SALT LAKE CITY — Eleven years ago, at Larry H. Miller’s funeral — held appropriately in the 20,000 seat downtown arena he bought and paid for — his son Greg told a story that paid tribute to his father’s frugality.
They were going to lunch downtown, Larry was driving, and looking to find a place to park in front of a meter. After circling the block and passing several open spaces, Greg asked why they hadn’t pulled into one of them. Larry’s answer: “I’m trying to find one with time still on it.”
I bring that story up in connection with the sale of the Utah Jazz, the NBA franchise Larry bought for $22 million in 1985-86 and was sold by the Miller family two weeks ago to tech wizard Ryan Smith for $1.66 billion.
Larry Miller was many things — a philanthropist, a car dealer, a sports fan, a race car junkie, a softball pitcher, a movie buff, and that’s just getting starting on his many passions — but the reason he was able to indulge so many of them was because he was first and foremost a savvy businessman.
No one would have appreciated the astronomical profit he made on the Jazz any more than him.
How astronomical? Well, according to the return on investment or ROI calculator on Google, turning $22 million into $1.66 billion over 35 years amounts to a return on investment of a mere 7,445%.
That’s like dropping a quarter in a slot machine and hitting a $1,660 jackpot.
The irony, of course, is that Miller’s original intent was not to turn a profit. The reason he bought into the Jazz in the first place was to make sure the team stayed in Utah.
He wasn’t anyone’s definition of an avid pro basketball fan. He’d only been to a few games in the six seasons the Jazz had been in Utah. But he was a loyal Utahn through and through, and when he heard that Jazz owner Sam Battistone was in debt up to his eyeballs and was entertaining offers from prospective buyers who wanted to move the franchise out of state, he went into rescue mode.
As Doug Robinson wrote in “Driven,” his biography about Miller, Larry and his wife, Gail, were driving in their car talking about the Jazz’s financial problems when Larry turned to Gail and blurted out: “The Jazz can’t leave!”
Not sure what Gail Miller’s response was, but I’ll bet it wasn’t, “Great idea Larry, let’s go for it and one day Forbes will rank me the richest person in Utah.”
Fortunately, Miller’s seven car dealerships gave him enough collateral to borrow the $8 million he needed to become, along with Zions Bank, First Security Bank, Moore Financial and American Savings, Battistone’s co-owner.
A year later, the team still being pursued by out-of-staters, he borrowed another $14 million to buy Battistone out completely.
I was a sports columnist in those days, and the first thing you knew for sure was Larry Miller was no Sam Battistone. Battistone was a stereotypical owner who inherited his money, and, as someone once said, “treated a loan like it was income.” Miller, on the other hand, acted like someone who had come from nothing — which he had — and personally earned every nickel he ever spent. He treated a loan like it was a loan.
It wasn’t long before the Jazz stopped hemorrhaging money and selling draft choices so they could pay the phone bill.
But it would be a while before people began to realize the Millers had bought themselves a gold mine. The Millers included.
If Larry were still with us, I’m not sure he’d have ever sold the Jazz. Parting with his gift to Utah might have been impossible for him to do, at whatever the price. But if he had agreed to the sale, I’m sure he’d have been immensely satisfied at making the best business deal anyone in this state has ever heard of — and he’d still be circling the block looking for meters with time left on them as he celebrated.