SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — It was a trip months in the making.
Thirty Jazz fans from South America traveled to Utah to watch the team play in person.
“We’re here to bring energy, win games and have a blast,” Juan Baracco said.
Juan Baracco is a die-hard Jazz fan. It all began in 2016, thousands of miles from Utah, while he played NBA 2K in his home country of Uruguay.
“I wanted to go into GM mode,” he said. “I wanted to pick a team that wasn’t so good but wasn’t so bad also. So I picked the Jazz.”
Baracco quickly started cheering for the team in real life. In 2017, he created a Twitter account then called ‘Utah Jazz Uruguay.’
“I really wanted to cover the Jazz for Spanish-speaking people,” he said.
Baracco said he never imagined the community he would build.
“At first it was kind of embarrassing,” Baracco said. “I would get two likes on a post, and one of them was my mom. Shoutout to my mom. I really thought I was the only Jazz fan in South America. Turns out there were many more.”
Now called ‘Los Utah Jazz,’ Baracco’s account has more than 6,300 followers. That includes Jazz owner Ryan Smith. He helped Baracco attend his first game in Utah in 2022. In March 2025, Baracco received a surprise text from Smith inviting him and other Jazz fans to dinner in Uruguay.
That wasn’t the only surprise.
“He was like, ‘Juan, gather all the visas, all the documents. Pick a random week next season and I’ll invite you guys. Everything is covered.’ We started singing. The restaurant was super fancy. Everyone was so mad because they were dressed up and we were banging on the table, chanting Ryan, Ryan. It got crazy, but it was worth it.”
A night that turned into the trip of a lifetime.
“For me, it’s super emotional,” Baracco said. “We have in the group 60-year-old, 50-year-old guys grabbing my arm with tears on their face saying you helped me accomplish a dream I thought I would never complete or achieve. For me it’s incredible.”
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