Utah Jazz & Mammoth Owner Explains Path To NHL Team’s New Name | Pat McAfee Show

Utah Jazz & Mammoth Owner Explains Path To NHL Team’s New Name | Pat McAfee Show

I know this was something that was weighing on your mind a lot. How did we get here and how pumped were you for the release and reaction? Seemingly very possible or very positive I mean from everybody. Yeah. Like first of all it’s it’s good to be back guys. It’s been a bit um it’s uh it’s a crazy process right now especially with naming and branding and trademarks. like there’s, you know, I don’t know if it’s Shopify that came out where everyone in the world decided to register a trademark, set up a a site, but we went through the process. We decided we were going to let it loose to our fans and pretty much the whole world and um had almost a million votes and narrowed it down, narrowed it down. We had four different waves of voting and then we got down to the final three and it just it took off completely different than we thought. But we committed from the beginning. whatever the fans chose we were going to go we were going to roll with. And it was really cool how we landed the plane and it was like with a mammoth. It was like it was like the Kentucky Derby like the the name started pulling away every single day of voting. Um which was pretty sweet. And obviously it made it easy on us. Yeah. Obviously the logo and brand building is a vital piece of it and what you guys were able to create is filthy. That is a nasty logo. all of the different alternate logos and alternate ideas. Absolutely awesome. I I think we got to press play on that real quick. Uh this video is it for Yeah, there it is. Boom. The all of the different ones are awesome. And you still have the Utah hockey club feel uh with that one with the the state or the Utah or whatever. There one right there. I think you did a great job with this. You guys have to be incredibly proud. Legit. Yeah. Well, shout out to the team, our people here. Double day cartright. They helped out. It was uh it was pretty sweet process and you know I think I think everyone had a little different picture of what they wanted it to be in their heads but everyone got together. There was a group of like eight of us and they kind of set that aside and we’re cool with however kind of everyone had a moment where they had to get on board. So it was a pretty cool creative process. A lot of Easter eggs in that logo. A lot of Easter egg obviously you can see mountains you can see the state of Utah I think on the outside there. Uh they kind of run through all the in beautiful thing. That’s a U you see for you for for Utah and then the Tusk goes through it obviously. What else? Is there anything I’m missing? No, I think if you look at the state turned sideways and then the mountains are obviously, you know, if you look at all the new Jazz jerseys, I mean all four of our jerseys have the similar fill with the note and the mountains on it. So that’s a cool collab. And then the blue actually carries over to the NBA team. Um, but they’re also unique as well. So, I think it’s a pretty strong mark. Um, it looks it looks pretty dope on the jerseys. Like, it’s it’s pretty powerful. It does. Um, and then I think also the secondary marks where it’s the U with the tus. Um, that’s sweet. And then obviously the tus up. This is something that just kind of crept in and we ended up with the the domain. I mean, I think the for the most part, I think there’s probably close to 30,000 people have done that. Hey, I that’s the first time I’ve seen that. That that works. You’re welcome. Especially if you turn on Yeah. I mean, you can have a dancing segment and uh cuz I know you like to keep everything. I got a chance to watch your Utah Jazz team uh live with you. Thank you for reaching out. I’m so happy I went to that. There was I that was at about a 4% chance of me going to that whenever I got the invitation. And then uh they said it came from you and then I Googled you and I was like wait a minute this guy became a billionaire before he was for he’s an American man. This guy is a he’s in his hometown. He owns a team. And I was like, I should go meet this man. And what I learned quickly is like you are trying to think of everything and you are like trying to make things better and you are and that is kind of your business I think since the beginning which is surveys which got you into this which is going to lead to a question from me about whenever you decided to make this an internet thing. Make this an internet thing. Oh yeah. We’ll make this a poll thing. We as people that live