These billboards have appeared all over the Salt Lake Valley, and everywhere between Nephi and Tremonton. (And between Coalville and Grantsville). I want to clarify my feelings on this. These opinions are my own.
If the A's stop in Salt Lake for 3 seasons while waiting for a permanent home in Las Vegas as a tryout to see if we can support a permanent team. I am supportive of that. For the last 10 years, I have been an advocate for the homeless. I would be a hypocrite if I said otherwise. But what I am not supportive of is a John Fisher team making Utah a permanent home should the efforts to move to Las Vegas fail.
We have a group here in Utah that knows something about how to run a Major League Franchise, the Miller Family. They had the Utah Jazz for 36 years. This team missed the playoff 8 times. That is 78% of the time, they were in the post-season. They made the NBA finals twice. The team kept two future Hall of Fame players, two Olympians, on the team for most, if not all of their careers. Until sometime in the first decade of the 21st Century, the Utah Jazz played in the smallest media market in all of North American Sports outside of Green Bay. Sometime between the dot com crash, the 2002 Olympic Winter Games and the Housing Crash, Utah began to pass the other small markets, and is now approaching 3 million. There are many reason why the National Hockey league is considering Salt Lake City for expansion.
But there is one warning for John Fisher if the A's end up here on a permanent basis. You have to try to win. If you aren't going to do that, then sell. You will here the same refrain in Utah that you heard in Oakland, and are beginning to hear in Las Vegas. Try harder to win.
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