Let it roll off your tongue. EnergySolutions Arena.

It rolls kind of like a marble on shag carpet, doesn't it?

This is going to take awhile.

By now, people understand the enormous financial outlay necessary to operate a major sports franchise. Tall guys who put basketballs through hoops do not come cheaply. Team owners have to find money any way they can, and that is their prerogative. The days of altruistic arena names honoring veterans or recognizing unique community aspects or notable locals — remember the Salt Palace Acord Arena? — have gone the way of the 50-cent drive-in movie.

But after 15 years, the Delta Center has become a part of the culture. Not only do people casually refer to it as the venue for games and concerts, it adorns all northbound TRAX trains as the name of the route's terminus. It does, indeed, roll from the tongue.

However, it is merely the name of a business, and businesses change. Delta Air Lines has its financial problems. It is trying to fend off a hostile takeover that would permanently change its own name. Delta's five-year contract with Larry H. Miller Arena Corp. has ended. It was time for something new.

The Wasatch Front is hardly the only metropolitan area dealing with such a thing. Given the importance of sports and entertainment in the modern world, however, it has an unsettling effect — as if a community's landmarks were on roller skates.

In the meantime, the choice of EnergySolutions does not come without hazards. Company President Steve Creamer has done a lot of work to counter the negative image the company had under its previous owner, when it was known as Envirocare. He has grand designs to grow the business into the leader in the nation's move to recycle nuclear waste, while still maintaining a low-level radioactive waste site in Utah.

But EnergySolutions likely will never be without controversy. It comes with the territory. Just last week a legislative committee forwarded a recommendation to end a requirement that the company contribute to a perpetual care fund for the future of its waste dump, which drew criticism from environmentalists.

Regardless of the merits of the criticism, the Jazz have just put a name on their arena that is tied to political issues.

If you're keeping score, ZCMI no longer is a department store, the core of downtown Salt Lake City is about to change dramatically, and even Cougar Stadium is now LaVell Edwards Stadium. The only constant in life is change.

No surprise there. But give people awhile to quit calling that big building on the west side of downtown the Delta Center.