on the internet said, “Buddy, you’re going to get the Utah Mc Penises or something.” No doubt like this. The internet is going to bully you into doing something and the internet will force you to do it. This conversation with Ryan Smith, owner of the Utah Jazz and the newly named Utah Mammies. Toss up. Toss up continues digitally. We’ll be back here for a Feelgood Friday on ESPN. See you tomorrow. Okay. So, whenever you said you had the ability to get a good name and the internet won’t internet you, I think we didn’t believe it. Uh, legitimately, I don’t think we believed it. Yeah. You I assume we weren’t the only ones. How was the survey process, which you are a survey person in the modern world that we’re in with the name of a sports team, which can be hated on like people can hate new names. Like, for sure people can hate on. Well, and like so I think looking back like you guys were right like it was it was high risk high reward or maybe even high-risisk lowreward for the way that you would go through it. Um Qualrix was pretty money throughout this process because we did the digital polling. we would randomize and then the real kind of moment of truth came when we went back to the NHL and we’re like, “Hey, we got to put some logos and brand identity towards this.” And so we we really created like four different fully built out brands, you know, and it was Outlaw and it was others and Mammoth and and then we started going around and the NHL was not having that we would um go out and show these to people and then anything you came out with, people started registering the hashtags, the websites, like everyone started registering the trademarks on all this stuff which got super like complicated. So, it was really cool. We actually embedded all of the the research into iPads. We w we had a we had a home stretch of Jazz hockey games for the first time ever in Utah that were 11 games backtoback. So we swapped out every single night and we ended up walking around and we would get thousands of people to come in and it was only a couple people with Google glasses that actually leaked it. I mean, you got to plan for everything. But Mammoth, every night Mammoth started taking off and it was growing at like 10% a night where people, it’s almost like till they had to narrow it down and they had to really get opinionated about it and they actually had to choose that it got real and then kind of everything fell into place where this is a brand like you think about hockey club. We dropped hockey club off. We actually built a brand, but it’s pretty vanilla. And the the fans ran with it. They’re the clubbers. They’re doing all this. Now, we’re giving them like a strong identity and they’re going to be able to like You’re seeing a toughs up. I I I imagine out from the Look at that swag. That’s a good looking hoodie. You rock that, right? It is a good looking hoodie. I I mean, yeah, absolutely. I I think, you know, it’s high quality product as well. I don’t know if this one’s for sale or just what you sent me and I appreciate all the gifts. I also got a backpack t-shirt. Yeah, there’s the other the other sweatshirt. Just the mammoth on it. Yeah, just the mammoth logo. Huge. It’s awesome. There’s a lot of good merch. But you think about all that [ __ ] This guy’s closet. Okay. So, when you think about merch and all that stuff, this dude’s got a CL, you know, the He’s a billionaire. Obviously, he’s battling with this camera right now. It’s going to follow him wherever he goes. He does not know that. He’s going to follow you wherever you go. You’re a tech guy. You should know that that camera’s going to follow you. you move, it’ll come with you. He’s got, you know, the shoe closet that LEDs under, you know, full. It’s a It’s a It’s a full There’s a lot There’s a lot of worse vices than collecting shoes. It’s pretty safe. I agree. And he hoops every morning. Not in Utah. I did. I I hooped this morning and it was Man, but I like He got a little It got a little quick. I like that you have a young fresh mindset on this. How’ the NHL feel about all this? How is the relationship with the NHL here now one year into this? I mean, look, that was yesterday. I mean, Bman came out, which is really cool that you came out and supported this. Um, I mean, look, it 50 56 weeks ago, we didn’t even have a team here. And we said, “Okay, we’re going to build an arena that works for hockey, which we’ve got the entire arena of innovation going on. We’re going to We basically landed the team and received it like a second child coming home being received by the first one. It actually came