possibility is, but stuff like that is the bigger picture questions that we have surrounding the Olympics. That, I think, is really cool.

Porter Larsen: 56:46

Now, just the games, just zeroing in on getting the olympics here, that would be awesome for every entity of sports here, every entity of business here, uh, it's a huge, huge benefit to to the economy, uh, and there's a much bigger conversation for what it brings to the city.

Porter Larsen: 57:08

But, as we've seen with other olympics usually the summer olympics that go to like a third world country that, granted, needs that economy and needs that influx of money. But they go there and they build a giant stadium and then it's it's abandoned or 40 migrant workers die building it and no one ever hears about it, and then no one ever uses that place for the next 40 years and you have a giant concrete structure that you just demolished a forest for and that's it for the next. It just crumbles For eternity, right? No, it doesn't. I know Salt Lake's not going to do that. I know that that's not something we have. We already have a lot of the Olympic infrastructure in place. The motivation for the projects that go into the Olympics are also well thought out for the residents and the people who actually live here.

Erik Nilsson: 58:00

Yeah, and I was talking with Eva Lopez Chavez earlier this week about it and I mean that's kind of like top of mind for her because, again, like I mean I think the one that's the most famous is like the Sarajevo Olympics, where they put all of this stuff in and then, as soon as it was over, just left it behind. And I mean, like even in China and the Beijing games, like they built like the jump to do, like the big air jump in, like skiing and snowboarding. It's like we don't need to do all of these things, especially where we already have it, like let's do it.

Porter Larsen: 58:26

They didn't have snow, yeah, and they did the winter Olympics there. Now that's also a conversation, right, that we need to have because, if you know, if we continue down the path of where we're going, there are a lot of projections that say there's not going to be much snow in Utah in 10, 15 years, right? Um, and I know that that's a lot of people like, ah, you see, the winter last year, yeah, two good winters does not offset 50 years of what we're in. It's a pretty major drought historically. So that's also a conversation where and the Olympic Committee's actually made this mandatory for Salt Lake to come here or for the Olympics to come here, is there is a clean air, basically a bar that we have to cross to bring the Olympics here. We can't just be a smog city the week of the Olympics or they're not going to do it.

Erik Nilsson: 59:20

Yeah, like that's not how it works.

Porter Larsen: 59:22

That's part of the plan, so I hope that all of that comes to fruition and is executed with good faith.

Erik Nilsson: 59:30

Yeah.

Porter Larsen: 59:30

Because I do know that putting that in legislation sounds good, putting that in writing sounds good, tweeting it out sounds good. A lot of times there is not a lot of good faith execution from the people who run the state. So that's. That's another consideration.

Erik Nilsson: 59:46

And I do like that because, again, like there is I mean you talk to everyone, no matter their political affiliation, and it's, I mean, a smorgasbord of we need to do everything right now. And people are like, well, it's been there for so long, it's not going anywhere. And it's so funny because, like to your point, like legislation has been able to help, private hasn't been able to help, but it's like how about we hold these Olympics over your head and maybe we can start to come up with some solutions which I, I mean I wish that we didn't have to have, like this dick slash carrot to make us do it, but at the same time, like, as I get fixed, like it will be okay it's.

Porter Larsen: 1:00:19

It's hard because I understand the need for growth, for development, for all of these things, but deep down, like, I am a staunch conservationist. Yeah, so my interest with the sports stuff that's going on right now and my interest with, like, my real life passions are completely conflicting. It's a weird dynamic to see that. But there is also a way to develop responsibly. There's also a way where you can do it without causing those issues. Right, and I do hope that that's part of the mindset.

Porter Larsen: 1:00:51

With the Ryan Smith, with the Olympic Committee, with all these people that are trying to make these things happen, we can do it in tandem. Right, I do work with a couple of nonprofits that conserve land, that try to conserve wildlife. We can get these people in the same rooms, right, we can. We can talk and and and try to find things, uh, in a happy medium where, uh, both sides are at least somewhat pleased, right, um, but you know, actually making that happen is a is a different conversation, especially when you know you're getting kind of locked out of rooms in Capitol Hill, in saying that figuratively.

Porter Larsen: 1:01:37

Right, it's not always black and white in how all those operations happen. So it's a weird dynamic, but I have um hopeful optimism that there are people in place that'll hopefully try to to keep those folks accountable and hopefully those, those folks who are trying to make all these awesome changes happen, um have some, some motivation to do it responsibly. And I this a especially with Ryan, like it's a downtown thing, right, it's, it's, it's. It's something where you can do it in the right way without uh disrupting any any you know our natural wonders or anything. So that's, that's a good part about it, uh, but uh, yeah, I'm interested to see how that all all plays out.

Erik Nilsson: 1:02:26

Yeah, me too. I mean a lot of cause again, like when the Olympics came in 2002, I mean that's when we got tracks, that's when we got, like the quote, spaghetti bowl.

