NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s relationship with Utah Jazz owners and Smith Entertainment Group principals Ryan and Ashley Smith started well before the couple purchased the NBA franchise in 2020 from Gail Miller and the Miller family.

In a recent Deseret News interview, Silver said he and Ryan Smith got connected years earlier through the customer experience company Smith co-founded in 2002, Qualtrics, and the NBA would eventually put Qualtrics tools to work to harvest insights on the league’s global professional basketball mission.

Here are some more insights from the NBA’s chief executive on the direction and energy the Smiths have brought to the game since taking over the Jazz and expanding their sports and entertainment efforts through SEG, which recently brought an NHL franchise to the city. The Smiths have also taken the first steps in a massive revitalization project set to fundamentally reshape the Delta Center and a wide swath of downtown Salt Lake City.

Deseret News: What was the environment at the league office when the Smiths first took over the Jazz?

Adam Silver: Once the acquisition happened, not only did we know each other and consider each other friends, I was then preaching to the 29 other partners the benefits of Ryan joining. He had a fantastic base to build off of, thanks to the excellent leadership of the Miller family, but also because of his background as an innovator and inventor of modern tools to measure and enhance the fan experience. I view him as a futurist, who understands traditional marketing at its core but also understands the future of marketing is going to be technology-based.

DN: What is notable about how SEG has approached ownership duties?

AS: In the case of Ryan and Ashley, I’m not surprised but still somewhat amazed at the speed of which they are developing their operations, both in the NBA and more broadly speaking. Ryan was certainly talking a big game when he came into the league, but I wouldn’t have expected them to find a way for expanding their reach in such a short period of time (through Jazz+) to a much broader base of fans. We’ve marveled at how quickly they move in their own organization, personalizing fan technology, building direct-to-consumer applications and more. I love the way Ryan thinks about the game, the sport itself and how we can increase fan engagement. And no one would have expected they could have convinced the NHL to come to Salt Lake City so quickly.

DN: Are you surprised at all by the vitality of the Salt Lake City market when compared to other NBA host communities?

AS: I would say, one of the great things about the NBA is every market is different and those are principles we talk about collectively. There’s nothing better than local ownership and Ryan and Ashley’s ownership reflects a deep understanding of the market they live in and grew up in. I learned from Larry and Gail Miller, and now Ryan and Ashley, not to be surprised about what’s coming out of the Utah market, which tracks back to tremendous work ethic and innovation.

DN: SEG has already expanded Jazz access in the region and the Smiths say they see the Utah Jazz as a global brand. Does this fit with your vision of where the NBA is headed?

AS: When you have 8 billion people in the world and less than 5% live in the U.S.? Absolutely. Roughly a third of our players were born outside the U.S. and people are consuming our games in 215 countries. In terms of the branding of our teams, the city and state names are of the brand and part of the global footprint. It’s not just the Jazz but the Utah Jazz. The local flavor, local character matters. The last thing you want is 30 cookie-cutter teams. Some of these brands are more traditionally known but, thanks to digital media, you can build recognition virtually overnight. Individual teams can achieve global recognition regardless of the size of the market they’re playing in.