home by the Jazz. Like our head coach of the Jazz, our G they Ames, they were taking like leadership roles and saying, “Hey, come on in here. Come work out in the facility behind us.” Like there was a time last year where we had our hockey guys in there and our hoop guys at the same time and it was just like a cool like kind of one team vibe and uh so this whole thing’s been built out in a way that you’re kind of going okay how does that happen? But even then you don’t know how it’s going to go. There wasn’t a lot of data that says hey you know what hockeyy’s going to work in Utah. The closest data I got was Vegas. My wife’s from Vegas. you know, it’s kind of connected to us here. And if it took off there, I was like, “Okay, like there’s something here.” And it was incredible. Incredible year. We got a bunch of young studs. It’s it’s it’s going to be a good time. That’s awesome. I’m happy to hear that cuz hockey is awesome. And I think having somebody like you who’s so invested and also forward thinking in the league, in the conversations is good for all of sports. AJ has a question for you, Ryan. Yeah, I’m tell about this with the the mammoth. What do you want the identity of this hockey team to be? That’s like we know it’s it’s a brand that you have built. It’s awesome. Everything going on. Like what do you want this identity to be when people come to the games and they turn the TV on and watch? What do you want them to see? Yeah. So like one of the things that’s crazy is like there’s a been a bunch of mammoths found all over Utah and like as we started like pulling them up it was like okay what what are they like? And you know kessle ring on our team’s like six seven. These things are as high as 14 feet tall. they go, you know, 25 miles an hour. We didn’t want the Snuffelopagus logo, whatever. We wanted something that was strong and powerful and like people could see that. So, we also like you can see it’s like united. It’s one. It’s not mammoth. It’s mammoth. Like, we are one one group. And, you know, we’re young. I mean, we’re we’re the only team in the league that’s got two 50 point plus scorers under under the age of 22. We’re growing it all together. we’re starting out and you know we want to be a force and I think Utah’s loud and Utah shows up. I mean that’s the one thing that everyone in the NHL saw was like oh damn like these guys show up. Yeah, it’s something to do. No offense, but like that’s the same thing here in Indianapolis. It’s like there’s something to do and they like the product. Like I I think that is obviously you have to like you can’t hate the thing. If you hate the thing, you won’t show up for it. But if you like the thing and it is something to do, you know, like let’s go enjoy the hell out of this, you’re going to do that on a regular basis. We chatted about this whenever we were there. You had how many consecutive sellouts with the Jazz? I forget what the It was like something. Yeah, it was like 200 and something. Yeah, 200 something at the time. And you were you were on air the next morning at 6:00 a.m. and you’re like, “No, I’m not going back.” What? Who said that? Well, that’s what you did. You were like, “Hey, I’ll stay for the second half.” We hung out all night. Oh, yeah. You’re right. You’re 100% right. Yeah. There was no plan of going to that thing. Yeah. I had a blast. Even a little side little setup is unbelievable. Dwayne Wade was there. You remember? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You guys You guys were You guys were You had your tank tops on together. Yeah, he looked much I will say he had a sweet little more little more Mag Galla appropriate there. He looked so cool. That thing was like form fitting. He was so jacked obviously at the time. And he did it in front of everybody. Remember he walked up to me. We’re on the court 200 and some sellouts. Places packed out. uh during timeouts like you’re just looking down at the court. Dwayne Wade walks right over to me. I don’t think I ever met him before. Dap up, how you doing? Then takes his jacket off and he’s got a tank top on. I’m like, “Holy [ __ ] this guy is so attractive. I had no idea this was possible.” He was cool. Everybody there was awesome. Uh Big Jay, I mean, Big Jay, what a dog. What a dog. Have we got him on skates? Have we got him on skates yet? I’d like to see. There’s There’s been very little skating. Lowi mark marketing jumped on skates. That’s pretty crazy. watching our seven foot basketball. He’s a fin, you know, on skates. It’s It’s pretty nuts. Like, we were out there practicing and like I’ve got all the gear on