This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Back in pre-Jazz days, before the EnergySolutions Arena (and even before the Delta Center), before Junior Jazz and Fanzz stores, before private season-ticket brokerages, scalpers and expensive executive box seats, who would have believed Utahns would ever come to depend so much on a basketball team?
Jazz fans not only plan their weeks during the season around the Jazz schedule, they wait and watch intensely as the team morphs into a new band during off-season trades and roster changes. The question "Will the Jazz get Brigham Young University star Jimmer Fredette in the lottery?" has been more on the minds of many Utahns this summer than whether Jon Huntsman would run for president or Congress would raise the debt ceiling.
So to say that the possibility of an NBA player lockout delaying or even eliminating the 2011-2012 season has fans worried is a gross understatement.
But Jazzmania is more than a psychological phenomenon. For many business owners in Salt Lake City and beyond, it's a matter of money — big money. It's about making a living.
NBA owners officially shut the doors on the players union Thursday, after the two sides failed to budge in their demands. Owners want a bigger percentage of the league profits, shorter guaranteed player contracts and lower salary caps. The details are complicated, but in a nutshell, it boils down to two groups, both of which make embarrassing amounts of money off fans' adoration, deciding to use those fans against each other. It's like a combination of the worst of political partisanship and feuding spouses who use the kids as bargaining chips in a divorce.
Millionaire NBA players and billionaire owners argue over who gets a bigger piece of the humongous NBA revenue pie, disdainful of how their petty disagreements make them appear to people who just enjoy a good basketball game. Meanwhile, the ordinary folks who depend on the Jazz as a major source of their income have much more to lose.
Jazz games bring about 800,000 people to downtown Salt Lake City in an average season. They pay not only for tickets but for things like parking, hotel rooms, restaurant food and drinks, souvenirs and snacks. A full arena means employment for thousands of Utahns.
We Jazz fans have endured huge ticket-price increases, bickering among coaches and players, television network decisions that ignored them. But the NBA can stretch fan loyalty only so far.
C'mon, guys. This has gone far enough. Fans make those obscene paychecks possible. You can't afford to lose us.