The Home of the Utah Jazz is getting a new name! Well, actually an old name. In the world of sports venue corporate sponsorships, the name of a beloved sports team’s home court (or field, rink or pitch) goes to the highest bidder, and the price was right for Delta…again. What can we say, nostalgia is trending right now.
It’s good news for people who never stopped calling it the Delta Center. With the unfortunate change to EnergySolutions Area in 2006, many stubbornly refused to update their vocabulary rather than sully their lips with the name of a nuclear waste disposal company. Then again, 10 years later, they still called it the Delta Center, rather than the mouthful “Vivint Smart Home Arena” (although the resulting renovations weren’t too bad). Even when the name was shortened to just “Vivint Arena” in 2020, many of us crossed our arms and muttered under our breaths, “You mean ‘the Delta Center.’”
After all, EnergySolutions was long at the center of controversy, through its attempts to store increasingly radioactive waste or ship in nuclear waste from out-of-country to a Utah landfill. In 2021, the FTC fined the home security company Vivint Smart Home a record-setting $20 million for using identity theft to boost sales. And earlier this year, A federal court ordered Vivint Smart Home to pay $189 million due to accusations of “deceptive practices.”
We also dare not speak of the brief era when the International Olympic Committee tried to force us all to call it the “Salt Lake Ice Center.” It’s as if the collective energy of that mass obstinacy cast a spell, ensuring that, one day, the Delta Center would return.
Prior to the return, by what name someone calls the Delta Center was a solid barometer for pinpointing the date range of a Jazz fan’s formative years (and determining which team roster broke their hearts the first time). If it’s EnergySolutions to you, you were cheering for Boozer and Williams. If it’s Vivint, you never shut up about Gobert and Mitchell. A Delta Center person is still cursing the name of Jordan and has posters of Stockton and Malone on their basement walls over their much-abused bean bag chair.
If you’re up for a real trip down memory lane, talk to someone who still clings to the days when the Utah Jazz played the Salt Palace. They’ll regale you with exploits by Griffith, Eaton, Dantley or Green—an era of nicknames like “Dr. Dunkenstein” and “Pistol Pete.” They also might try to impress you with their old-school Jazz facts like, “Did you know that, before they finished building the Franklin Covey Complex in West Valley, the Jazz trained in the Payne Gymnasium at Westminster College?”
Now, all of that is out the window. A Delta Center person could be an old fan or a new one (assuming the Utah Jazz can start to attract new fans), but we don’t think you’ll hear us Delta Center people complaining about it.
