Professional sports teams based in Utah encompass multiple teams including the NBA's

Utah Jazz The Utah Jazz are an American professional basketball team based in Salt Lake City. The Jazz compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference (NBA), Western Conference, Northwest Division (NBA), ...

, Major League Soccer's

Real Salt Lake Real Salt Lake, often shortened to RSL, is an American professional soccer franchise based in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area. The club competes as a member club of Major League Soccer (MLS) in the Western Conference. RSL began play in 2 ...

and Major League Rugby's

Utah Warriors The Utah Warriors are a professional rugby union team that competes in Major League Rugby, the top-level rugby union competition in the United States and Canada that played its first season in 2018. The team is based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and ...

Current teams

Historical teams

American Football

Baseball

Men’s Basketball

Utah Valor (2018-Present) The Basketball Tournament(TBT)

Women’s Basketball

Ice Hockey

Indoor American Football

Indoor Soccer

In-line Hockey

Rugby

Men’s Soccer

Women’s Soccer

Ultimate

Volleyball

The use of the letter "Z"

The professional sports team nicknames are often noted for the unusual frequency of the letter Z appearing in team nicknames (such as the Utah Jazz). This phenomenon reached the peak of its popularity during the 1990s; however, several

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

teams continue to make use of the letter Z. At least ten Utah-based professional sports franchises have used team names that include the letter Z, some of which are intentionally spelled incorrectly, using the Z unnecessarily or as a replacement for another letter. Commenting on the proliferation of such team names, ''New York Times'' sportswriter

Alan Schwarz Alan Schwarz (born July 3, 1968) is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer and author, formerly at ''The New York Times'', best known for writing more than 100 articles that exposed the National Football League's cover-up of concussions and brought the ...

called Utah "the state where sports fans go to get their Z's." Local television stations

KJZZ-TV KJZZ-TV (channel 14) is an independent television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside CBS affiliate KUTV (channel 2) and MyNetworkTV affiliate KMYU (channel 12) in St. George. The ...

(which was owned by Larry H. Miller from 1993 until his estate sold the station in 2016) and KPNZ also played off the Jazz's name to end their calls with Z's.

Early Utah -zz teams

The popularity of the Z in Utah sports was likely inspired in part by the unusual nickname of the

NBA team, which in 1979 relocated from

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

—which is noted for

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

music— to

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

, which is not. Up until the early 1990s, Utah's other professional teams used somewhat conventional nicknames (such as the

Stars A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth ma ...

Golden Eagles The golden eagle (''Aquila chrysaetos'') is a bird of prey living in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the most widely distributed species of eagle. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. They are one of the best-known birds ...

, and Trappers). With the arrival of the

Salt Lake Buzz Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...

in 1994, the similarity of the nicknames "Buzz" and "Jazz" was unmistakable (although the name "Buzz" was really a play on the name of owner

Joe Buzas Joseph John Buzas (October 2, 1918 – March 19, 2003)Beehive State" moniker). The following year, the

Utah Grizzlies The Utah Grizzlies are a professional ice hockey team in the ECHL. They play their home games at the Maverik Center in West Valley City, Utah. Franchise history The current Utah Grizzlies franchise started in 1981 as the Nashville South Star ...

minor league hockey team also entered the market.

Utah becomes a -zz market

The announcement of the

Utah Starzz Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

WNBA franchise in 1996 cemented the state's propensity for using the letter Z in its team names. The peculiar "Starzz" nickname was an homage to the Jazz (as well as to the old

Utah Stars The Utah Stars were an American Basketball Association (ABA) team based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Under head coach Bill Sharman the Stars were the first major professional basketball team to use a pre-game shootaround. History prior to moving t ...

ABA team). The precedent firmly set, several -zz teams entered the Utah market in subsequent years, to include the Utah Catzz, Utah Freezz, and

Utah Blitzz Utah Blitzz was an American professional soccer team in based in Salt Lake City, Utah that played in the USL Pro Select League (later known as the USL Second Division). The club was founded in 2000 but folded following the 2004 season to make way ...

. From 1994 to 1999, at least seven professional sports teams in the state adopted nicknames containing a double Z (see table below). All of these team names ended in -zz, except the Utah Grizzlies (which are also commonly called "the Grizz"). With the exception of the Jazz and Grizzlies, none of the -zz teams remain in Utah today, each having relocated, folded, or renamed the franchise. The

Ogden Raptors The Ogden Raptors are an independent baseball team of the Pioneer League, which is not affiliated with Major League Baseball (MLB) but is an MLB Partner League. They are located in Ogden, Utah and play their home games at Lindquist Field. Pitcher ...

(1994–present) were the only notable Utah pro franchise to forgo use of the letter Z when entering the Utah market during the 1990s. The Raptors offered this as a selling point, using the slogan "All the fun without the ZZs!"Wadsworth, Reuben
"I'm gonna miss the ZZZs and the Buzz,"
The Utah Statesman, 2 February 2001, retrieved 19 May 2008. See also archive
Ogden Raptors website
Since 2000, new and renamed franchises have tended to steer away from the Z naming fad, opting instead for names such as

Salt Lake Bees The Salt Lake Bees are a Minor League Baseball team of the Pacific Coast League (PCL) and the Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels. They are located in Salt Lake City, Utah, and play their home games at Smith's Ballpark. The ballpark o ...

, Utah Flash,

, and

Utah Royals FC Utah Royals FC was an American women's professional soccer club based in the Salt Lake City suburb of Sandy, Utah. Established on November 16, 2017, as an expansion club, the Royals played in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) from 2018 ...

. However, the creation of the

Orem Owlz The Orem Owlz were a Minor League Baseball team located in Orem, Utah, United States, from 2001 to 2020. The team competed in the Pioneer League as a Rookie League affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels. The Owlz played their home games at Home o ...

in 2005 and the

Utah Blaze The Utah Blaze was a professional arena football team based in Salt Lake City, Utah and competed in the West Division of the Arena Football League. Home games were played at the EnergySolutions Arena. In 2013, the team did not submit proper ...

in 2006 provide some indication that Utah's Z nicknaming trend continues. Notes: * The Ogden Raptors previously played as Salt Lake City Trappers from 1985 to 1992. * The Orem Owlz previously played as

Provo Angels Provo or Provos may refer to: In geography In the United States * Provo, Kentucky, an unincorporated community * Provo, South Dakota, an unincorporated community * Provo Township, Fall River County, South Dakota * Provo, Utah, a city ** Provo P ...

from 2001–2004, taking its name from the parent

Anaheim Angels The Los Angeles Angels are an American professional baseball team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Angels compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. Since 1966, the team h ...

franchise. The Owlz' last season playing in Orem was 2019; the team had planned to play in 2020, but the 2020 season of all leagues in Minor League Baseball (MiLB) was not played due to COVID-19. After the contraction of MiLB in 2021, the Owlz were purchased by a Colorado-based group; the team was on hiatus for the 2021 season before resuming in 2022 as the Windsor-based Northern Colorado Owlz. * The Salt Lake Buzz, Stingers, and Bees are various names for the same Pacific Coast League team. * After the 2020 NWSL season, Utah Royals FC folded amid a controversy surrounding the principal owner of its parent club, Real Salt Lake, that led to that team's sale. The Royals' player-related assets were assumed by a new ownership group in Kansas City. Following the closure of Real Salt Lake's sale in 2022, the new owners have the option to revive the Royals franchise in 2023.

References

{{Lists of professional sports teams by U.S. state

* Professional sports teams in Utah