Ryan Smith buys the Utah Jazz with his wife Ashley from longtime owner Gail Miller now officially – and he brings several of his technical friends together.
Melissa Majchrzak / Courtesy of Ryan Smith
Ryan Smith is now officially the proprietor of Jazz Jazz. And in taking over an NBA franchise, he brings together two of his closest friends in tech.
Smith, 42, was approved as the owner of the Jazz’s new majority by the league’s Board of Governors on Friday, making the Utah-based billionaire the youngest controlling owner. But in turn, Smith includes several of his closest friends in the tech and venture capital ecosystem in the property group, which paid $ 1.66 billion for a majority stake, sources said. in October when the agreement was reached name first: Atlassian cofounder and Australian tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, 41, and Accel investor Ryan Sweeney, 43.
In individual interviews with Forbes, Smith, Sweeney and Cannon-Brookes explained how the group came together: a decade of friendship anchored around a belief in technical entrepreneurship outside of Silicon Valley and a shared love of basketball.
“I said, hey, if this was a tech company, how would I do this? And with the history I’ve gained, you surround yourself with the best, people who contribute, but not too much, ”says Smith. “There are no extra points to go it alone.”
First NBA Australian Co-Owner
Smith had only recently met Sweeney, a Bay Area-based partner of venture capital firm Accel, when the investor linked him to Cannon-Brookes. Accel had backed enterprise software company Cannon-Brookes Atlassian in 2010, the company’s largest single investment then in an unparalleled location in Australia. In 2012, Sweeney and Accel studied a company with some similar features in Qualtrics, where Smith spent years building a business away from the traditional corridors of venture capital, then looking to make a large investment relatively late on the start-up journey.
On their first ever call, Cannon-Brookes remembers Smith giving him a hard time running a business that sold project management software to other companies. “Can you make money doing that? Cannon-Brookes remembers Smith saying. Cannon-Brookes then found out what Smith and Qualtrics had to offer: online reviews. “I’m like waiting, you’re the one to give me [a hard time]? And we’ve been fast friends ever since, ”said the Australian, who Forbes values at more than $ 15 billion as Atlassian trades at a market capitalization north of $ 60 billion.
A freelancer himself at school and then for his company’s working league team, Cannon-Brookes says he grew up watching NBA “Game Of The Week” on VHS and show popular on weekends. He had already visited Utah several times a year with several of his wife’s relatives living in the state, and went to Jazz games with Smith when he did. In addition to his software success with Atlassian, Cannon-Brookes could open up new opportunities for the NBA and Jazz in Australia as the nation’s first co-owner from the country, Smith says.
“Australia’s technology is doing well with Utah’s tech industry. Ryan and I built businesses outside Silicon Valley, ”said Cannon-Brookes. “You have to think differently when you are not surrounded by that ecosystem.”
Mike Cannon-Brookes, right, has visited Utah with Atlassian cofounder and co – captain Scott Farquhar, left, for years, joining court-side Ryan Smith.
Courtesy of Mike Cannon-Brookes
Long-term investors
To complete the new ownership group, Smith turned to Sweeney and two partners at his venture capital firm Accel, Andrew Braccia and Rich Wong. Sweeney says he was texting Smith the day after SAP announced he was buying Qualtrics just ahead of his planned IPO in November 2018 to see what was to come for Mac. Smith. While Smith has remained at Qualtrics ever since, now an executive chairman with plans to turn the business back through an IPO in 2021, he called Sweeney to see if the investor and Braccia, an early investor in Slack and VC’s Midas Investor List consortium, to join. Wong, who knew Cannon-Brookes well as a long-time board member at Atlassian, also personally invested in Smith’s business entity that ran the Jazz Entertainment Group, Smith Entertainment.
According to Sweeney, Smith seems to be one of only a few NBA Governors who can throw basketball – perhaps in line with NBA legend Michael Jordan, and not many others, if any. . Sweeney, Smith and Cannon-Brookes refused to give the exact break of the ownership group, but Smith is the main owner of the Jazz, with the others taking big, but much smaller steps. Smith has ultimate authority, as a majority owner, and speaks for the group with the NBA. “He doesn’t want to leave anyone,” said Sweeney.
‘The front door to Utah’
What should Jazz fans expect from the team’s new ownership? The group says they are all young, basketball enthusiasts, and above all, they are promising Utah in the long run. Smith says, accepting the team would not be for sale, that he would be looking at other property and franchise groups, aspiring to be part of the NBA. “I went hard in Minnesota and talked to another couple. I really enjoyed these teams. But at the end of the day, my wife reminded me in February that we are Jazz fans, which is what we and our children do, ”says Smith.
The group calls the team “stewardship” given to them by Gail Miller and the Miller family, long-term owners of the team that keeps a minority moving on. forward. The team’s purchase was unusual in that respect, as trust and commitment to Utah was as important as profits, said Smith, who says he pulled up the Forbes the Jazz – $ 1.5 billion – valued his phone as he negotiated an offer. He completed applications very close to that.
“I’ve never done a deal, and we’ve done a lot of big deals, where the whole process was about third parties. And the third party is not the buyer and the seller, but the state of Utah, ”Smith says. “So it’s almost a business affair. ”
Moving forward, Smith says he has no plans to change the name of the team, despite what New Orleans basketball fans might ask on Twitter. He believes that his experience with Qualtrics, which offers “knowledge management” software to measure employee, customer and brand communication, can be useful to the league as it progresses. forward. But Smith also confirms that the Jazz already has strong leadership in Dennis Lindsey, the team’s executive vice president of basketball work, and that he has no plans to get involved in co-op -ball basketball or roster closures.
Smith says his full-time job is still Qualtrics; Cannon-Brookes remains co-head of Atlassian. Both businesses far outperform the NBA franchise in terms of headcount and revenue. For those who are wondering how the time of a few forty-something with full-time jobs will be effective owners, Cannon-Brookes says he and Smith were asked the same questions when they were were untested software entrepreneurs twenty years ago. “We have three very competitive competitions,” says Cannon-Brookes. “We’re not here to take any pictures.”
The group’s most ambitious goal is to: unleash the Jazz franchise alongside Utah’s tech scene, which has seen other recent successes beyond Qualtrics, and features Smith. as lead organizer as part of the ‘Silicon Slopes’ group and conference. More talent and entrepreneurs will develop and move to Utah in the coming years, they believe; it should equate to the most prominent professional sports franchise in the state.
“If there’s one person who can turn Jazz into a big market team it’s Ryan Smith,” Sweeney says. “He does not know how to do half-hearted things. It will work out a way to increase the number of hours in a day to 36 instead of 24. ”
Smith says he has already received calls from co-owners and tech billionaires Mark Cuban and Steve Ballmer. Their advice, he says, is consistent with what he already intended to do: be himself. And that means bringing more business – and sport – to its home state, at every business. Streaming it together, Smith says: “Jazz is the front door to Utah. Time, the end of the story. ”