because I’m like a 30 handicap skater that doesn’t know how to stop and Lowry comes out and like we take one turn and he falls down and I’m just watching like our Max player slide across the floor. Oh no. It’s 7 feet tall. And I was like he’s like, “Don’t worry, I’m up.” And he’s he’s got game. He grew up playing hockey. That’s funny thinking the owner going max player right there. This is a great idea, Ryan. The story this the story just doesn’t end well for you on that one. Yeah, you look like dumbass. Maybe the dumbest of all time. This guy took their max player. He’s paid him a lot of money to play on wood. So, yeah, get on a blade. Yeah. Brings brings a team into the Look at this. He tells him, “Go, hey, go on out there. Go ahead.” Yeah. He does look smooth though, doesn’t Looks comfortable out there. Oh yeah. Grow up skating over there. Standing at 7 foot6 on skates, ladies and gentlemen, representing the Mammoth. Okay, speaking of being big and the Mammoth and then we’ll pivot to basketball because obviously you’re the owner of the Utah Jazz as well. Connor and Tone have an idea that they would like to pitch you. I feel like we’re having a good idea session right now. Is this a mammoth idea session? Yes. So we All right, Connor. We thought of the tusks up. That might be a one or two, you know. Could be tusk up. Yeah. could even go forward like you’re blowing a horn perhaps. Oh, or I mean that would be Yeah, but tusks I guess is plural. This a little bit different. You know, I could see I could see at the games like when people are chugging like that like comes out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You’re taking down that diet coke. Getting caffeinated out of my mind. You drink it through big tusk that they buy at the concession. Oh, you’re selling big tusks. Oh my. Okay. With like a tus holder in the chair. Yeah. Yes. Needs to be in the seat. You’re doing renovations right now. I need to be able to stick I need to be able to stick my big ass tusk in there. Tusk down. You would sell, you know. Tusk down. Tusk up. We need all So, not all these ideas are going to, you know, end up being kind of I’m going to write it down. I got it. We got on film here. We got on film here. We’ll say we’re taking the minutes right now currently. Uh we’re all taking the minutes. But the boys have an idea that must happen, especially with what’s happening at a potential another stadium in the United States of America. This is a Connor Tone Diggs idea. Yeah, you need Look, Ryan, this is kind of bottom line here. This isn’t like a hey, you should do this. You need this. Okay. Uh intimidation factor through the roof. You need four mammoth uh outside the front. Four because you know, ut obviously four letters in Utah. for Mammoth kind of outside the front of the arena so that when all the fans are walking in they’re walking past the mammoth. Maybe the first one’s 20 25 feet tall and then uh progressively they get lower so that you can kind of pat the mammoth on the way in. Maybe it has some sort of slogan that you got up maybe written on the side of them. Yeah, the mambly if you will. And we didn’t we didn’t exactly come up with this idea on our own. Uh, we kind of stole this from the Buffalo Bills, their new stadium that they’re creating. They have three bison outside of their stadium and they’re a little small. They’re somewhere between 12 and 15 ft. We’re thinking these mammoth, which are bigger than bison, need to be at least 25 35 ft. Well, that’s what you said was the the 25 miles an hour, I think. And how tall were you saying these things were? These mammoths. 14 ft. 14. Yeah. Bump that. That’s amateur numbers, but we need we need we need big old m We need at least 20 foot mammoth out there. And we’re all pushing for that just strictly because when these bison were announced in front of the Buffalo Bills new stadium, everybody was jacked up. They said, “Holy hell, we’re getting big ass bison out front of this thing.” Then they released the sizing of it. And somehow, I don’t think this is the case. It’s higher than a basketball hoop. This is huge. This thing is going to be gigantic. There’s a lot of people that think they’re too small. Yep. These bison are going to be too small. So, the story behind it is animal out front. People like Yes. big ass animal out front. People love average size animal. Think people will be like that’s cool. Could have been bigger, better, better. But if they’re finding mammoth too in Utah, you could actually get the real bones. You know, you can probably do that. They are in Utah. Yeah. So maybe on the video, you saw