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The Miller family’s deal to purchase Real Salt Lake and the Utah Royals for roughly $600 million marks the end of a short-lived period of control for David Blitzer.
Blitzer bought the MLS club in 2022, then revived the Royals to rejoin NWSL in 2024. Now he’s selling control of both teams to Utah’s richest family, which is led by Gail Miller. At a press conference announcing the deal, Utah governor Spencer Cox called Miller “the matriarch of this state.”
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Here are six quick Sportico takeaways about the NWSL’s role, the price, the timing, someone who didn’t buy the team, an item mentioned fairly low in the official announcement and some seller trivia:
1. The Royals
Strictly from an asset appreciation perspective, the Royals-specific piece of Blitzer’s trade is one of the more successful in modern U.S. sports history. When his group bought RSL in 2022 for nearly $400 million, the deal included an option to bring an NWSL team back to Utah. The first iteration of the Royals was relocated to Kansas City in 2020, and the league gave RSL the option to revive it at a future date for a fee of roughly $500,000.
That fee was revised up to about $2 million when Blitzer took over, Sportico previously reported, and was exercised shortly after. When the option was first awarded, NWSL teams were selling for low single-digit millions; by the time it was exercised, those numbers had soared. The Royals resumed play in 2024 alongside expansion franchise Bay FC, which paid $53 million to join the league. More recently, a group in Denver paid an expansion fee of $110 million. Sportico’s most recent NWSL valuations, from September, put the Royals at $70 million, 35x higher than the price paid to launch the team.
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2. The Price
That Royals context is important for understanding the roughly $600 million price paid by the Miller family. The deal includes both soccer teams, plus the RSL’s Next Pro team, the teams’ stadium and their practice facility, all assets included in the Blitzer group’s original $400 million deal.
While it’s unclear how much of that $600 million represents the Royals, it’s fair to assume that a big chunk of the full appreciation comes specifically from the women’s team. That said, the price assigned to the MLS club is likely among the highest prices ever paid for control of an MLS team.
3. The Timing
MLS executives and many team owners have spoken for years about the 2026 men’s World Cup in North America as a potential accelerant for soccer’s popularity in the U.S., and by proxy, MLS’ commercial opportunities. Here’s what Blitzer told the Salt Lake Tribunein 2022 shortly after taking over: “[Think] about the World Cup in 2026 and what’s that going to do in terms of even a greater growth rate, a step function in some ways in terms of the consciousness of this country around the sport.”
The World Cup boost, if real, has been baked into MLS valuations for quite some time, but it’s nevertheless notable to see an owner decide to sell control less than 14 months before the start of the tournament. Blitzer also isn’t alone in this—the owners of the Vancouver Whitecaps said in December that they’d retained Goldman Sachs to assist with a control sale.
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4. Ryan Smith
Blitzer’s original group included minority stakes held by Arctos Partners and Jazz owner Ryan Smith’s Smith Entertainment Group (SEG). While it’s unclear whether Arctos will remain invested, SEG will not. Perhaps more notable, Blitzer originally approached SEG last fall with right of first refusal to buy the teams, Sportico reported Friday. Smith and his wife Ashley declined, choosing instead to focus on their other sports assets, including the Jazz, the NHL’s Utah Hockey Club and a downtown development effort.
Smith is a relentless advocate not just for sports, but more specifically for sports in Utah. When he bought the Jazz in 2020, he called the state a “third party” in the transaction, and he’s an active supporter of BYU athletics. He’s since made “One Utah” a mantra of sorts for his sports assets, using the phrase during the announcement of the Royals’ return to NWSL. Buying the Royals and RSL would have quickly expanded Smith’s Utah sports empire; instead he’s exiting the soccer teams entirely.
In a statement Friday, Smith called Miller an “ideal local steward” and said now was the right time to “tighten our focus” on the NBA and NHL clubs.
5. Youth Sports
Part of Smith’s bullish stance on Utah is predicated on the state’s rapid growth. Utah’s population jumped about 45% in the 20 years from 2003 to 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the largest increase in the country. That’s made it a valuable market for youth sports.
Blitzer is one of a handful of prominent investors looking to capture the untapped commercial opportunities in youth sports. Last March he co-launched Unrivaled, a network of 15 youth sports venues and 635,000 athletes.
The ninth paragraph of the press release announcing the Miller acquisition mentions that Miller Sports + Entertainment will “also partner with Unrivaled,” which is run by RSL investor Andrew Campion. There’s little additional detail about the economics of that partnership, or the specifics, but it’s a large market for Blitzer’s budding venture.
“The Miller family helped build the Junior Jazz program to become the largest youth program in the NBA with 60,000 participants,” Steve Starks, CEO of the Larry H. Miller company, said during Friday’s press conference. “Soccer has 100,000 youth and kids that play in this state, and it’s the highest participation rate in the country.”
6. Blitzer Trivia
Blitzer is staying on as a minority owner of both soccer teams, and will serve as alternate governor to Real Salt Lake. That means he will keep his unofficial title as the only person Sportico is aware of to be invested in all five major U.S. men’s leagues. He is co-owner of the NBA’s 76ers and NHL’s Devils, and an LP in the NFL’s Commanders, MLB’s Guardians and MLS’ Real Salt Lake. His sports-focused family office is also invested in more than a half-dozen European soccer teams.
“I intend to remain highly engaged [in the Utah teams],” Blitzer said at Friday’s press conference. “Particularly as it relates to soccer operations where we think, given our global footprint, we can add a lot of value.”
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