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In the coming three weeks, the Utah Jazz will formally submit a bid to become the host of either the 2022 or 2023 NBA All-Star Weekend festivities at Vivint Smart Home Arena. This would be a huge development for Salt Lake City, as the Jazz has hosted the All-Star Game just once in 1993 since the franchise relocated from New Orleans to Utah in 1979.
According to an article written on Wednesday by Kareem Copeland of The Associated Press, the NBA will be accepting bids for 2022 and 2023 for cities who would like to host the February All-Star weekend festivities of those years.
“We feel like we're in a great position to be awarded the All-Star Game,” Jazz team president Steve Starks said. “There's a story to tell about Salt Lake and the Jazz that we think will be unique.”
Starks is certainly right, as he also feels that Salt Lake City's continuous development and growth as a city and success of hosting the 2002 Winter Olympics will be a major factor towards helping their cause.
“Compared to 30 years ago, our infrastructure is completely different,” Starks said. “We knew with the renovation of the arena that would be a catalyst to get back in that conversation again. We just felt now would be the best time to tell our story.”
The team also would like to develop a partnership in the future with the Sundance Film Festival and possibly create a documentary around All-Star weekend and have a sports-related mini film festival.
“One of the things that rank very high in the judging is proximity and convenience,” said Don Stirling, the executive vice president of the Jazz ownership group. “When you land in Salt Lake, you're downtown in 8-10 minutes. The hotels surround the venues that we'll be using. When all is said and done, you have this great big worldwide event and proximity and convenience is really important. And we have that.”
This certainly sounds very intriguing and the Jazz organization is quite serious about finally being able to host the NBA All-Star Game again in Salt Lake City.