the video. Oh yeah. Come out of that cave Utah. Yeah, you’re right. Yeah. Get They were able to even pull the DNA out of those. Yeah. Get the clone them. Well, now we have real one. Okay. You’re making real mammoth. Yeah. Hang them from the roof like and put the mammoth on the not only on the roof. Cut out a spot for that mammoth stand next to the ice. Yeah. Great. Like Tiger from uh the Tiger from LSU. Vivo. Yeah. What if the guy came out underneath the mammoth when they skated on the ice? Oh, a live one. Oh, dead one. Fake one. Live one. It’s probably a fake one. Oh, like a big a real one like the sharks do at the shark tank. They come out of the shark mouth. Sharks mouth. Yeah, that’s a good idea. But if you had the real Yeah. So, Connor, the good news is them. We’ve got one mammoth set up. Yeah. That we’re going to put out there. How big? I haven’t gotten that far. We’re still in the I mean, we’re a day or two old. 30. Hey, you’re you’re a survey guy. Bringing the whole Bringing the whole squad out probably hasn’t been addressed. They have a family. Who’s he talking about? The Mammoth. The Mammoth squad. Bringing bringing four four mammoth out there like I mean we are a family oriented word. Have you seen Ice Age? You can watch Ice Age for uh a little bit of research on the mammoth. Yeah. The sizing just know that the biggest one has to be 30 40 50 feet. We because the last thing you need is for fans showing up 60 fans showing up saying like [ __ ] mammoth. I thought they were big. They baby mammoth. But when they want a selfie in front like.5 is not going to work. They’re going to have to be across the street to get themselves in with the 40footer. That’s what baby That’s what baby mammoth is for. Baby mammoth is 10 ft. The selfie mammoth. Yeah, that’s the selfie. Yeah, you might even want to set up a little background there cuz you know, a lot of selfies are going to happen behind the baby. You know, we got maybe like a little uh little Utah uh whatever shrubbery shrubbery there cuz that’s going to be a lot of selfies around baby mammoth. We’re talking selfie with the big mammoth. You’re just looking at chest, I think. Yeah. Bingo. I think it’s just chess and unless you do one of these like straight up and then you’re getting maybe the bottom of the tusk you’re getting tusk down and it’s going tusk up but you’re talking about pictures with the rest of the family the mamly that’s what we’re talking we’ll text you a picture of the bills yeah we’ll draw this up okay yeah TPT I can’t wait till the designs come that was the other thing about the designs like when we when we started the design process before people would just vote with their words now they’re voting with like these drawings hand that look like nothing AI all AI drawings like the amount of AI drawings that we saw like someone would be like a let’s do a let’s do an outlaw let’s do a wasachatch and a mammoth all combined and you have like you have like an outlaw riding a mammoth like in detail that no hand could ever draw and it’s like whoa this was a whole another thing no one saw coming throughout the the voting process in like 5 seconds too 30 seconds I think 5 seconds it’s like oh what are you talking about I I got a question about that. Oh, here you go. It’s like what? I’m excited to see what you end up doing with AI. You Yeah. Yeah. Cuz your the way your brain works, it feels like that is inevitable. We got a lot cooking. We got a lot cooking. I could imagine. I could imagine that would make sense. Yeah, we know. We read about it, didn’t we, Tom? Yeah, we did. Yeah. The X. Well, I mean, he basic Ryan, you basically just said you want to get on the next phase of tech, right? It’s like a billion dollar venture or something with you. Yeah. So, so yeah. So, Ryan Sweeney is a partner of mine from Excel. He wrote a check to our startup Qualrix in Utah, you know, 15 years ago when everyone else in the Bay Area was only investing in the Bay Area. We went on a pretty epic run together. And then uh when we when my wife and I did the Jazz, like I called Sweeney and said, “Hey, I know you guys don’t do anything in sports. You’re tech only.” But he’s like, “Oh, no. We’ll come in personally.” So they came in and they’ve been great partners. And then you know as we’re watching everything with AI and kind of this intersection of sports to be honest with you it’s not like you have tech and then sports and then healthcare it’s it’s all coming together right now and you know whether you go to an event like there’s tech people there’s sports people and a lot of sports and tech folks need to be