Porter Larsen: 1:02:34

All intertwined, All of these things helped this foundation for the next round of growth, Getting the renovations at Rice Cycle Stadium was, and the recent ones, part of that was with the Olympics in mind, right. So it's all intertwined. It's all interconnected almost to a point where it's so complicated it's hard to follow and that's why I'm like almost at a loss for words of where to, yeah, where to go with all of it, because it is, it is kind of pulling in so many different directions and so intertwined?

Erik Nilsson: 1:03:03

no, totally. I know we've talked about a lot of a lot of sports topics, but I mean I guess kind of the last big one and obviously just wrapped up with jazz um, not the best season, but, like you kind of talked about me, we're rebuilding, we're not planning for this year, not next year, but but years from now. Uh, I mean, what are you looking forward to? Or what do you think kind of those next steps are for the jazz?

Porter Larsen: 1:03:22

yeah, with the jazz, right now they are, they're in a good position to strike. As we talked about ryan, with getting the coyotes, jazz are in a position to get a really good piece, a really good player, because of the assets that they have. Right, so many draft picks, bunch of young players, um, whether it's by trade, whether it's through the draft, uh, they're. They're positioned to be really good in three, four, five years. Right, but in order to get there, they have to make the right moves along this path. Now, the part where you can be optimistic there is that Danny Age has done this before Different way. Right, you're in a big market in Boston. You have more resources, more ability to probably lure free agents to you in Boston, so you have to do it differently in Utah.

Porter Larsen: 1:04:17

But Danny age is a, an executive that has shown the ability to create a championship team, um, and he's a guy who will do just about anything to to do it. We've we've seen him trade Isaiah Thomas the day his sister died Right, we we saw him trade Donovan Rudy within a week. Like, this is a guy who doesn't care what the feelings are in the locker room. He's going to pull the trigger that he thinks makes them a better basketball team and if he does pull the right strings over the next two or three years, they have positioned themselves similarly to, I would say, where OKC is a couple years ago. Right when now. Because they had all of those top 10, top 15 draft picks, they've got a Shea Gilgis-Alexander, they've got all these young pieces, youngest team to ever get, a number one seed in the West, and they're not going anywhere.

Porter Larsen: 1:05:11

Yeah, they're going to be good for a good while, right, so the Jazz are positioned to be that in a few years. But that is, of course, only accomplished if you hit on these draft picks, if you go out and get that free agent. Um, and the timing of the NBA is is so funny that you just never know when that happens. You never know when Luke is going to decide he wants to leave, or you know, uh, giannis and the bucks get bounced in the first round and he's all of a sudden on the trade block. You never know. Yeah, you really never know in in those scenarios when it comes to to pro basketball.

Porter Larsen: 1:05:44

So, uh, I was at the jazz end of season media availability, got to talk to Danny, for he took 45 minutes out of his day to just talk about the off season plans, and that was kind of the main takeaway I got from him was you can't have a concrete plan. Right, you have a blueprint, you have some, some routes you want to follow, but the NBA is way too unpredictable to think that you're going to have a plan and follow it, because there's going to be a roadblock, there's going to be a, an opportunity for a player here, there's going to be a player that gets bought out late in the season, maybe when you're just on the cusp of being good, that he might bring you over the edge. So what I got from him is that they want to be versatile. They want to be uh, you know, have optionality and where they are with their contracts, with their, their salary cap positioning, they're. They're where Danny wants to be.

Porter Larsen: 1:06:39

Um so I'm curious. He said uh, he said during the press conference that they they might go big game hunting this year. Which was his, his thought or his way of saying either free agent or trade. If we think it's the right deal, we're going to pull the trigger.

Erik Nilsson: 1:06:53

And it's nice to, regardless of what that means. He's not scared to make the decision, no, and so it's nice to have someone who it's not like this humming and hawing or like hesitancy, is like yeah, this person's here, let's pull the trigger, let's make this happen Right. And also, I think Utah fans are so almost used to the build it like rebuild process, because you have the D Will AK era that made a great run rebuilt and then all of a sudden we had Rudy and, oh my gosh, why can't I think of his name? Donovan Mitchell? There we go.

Porter Larsen: 1:07:27

I thought that was who you were going with.

Erik Nilsson: 1:07:29

I don't want to embarrass him too much on his own podcast. And then we had that and we had a great run, and then it's like back and so I feel like Utah at least has this like memory of being like okay, we've done this enough, right, we can buy it. We get it a little bit.

Porter Larsen: 1:07:41

I think. I think the jazz jazz fans were also spoiled for so long. Oh, that the meatcake. Now you don't have a title, which is a big omission. But outside of the San Antonio Spurs, over the course of the last 25, 30 years, it's a team that wins as consistently as anybody, right? So you've been kind of spoiled with having John Stockton, carl Malone and Jerry Sloan in a consistent franchise for 30 years. This last 10 years has been interesting. Now jazz fans always show up. They always are selling out that arena.

