Looking for a team? The Rockies want you

Everywhere you go in this country — well, maybe everywhere but Boston — you'll find N.Y. Yankees baseball fans.

And no matter where you go, there are fans of the Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs and pretty much every other Major League Baseball team.

These days, though, Charlie Monfort is hoping to find a bunch of Colorado Rockies fans — right here in Utah.

Monfort, the Rockies' CEO, chairman and principal owner, has his sights set squarely on building a fan base in the Beehive State. After all, due to its proximity plus the fact that Utah does not have a National Football League franchise, this state has long been the home of countless Denver Broncos fans.

And since the Rockies have those same two things in their favor — close proximity and no major league team in Salt Lake City — Monfort would like to turn the Rockies into Utah's favorite MLB team.

Monfort, a Colorado native who graduated from the University of Utah in 1982 with a degree in marketing and business management, has been in the Rockies' front office since their inception in the early 1990s and recently donated $1 million to the U. athletic department.

He realizes that baseball fans will remain loyal to their longtime favorite franchises. And that's fine. He's just hoping that, in time, the Rockies might become that favorite team for a new generation of baseball fans from Utah.

"Going to school here and being a huge Broncos fan, we'd get them on TV here every week," he said. "I guess looking at that was sort of the mindset in that I'd like to get that feeling here with the Rockies. Obviously, since there's no Major League team here and there's so many flights every day from here to Denver, I'd like to get some people going to the ballpark and have that Rockies feel.

"When we went to the World Series two years ago, I was talking to people out here and they were almost as thrilled out here as we were in Denver, and that was neat to see."

With that goal in mind, the local Fox Sports Rocky Mountain channel will broadcast 126 of the Rockies' regular-season games in Utah this year. Monfort is hoping that might help build a fan base for the Colorado franchise the same way so many people with no ties to Atlanta jumped on the Braves' bandwagon back in the 1980s when their games were being televised virtually every day.

The Rockies are planning some special promotional packages and weekend getaways to try to entice Utah fans to come to Denver. Monfort is also hoping to possibly put together an exhibition game between the Rockies and the Triple-A Salt Lake Bees, whose parent club is the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.