$15 million can get you the Real thing

The soccer team Real Salt Lake took its place amid the professional sports lineup Saturday, playing its third game in history and first on Utah earth. More than 25,000 Utahns paid from $12 to $32 to watch the action at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

But one Utahn, Dave Checketts, trumped them all.

He paid $15 million.

For Checketts, the reality of a pro soccer team in Utah is also the realization of a personal quest. Some men long to own small islands, some men dream of commanding armies, some men entertain the hope of maybe one day playing opposite Julia Roberts in a movie.

Dave Checketts dreamed of owning a professional sports franchise.

He's had small parts of other teams. In New York, when he was at Madison Square Garden, he had some equity in the New York Knicks and New York Rangers. But owning a franchise all by himself, that never happened until now — and all within a long corner kick or two from the Bountiful house where Dave was raised.

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So far, he seems to be enjoying himself.

"I love what we've created here," he said prior to Saturday's home opener, "the name, the shield, the logo, the staff, the team we've put together. I'm happy about all of it."

He can afford to smile at the irony that it is soccer, not basketball, that is the object of his affection. Fifteen years ago, he left as president of the Utah Jazz — Larry H. Miller's right-hand man — because he was not being offered a piece of a team he helped nurture. When he and his wife, Deb, packed up their family and moved to New York, they had to throw away the rearview mirror, it was that emotional. "It was hard. We were leaving our baby, the Jazz," says Dave. "We couldn't believe it."

But the Manhattan detour turned out to be rewarding in every sense of the word, turning Checketts into a multi-millionaire who could buy a soccer ball with its own team attached.

"It's like Hugh B. Brown said," says Dave, pointing out that he's quoting the late LDS leader and not Hubie Brown the basketball coach, "At the end of my life I'm most grateful for the experiences I would have rather not had."

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His goal, he says, is to be "the kind of owner I always wanted to work for."

"I want to hire really good people, give them tremendous support, leave the experts alone, have a professional but not personal relationship with the players and judge people based on results."