The Miller family, the former owners of Utah Jazz, will take over the MLS and NWSL clubs.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Miller family members and other dignitaries pose for a photo after a press conference to announce that the Miller family takes the property of Real Salt Lake and the Royals at the America First Field in Salt Lake City on Friday April 18, 2025.
The Miller family is back in the sports of major leagues.
Five years after the sale of Utah Jazz, the Larry H. Miller Co. took control of Real Salt Lake and the Utah Royals Soccer Clubs.
New York-based investor-based investor, David Blitzer, will go to a minority property role with clubs. But the Millers will have a final decision -making power, ensuring that the team will be controlled by a local group again.
“Local ownership is so important,” said the National Commissioner of the Women’s Football League Jessica Berman. “Connectivity of the Thousands to the Community will make these clubs become what we all know and believe, they can be”.
Utah Jazz and the owner of the Utah hockey club Ryan Smith sold his minority interest in RSL and the Royals as part of the agreement.
In addition to the acquisition of the two professional teams, the Millers will take control of the America First Field and the RSL Academy in Herriman and the Real Monarchs of the Minor League.
The agreement was worth $ 600 million, athletics reported on Friday morning.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Miller family members and other dignitaries pose for a photo after a press conference to announce that the Miller family takes the property of Real Salt Lake and the Royals at the America First Field in Sandy on Friday April 18, 2025.
“My parents invested and bought jazz over 40 years ago because they liked this community and they wanted to see it staying safe, strong and growing up,” said LHM president Steve Miller. “Today, my brothers and me, as well as the members of the next generation of the Miller family, let us share this same passion for sport and for the community, and have the same commitment.”
After sold jazz in 2020, the thousands did not completely leave the sports scene of Utah. The family has the Salt Lake Bees, the Triple-A baseball subsidiary for the Los Angeles Angels. LHM has just opened a new stadium for the organization in Daybreak earlier this month. Larry H. Miller Co. also works to bring a major league baseball club to the Power District of Salt Lake City, having already obtained funding for a professional stadium in the event that MLB attributes a team to them.
But the acquisition of RSL and the Royals will return the thousands in control of a major league team.
“We are again humiliated by this opportunity to become the guards of these franchises; to rely on the solid bases of the inheritance which was built during these decades,” said Steve Starks, CEO of LHM.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Steve Starks, CEO of the Larry H. Miller Company, is expressed during a press conference to announce that the Miller family takes the control of Real Salt Lake and the Royals to America First Field in Sandy on Friday April 18, 2025.
RSL has undergone a number of property changes in recent years. Former owner Dell Loy Hansen sold the team in 2020 in the middle of the scandal. Major League Soccer has taken control of the club while looking for a property group.
The Miller family was then interested in buying the club, the Salt Lake Tribune reported, but it was the Blitzer group which finally assumed the property for $ 400 million.
The late Larry H. Miller owned Utah Jazz for more than 30 years, going back to the 1980s. Miller died in 2009, leaving his wife, Gail Miller, and their children to take over the family business and the NBA organization.
The thousands finally sold jazz to the Smith Entertainment Group in 2020.
“Gail Miller is not only the matriarch of this family. She is the matriarch of this state,” said the governor of Utah Spencer Cox. “When the history of sport in Utah is written, half of the book will be on the Miller family. This is why I am so excited by this investment. ”
