The Millers’ big pitch: Inside Utah’s push for an MLB expansion team

After a meeting with investment partners at the JPMorgan Chase offices in midtown Manhattan last April, three Larry H. Miller Company executives walked the few blocks to Major League Baseball’s headquarters on the Avenue of the Americas.

Opened in 2019, the sleek office space exudes a high-tech vibe but there’s no question that baseball is the center of it all. There’s red stitching on the leather-wrapped reception desk. Large murals of some of the sport’s greats adorn the walls. Banks of monitors provide live updates, statistics and games. Designed to support innovation, the interior embodies baseball past, present and future.

Larry H. Miller Company CEO Steve Starks, managing partner Dave Smith and chief financial officer Ian McDonald were there to talk about the future.

The business empire Larry and Gail Miller built has undergone a transformational change the past three years. The Miller family sold the Utah Jazz to Ryan Smith. The Millers peeled off the auto dealerships that helped make their fortune. They invested in real estate and bought a planned development community, a home construction company and a health care provider.

In the span of 15 months, LHM engaged in transactions totaling $5 billion. And always with an eye on how it could enrich the community

The portfolio shuffling didn’t include the Salt Lake Bees, the longtime Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels. But in January, the company announced plans to move the team from Smith’s Ballpark in Salt Lake City to a new stadium it will build in the Daybreak community it now owns in South Jordan.

Internal discussions about how to enhance the fan experience led to the exploration of the future of baseball in Utah. Salt Lake City, they decided, should be home to a big league team.

And now here were Starks, Smith and McDonald stepping into the box at Major League Baseball.

The thre Utahns toured baseball’s state-of-the art replay operations center and met with a variety of baseball people before sitting down with MLB commissioner Rob Manfred.

Starks is careful not to reveal much of what Manfred said in the meeting, but he and his colleagues left encouraged that when and if baseball decides to add two more teams, Salt Lake City would definitely be in play.

“Starting with that conversation and continuing over the next year, we became confident that Salt Lake City was a legitimate contender for an expansion team, that we are a viable candidate for it and these are exactly the types of things we as a state should be focused on,” Starks said in an interview.

The trio left the meeting excited about what they heard, and shared it with the Millers, who have a long family history with baseball, a sport the late Larry Miller loved along with fast pitch softball, at which he excelled as a pitcher for many years. The family was all in, vowing to do what it takes to make it happen.