Porter Larsen: 1:08:14

Uh, but I wonder how many of these types of resets, how many of these types of rebuilds they actually can, can stomach? Right, when you have been good for so long, when you, you have been competitive every year, you think that that is realistic, when usually that's not how it works. Usually sports are pro, college, high school, whatever level it is. It's cyclical. You're good, you're bad. You go through these cycles, right? Um, for the jazz, it wasn't that way for 30 years. The only reason that they didn't have titles was because of Michael Jordan, otherwise it would have been a hell of a hell of a run. Um, so hell of a run.

Porter Larsen: 1:08:54

So it's interesting to look at it from that perspective, because I do think that they and they're smart Jazz fans are smart about the game, so they understand what's going on. They know that to get good draft picks you can't be in the middle, you can't be just competitive. The middle is purgatory in the NBA. So I do think that jazz fans are smart enough to understand what's happening, what job is being undertaken. But I do wonder how patient they are and how many times they can do this and how many times they can watch Danny Ainge trade Will Hardy's roster halfway through the season when they're kind of over-performing a little bit. I don't think that there's many of those opportunities to go.

Porter Larsen: 1:09:30

I think that in the next two or three years that they do have to strike while the iron's hot, as we were saying, and really capitalize on all these assets and bring a star here and bring a star here that they can keep here. That's the other part, right, that's the other. Yeah, donovan and rudy, and in that roster they were a one seat in the west. Uh, they were a team that broke a bunch of records. They were really good and just a few pieces away from from being a contender. But it's combining the personnel, combining the players with the chemistry with the off the court stuff, and that is something that dann Danny age can only do so much in that direction. You can draft the right players and they can be the wrong players in the locker room.

Erik Nilsson: 1:10:16

And and uh, you don't know until everyone's yelling at each other. Yeah, which?

Porter Larsen: 1:10:22

behind the scenes.

Erik Nilsson: 1:10:24

Yeah, oh, I mean. Well, it's always funny Cause, like I, am someone who, like analytical, looks at the numbers blah, who, like analytical, looks at the numbers, blah, blah, blah. But then there's this whole other aspect of like chemistry that no one really knows except for what's being it's not quantifiable.

Erik Nilsson: 1:10:36

Right, and it's like even with the I mean they just announced the Olympic basketball team for this year and it's funny because I mean there's been so many documentaries and things made on it it's like, oh, like even. I mean you have like LeBron and Kobe talk about like yeah, like we're going in as this team that we've always played against each other, we're the best players We've never played together, right. And then you go against all these other countries who have been playing together for a decade and they make us look stupid because they have that chemistry and so, yeah, I totally get that. If we pick up the wrong piece, things happen. It sets us back almost massively.

Porter Larsen: 1:11:06

Yeah, I mean, you just look at what happened two years ago, right when you, when you traded rudy and donovan, you kind of had to at that point because of what had transpired in the locker room behind the scenes. But you also had a window there where, if you could have kept things together for another two years, you could have signed that third, fourth piece and had a run. Now, because of the way that rudy's contract was structured and because of the money you were going to have to pay Donovan, that wasn't going to continue regardless. That was going to be a short-term thing because if you, if you look at what Rudy's contract is now, if the jazz had that plus Donovan, plus all the other contracts they had, they would have not been able to sign a free agent. They would have been their roster, would have been that right, the team that we saw three years ago. That was it, um. So it would have been a short window, but they would have had a two year window to try to sign that piece, to try to get over the hump, and the chemistry wasn't there. So that four year window turned into like a one and a half two year window for the jazz, simply because of that chemistry.

Porter Larsen: 1:12:11

Yeah, um, and that's the. That's the next step. And you bring up the, the Olympic team they just announced it that may be the most talented group of basketball players to ever be collected, including the dream team. Yeah, and because of that, they're going to be fine. They're that good, right, um, but that you don't get that, uh, that privilege when you're trying to build a team with a salary cap, with, uh, you know, contracts here and there, with player options, with with team options on the backend of their contracts. It's, it's so much more complicated, uh, but Danny Ainge has done it before, so that's, uh, that's what we're about to find out you know I'm excited to watch, um, I mean, I guess on any other topics of sports, I mean anything else outside.

Erik Nilsson: 1:12:56

I mean we kind of covered everything but anything else. We should pay attention to anything you're following.

