It seems to me like an apparent double whammy to want to get a new arena built. Hey, you love the Jazz, and we're offering a new NHL team to boot, and it wouldn't hurt to have a new centerpiece for a future olympics. Public monies, please.
That's exactly it. The window of opportunity is open because of the Olympic bid.
There's a lot of wrong ways to do things, and very few right ways to do things. But it makes very little sense to waste $800 million on an arena for one billionaire to play one sport in 41 times a year.
If you're going to invest billions in sports facilities, TRIPLING UP with a new NBA/NHL arena, NHL team, AHL Arena in the area, AHL team and those buildings serving the Winter Olympics is good "bang for your buck."
There’s a tangential curiosity I have… that the IOC has 2032 Brisbane set, but are apparently begging the USOC for Salt Lake 2030 while USOC (citing 2028 LA) is begging 2034. Eh, kill the Olympics.
But to be more realistic…
(1) If you have a Salt Lake ballpark that will undoubtably have < 40,000 seats, while Rice-Eccles Stadium just had some expansion and renovations pushing capacity over 51,000 plus standing room (I was in the stadium record crowd last October), is the ballpark really going to be part of this discussion?
(2) If Vivint is replaced, will the Olympics be Maverik Arena’s swan song?
(3) The Peaks is more Resort-ish rec center than arena… most of the seating was temporary bleachers set over the indoor soccer rink. At the same time, Utah Valley had built an arena that hosts their basketball program, and could have hosted hockey in 2002. Maybe that arena gets used this time.
(4) The Oval has tried to host a bunch of sports, and none of those have worked for long. No permanent seating there (bleachers used for 2002 and most certainly will do that again, right?).
(5) How about varsity hockey at Utah Valley? Or the U? One doesn’t have a facility yet. Don’t want to speculate on BYU.
Well, the thing is, the Olympics need a lot of venues, and the challenge for cities that want to host is building venues for tens or hundreds of millions and then having them be USEFUL within the community for 30 years. We've seen time and time again, the countries who spend BILLIONS on the Olympics or World Cup and then the facilities built for them just rot.
SLC is looking to maximize bang for their buck, and I would think that what specifically happens to Vivint and Maverik are really dependent on how receptive pro sports leagues are.
If they can design a new NBA/NHL/Olympic arena that's really expensive and nice because they know an NHL team is coming... then they have tons of options for what to do with Vivint and Maverik in terms of renovating them for the Olympics and future use; planning on an AHL team in the area (like Provo), that kind of thing.
It's combining the facility needs of the Olympics with local sports teams.
Quite honestly, I wouldn't be too excited about Salt Lake trying to get an NHL team on its own; but seeing a city trying to be the smartest they can be with facilities and sports actually makes me kind of root for them to pull it off.