activating together and so we decided to create this fund called Halo and it’s really around experience and you know betting on the next experiences and that involves everything. So, it’s pretty cool. Congrats, man. I assume it’s going to work. So, that’s what I assume with you, man. I just assume it’s going to work. Yeah, I think it it probably should. Like, I think he’s you know, he’s one of the best tech investors on the planet and um normally when we get together, magic happens. Yeah, we told you. Yeah, there’s there’s a potential offer. Yeah, you know, there was investors possibly, you know, there is a uh there’s an option. You know, there’s an opportunity there. I think we’ve done crazier things. Hell yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah, that would be crazy. Mhm. That’d be so sweet. Could you imagine? It would be smart for you guys. Mhm. I’ll get Utah Mammoth tatted on my back. That You can’t put a number on that, but we will certainly try. We will certainly try. One, but you have to hurry. Yeah. Yeah. I’m just telling you though, like what you just heard there, you might think, “Wow, they’re losing leverage.” No, that cost something, doesn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. No, no, that’s for shoot. That tattoo, that loyal that loyalty to Mammoth. That’s right. There’s a possibility there. And we’ll be fans regardless. Yeah. But I’ll let him die with him. Yeah. And he already You put a big You put a big mammoth outside the Thunderdome there. Yeah. And it can’t be bigger than one you’re putting outside your arena. Just remember that. So, I mean, we already got one. He makes graphics for us. T-Bone is not a mammoth. T-Bone. Hey, you did not deserve that. Oh, wow. T-Bone, you’re a good guy. T-Bone’s been looking good. Yeah, someday. Is that right? Cuz he finished two Dr. Peppers before 10:00 a.m. the other day. Yeah, but I think you guys are watching what he’s he’s taking, Don. Yeah. And that’s how you’re making your judgment. He looks good when he’s walking around. He said he said the other day, he’s like, I like seriously have to look in the mirror and like have a conversation with myself cuz I’m eating way too many of these new Mc Krispy strips. He said he’s like it’s like a real problem. Guy puked the first time he did physical activity a few weeks ago. Yeah. Guy did a little physicality and then nuts mentioned too. He says this and then a McDonald’s commercial comes out. He goes, “Well, no, I have to order them because it’s all commercial.” Debo like Debo, this happened. Debo, we’re proud of you, man. You need to live long though. Let’s never forget that. You’re great at what you do. The wild animal. Okay, let’s get to uh Sorry you hadn’t experienced that, Ryan. I I did not know that. No, I think it’s great, man. We’re just rolling. Well, he’s he’s he’s Yeah. Ex with a Dr. Pepper. Well, we’ve we’ve been at this for 20 minutes. What’s going to happen when our fans have this for a full year dec like it’s I legit I think you can you can work with Mammoth. You can work with it. I think it’s a good name. I think there’s a lot of definitely plays. And I like that you said it’s just Mammoth because we’re one family here. You know, we’re one we’re one family. So, do you say go mammoth? Sorry. Do you say go get mammoth or go mammoths? Like what do they say in this arena? Mammoth. Look with the with the hockey club. Here’s here’s what’s crazy with the hockey club. We just rolled it out. We didn’t know what any chance were. We didn’t curate anything. By the end of the year, like it was like, “Let’s go Utah.” It was like the classic go club go. So the mammoth club is going to win today. That’s off the cubbies obviously. That’s what they’re saying. We didn’t know. But the mammoth chance, there’s opportunity. There’s really opportunity there for sure. And I think I think you should be proud of yourself getting the job done cuz I know it’s a lot of work that went into it. Uh but also having a positive response. I assume that that was quite a relief for you. So congratulations. Yeah. I mean, nothing’s positive on the internet, so it’s great. It’s great to saw positive for you. No, no, I know that was it was it was wellreceived. Okay. Like we got to we got to give credit where credit’s due. That was it was extremely wellreceived. Okay. Shout out to Utah for always being uh supportive of Utah and shout to you for always want to unifying Utah and make Utah better. You’re a great representative of that state and uh I assume the people there tell you the same thing.

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