Porter Larsen: 1:13:01

That's, that's worth noting no man, I think I think we kind of covered and we did utes big 12, we we went through all of the uh sports angles and in the olympics and I and I think that's kind of summarizes the conversation is the fact that we can go in all of these different directions and have all of these different things to be excited about in this market right now is fun Totally, because we've had moments like this before and if you go back to the late 90s and early 2000s, they were a lot of fun for the sports fans that were here. Yeah, so I'm I'm hoping for similar things in the next five or 10 years, cause they are, you know, they're right there for the taking and it sounds like a lot of it's going to happen.

Erik Nilsson: 1:13:44

Yeah, I'm, I'm with you. There's so much optimism in the air, so much change. If you're a sports fan, you should be foaming at the mouth for everything that's going on, and we're gonna. I mean, it's like. I mean, yeah, it's middle, I mean just got into q2 of 2024. We got a 10-year run ahead of us of a lot of good things to happen. That hopefully echoes the timeline that we went over from late 90s through 2000s to today. So so super excited to to follow it and be a part of it too. But, uh, before we wrap, porter, I want to ask the two questions I always ask people at the end of the show is number one uh, if you could have anybody on the small lake city podcast and hear more about them and what they're up to, who would you want to hear from?

Porter Larsen: 1:14:19

oh, that is a good question. I I need to go through and see who you've had and who you haven't had. You had my friend julian. Come on right, okay, um, I think a fun one would be.

Porter Larsen: 1:14:33

Just from my ecosystem, my sports sphere uh, a guy who used to work in sports radio has a rich history here in the state of Utah, cause he played college football here. He played high school football here but then also went on to be a pro fighter league champion, won a million dollars in a fighting tournament, sean o'connell, uh-huh, yeah, I was trying to put my brain together. Yeah, um, he, he now is espn's commentator. He's the joe rogan for the pro fighters league. He's the. He's not not joe rogan, but he does the, the play by play for the pfl on espn. If you guys recognize the name or you know if, if you've heard of him on on, he was used to be on ESPN 700. He's done Pac-12 radio for years, but his story is super cool.

Porter Larsen: 1:15:18

Local kid grew up here, played football at the University of Utah, played with Alex Smith, played for Urban Meyer and Kyle Whittingham and then, kind of like I did, wanting to stay connected to sports, started broadcasting, started doing radio, started doing all this and in the middle of his radio career he had done MMA before. He was a UFC fighter at one point, but never got to the pinnacle, right, right, he was a about to become a dad. Uh, in his mid thirties, almost 40 years old and almost like a storybook type of a movie type story, just decides to quit his sports radio job and go into a fighting tournament. And if you've seen the, is it the fighter movie where the guy's a teacher and ends up winning? I mean, he wins a million dollars by beating the tar out of kids half his age and becomes a world champion and changes life.

Porter Larsen: 1:16:12

That moment, uh, really cool story, really cool guy. And I'll put you in touch with. Yeah, no, that'd be yeah stoked. I love good story. I have a lot of names I could go, but but sean was the one that came to mind.

Erik Nilsson: 1:16:22

I love it. Yeah, it sounds like the perfect person and he has not been on here yet, so cool, safe, uh. And then, secondly, if people want to, I mean follow you, listen to the show. What's the best place to to find you in the show or listen in? Yeah, I mean for the sports.

Porter Larsen: 1:16:36

The sports stuff I am, you know, on air every day. So if you listen to espn 700 or our website or wherever you listen to radio podcasts, everyone does it differently. True, you can tune in live. You can go on to spotify apple podcast and search for the drive, and, uh, I do the daily show with Spence. Uh, spence check it's over there from two to six every day. That's live where you catch it in the podcast. And then, yeah, I'm, I'm online on Twitter at Larson underscore. Espn Instagram is a lot more of the. We've talked about the outdoor stuff I pretty much just post pictures of of Utah and the wildlife, oh, and they're great to read there. So, um, that's, that's just Porter Larson, my name. It's super easy, but you won't really find much like coverage there.

Erik Nilsson: 1:17:19

It's just my my go to the Twitter sphere. That's the better place for it anyway. Yeah, at least the the Hopefully. If you're anybody who's been curious about what's going on with everything. You have a little bit more of some data points around it and we have a lot to look forward to. It's been a pleasure, thanks for coming on, and excited to have the best run of sports that we could possibly have for the next 10 years.

Porter Larsen: 1:17:41

Thanks for having me, man. I'm looking forward to it. It should be really exciting If you're a sports fan in Utah. The next decade and a half, I think, are going to be really, really interesting but, I, don't necessarily know what that means from a competitive level.

Porter Larsen: 1:18:04

These teams are in peculiar positions and they can go one of two directions right Olympics era, the first years of an NHL franchise, and then the jazz trying to find something. You know, the first time really, since Jerry Sloan and of course, quinn Snyder had that that little run. But uh, there's a lot of storylines that are really, really intriguing, um, and can go in one of many directions. So it's going to be fun and we're going to be along for the ride, so excited to be a part of it too. Thanks for having me. No, thank you.