Ryan Smith Vows ‘Aggressive’ Push for Utah MLB Expansion Team

Jazz and Mammoth owner Ryan Smith, already in the midst of expanding his pro sports empire, said he plans to be “aggressive” in pursuit of an MLB expansion franchise for Utah.

Speaking with Front Office Sports on the latest episode of Portfolio Players, Smith said he was interested in adding teams to his holdings, including in baseball. 

“Our group will be pretty aggressive in how we pursue sports,” he told FOS’s Dan Roberts. “We do it our own way. We don’t do a lot publicly. I actually think that’s not the way expansion really gets done. Salt Lake’s ready for it, but if you saw how we operated with the NHL, it just happened. We said we wanted the NHL, and a couple of months later, we had a team and we were rolling. The sale of the Angels, it just happened … So we’ll be aggressive if there’s an opportunity there.”

MLB does not yet have a formal expansion process established, but the matter is expected to escalate quickly once the league and MLB Players Association resolve a fractious labor situation. The stadium situations surrounding the Rays and A’s, which previously held up expansion for years, have now been resolved, in turn escalating interest around potential new teams. 

Pricing around MLB expansion is also likely rising in the wake of record-setting sales of the Padres and Angels for $3.9 billion and $4 billion, respectively. 

“There’s a lot of markets in the United States and North America, quite frankly, Canada and Mexico, that would like to add Major League Baseball,” league commissioner Rob Manfred said earlier this year. “When people want your product, I think it’s kind of incumbent on you to try to figure out a way if you can deliver that product to them.”

Manfred said last year at the FOS Tuned In summit that he would like to have two new markets selected before he finishes his tenure in early 2029. Those teams would likely not be on the field before then, though.

Handicapping the Race

Along with Nashville, Salt Lake City has been widely seen as a strong contender for one of two expansion teams. In addition to ongoing population growth and development in the region, the area also has the geographic benefit of being fairly separated from other existing teams or rival expansion candidates.

After buying the Jazz in 2020, Smith brought in the NHL’s former Coyotes franchise in 2024, and later renamed it as the Mammoth. The teams play in a Delta Center in downtown Salt Lake City that Smith is also overhauling, in part to make it more workable for hockey, and both franchises are widely regarded as strong performers across numerous business metrics. 

Smith, however, would likely need to collaborate with The Larry H. Miller Company, named for the late former Jazz owner and the current leader of a coalition, Big League Utah, in seeking an MLB franchise to the state. The Miller Company, which also owns the Triple-A Salt Lake Bees, has an identified stadium site and helped secure $900 million in state funding toward a ballpark should the market land an MLB franchise. 

With expansion, Manfred and MLB are also expected to pursue a radical, geographic-based realignment that would do away with the league’s traditional division structures. 

MLB last expanded with the arrival of the Diamondbacks and Rays in 1998.