Provo • Stephen Maisch couldn’t help but smile as the rivalry discourse unspooled in recent days.
As a loyal University of Utah supporter, Maisch was used to seeing the BYU players who earned the ire of Ute fans on rivalry weeks. There was wide receiver Austin Collie (who was living right off the field and beat Utah as a result) and Max Hall (who couldn’t find anything nice to say about the Utes). Even famed BYU coach LaVell Edwards came into Utah’s crosshairs from time to time for his dislike of the team up north.
But never did Maisch, an associate professor who teaches a sports economics class at the U., think the rivalry smack talk would become something that might have come from his syllabus.
The unlikely villain of this year’s football rivalry game?
Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith.
The reason?
Taxpayer funding for the billionaire BYU alum’s arena renovations and new downtown sports and entertainment district.
“As an economist, I have no idea [how much Smith donates to BYU]. But as a person looking around, it certainly makes sense,” Maisch said with a laugh.
“These universities are going to start needing to be competitive for $20 million a year,” the professor said of the projected amount universities might be able to pay athletes in the near future. “And that is going to make the person donating just that much more of a villain to the opposing school.”
In the latest example of college athletics’ new world order, Smith, the owner of a professional basketball team, has become persona non grata for a subset of college football fans. In an era where so much of college football fandom isn’t about football anymore — instead about tangential measuring sticks of conference affiliation and other side quests — Utah and BYU fans are jostling over the ethics of stadium subsidies and athletic donations.
How did we get here?
Ute fans anger toward Smith began last spring when the Cougars hired new basketball coach Kevin Young out of the NBA ranks. Young was in line for NBA head coaching jobs, but was lured away to Provo under the promise of a big payday — over $4 million a year — and a presumably massive NIL war chest.
It was heavily rumored that Smith had his hand in the hire. An NBA owner himself, with BYU ties, how else would the Cougars get such a prospect to lead their program?
Things simmered for a bit, then escalated again when Young filled out his roster. He landed two projected NBA draft picks in Egor Demin and Kanon Catchings. He dined with No. 1 overall prospect AJ Dybantsa. People murmured that Smith had written Young a blank check to go out and turn BYU into a mini G League roster.
There has been little reporting on how much Smith has actually donated to his alma mater. (Smith did not respond to a request for comment for this story.) But that hasn’t stopped Utah fans from crying foul.
Earlier this year, Smith successfully lobbied the Utah Legislature to help him build a sports entertainment district for his NBA and NHL teams. Once finalized, taxpayers will be on the hook for almost $1 billion to assist Smith’s project in downtown Salt Lake City. (Smith Entertainment Group has said it will put in $3 billion of its own money before the project is finished.)
Ryan Smith, president and CEO of Smith Entertainment Group, left, hosts Adrian Wojnarowski, general manager of St. Bonaventure men's basketball, team during an NCAA college football game between BYU and Kansas State, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024, in Provo, Utah. (AP Photo/Tyler Tate)
To upset Ute fans, it seems Smith is having taxpayers help build his fortune — and then turning around and using it to help beat Utah and make BYU athletics into a juggernaut.
“What I hate is that he wants taxpayers to augment his business pursuits,” one Utah fan wrote on X. “If he has cash to burn on BYU coaches, he should stop asking the legislature for money.”
Sports talk radio hosts, more accustomed to quarterback legacy debates during rivalry week, have had to adjust to the new fan frustrations.
“It’s human nature, honestly, for your neighbors to think the worst,” said Ben Criddle, the drive-time radio host on ESPN’s main Provo station. “‘Oh, what are they doing? What’s their angle?’ So Utah fans are going to be already on alert as it relates to Ryan Smith, knowing that he is a BYU alum.”
But Criddle added, “I am highly skeptical that Ryan, outside of what he already has already donated to BYU, is giving more of his own money and giving Kevin Young an open checkbook to obtain the best recruits. Or that [fellow Jazz official and BYU alum] Danny Ainge is giving one cent of his own money to pay players to come to BYU.”
And that is the other part of this debate. How much is actually real?
Smith hasn’t said how much he has donated to the university. But people inside BYU’s officially endorsed collective have given small hints. Smith is involved, sure, but he may not be driving the operation.
“Ryan has been fantastic. He’s great. And there’s other people that have also been really, really great, really supportive,” Mark Comer, the head of The Royal Blue collective, told The Salt Lake Tribune in the summer.
Lon Henderson, a board member on the collective, added, “Ryan is getting a lot of the spotlight, and we’re grateful for things that Ryan does. He would just love the spotlight to be less Ryan Smith.”
Utah fans might not want to hear that.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) BYU basketball coach Mark Pope joins Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith for the Jazz game against the Nets in Salt Lake City Monday, Dec. 18, 2023.
But Collie, the Cougars’ former star receiver, knows in situations like this truth doesn’t always matter. Even in his own case, he’s always defended himself saying he didn’t mean BYU was holier than Utah.
“If you do what’s right on and off the field, I think the Lord steps in and plays a part in it. Magic happens,” were his actual words that day.
“I still get grief for it,” he told The Tribune this week. So he understands Smith’s plight. “One thing about Ryan is he is loyal to where he came from. ... He knows the importance of this rivalry to college football.”
Cougar fans, meanwhile, have been quick to point out that Utah coach Kyle Whittingham — who makes more than $5.5 million a year — is the state’s highest-paid public employee.
But that hasn’t stopped the chatter.
“You have this really unique situation of Ryan Smith, and the two pro teams and the BYU situation, and the BYU-Utah rivalry. That soup makes it something,” Maisch said.
In online tirades, some Ute fans have even suggested protesting the Jazz altogether.
“Are the Utah Jazz supposed to be the neutral ground?” Criddle asked. “Is that the biggest issue Utah fans have? Ryan Smith is just one entity out of many corporate sponsors at BYU. Are you going to stop using Zions Bank now? Are you going to stop flying Delta? Are you going to stop going to Intermountain Health Care Centers?”
The questions just speak to where this rivalry — college sports — is now. No longer is quarterback Jake Retzlaff’s Utah-BYU debut the main flashpoint. Or even that a Utah player used profanity in a comment about BYU.
This year, it’s about the money.
It‘s a lesson the rivalry’s economist can teach now.
