Move to Utah worked for Jazz

Twenty-five years ago,Sam Battistone stepped outside the conference room at a Chicago hotel, his pulse racing. The plan had worked. He went straight to the lobby and dialed the offices of the New Orleans Jazz.

"I told them to move everything and go," said Battistone this week.

Pete Maravich & Co., residents of the Big Easy, were about to become residents of the Big Uneasy, Salt Lake City, a place where NBA survival seemed dubious. But the one thing Battistone was counting on was that Utahns loved their basketball. And that somehow, his struggling team could find a home in the West.

"It was just a time and a place and an opportunity that existed— so it just happened to work, and I'm pleased that it did," recalls Battistone. "But it was not without its struggles."

Oddly enough, it was a newspaper executive who sealed the deal.

Wendell Ashton, the late publisher of the Deseret News, was in Chicago on June 8, 1979, when it all went down. He, Battistone and then-mayor Ted Wilson were on hand that day to present the case for Utah.

The mission was clear: Convince the NBA Board of Governors that the Jazz could succeed in Salt Lake City.

Anyone who knew Ashton knew he was a good person for the summit. If you wanted enthusiasm and optimism, he was your man. If you wanted charm, he could charm a hungry grizzly. If you wanted a bulldog, he could be that, too.

Naturally, there were reservations on the league side. Salt Lake was smaller than any other NBA market. It had a modest advertising base. There were doubts that many Utahns had the income to afford pro basketball tickets. Fears arose which still exist today that some players wouldn't want to live and play here.

But the skepticism went out the window the minute Ashton entered the conference room. You think Utah's Olympic bid was a slam-dunk sales job? Ashton was years ahead of that.

New Orleans made its presentation as to why the team should stay there. As Battistone remembers, it was a halfhearted effort. The Jazz were losing money and attendance was low. Games were being played in the Louisiana Superdome, which was similar to holding a Cub Scout den meeting in the Bingham Copper Mine.