When Salt Lake City was awarded an MLS club in 2004, just months before Real Salt Lake took the field for its inaugural season, Major League Soccer was a much different league than the one that exists today. It was before the days of Designated Players and Academies and the league had just 12 teams.
Now with expansion booming and the league growing in its depth and reach, Real Salt Lake remains at the forefront thanks in large part to the visionary practices of Owner Dell Loy Hansen.
MLS Commissioner Don Garber was in town this week for the Eighth Annual Utah Governor’s State of Sport Awards and had was complimentary of that vision.
“We talk about MLS 2.0 and 3.0. Dell Loy is an MLS 3.0 owner,” Garber said. “He has a unique perspective about how sport should connect in the community and how to bring together all the different teams in the RSL pyramid from the Royals to the Monarchs to all the academy programs. In many ways it is unprecedented. It's a great model for what I hope I could see in other cities, both the legacy and in founding markets, but also in the newer markets.”
Since Hansen took over as owner in 2013, RSL has expanded into the USL, built an $80-million dollar training facility and academy setup at the Zions Bank Real Academy and expanded into the women’s game with Utah Royals FC. In addition, the RSL Foundation has put millions of dollars into community outreach, putting the entire organization in touch with the community on many levels.
The growth of the organization has wrought a stronger connection to the entire Wasatch Front that helped earn Hansen the 2018 Partner of the Year honors at the State of Sport Awards and sets him apart from other owners in MLS.
“He loves the community. He is engaged in the community,” Garber said. “He loves the sport. He loves the league and has a real commitment to seeing the sport grow in the United States. He sees Major League Soccer being the driver of that growth.”
Another driver in the growth of the league has been the changing landscape of the roster makeup of each team. While spending on rosters has gone up across the board, the way in which teams spend has seen a wide variance from team-to-team. At Real Salt Lake, the focus has been on developing players and building from within while adding talented pieces from around the world to put a team on the field that last year reached the Western Conference Semifinals.
While Salt Lake is commonly looked at as a small market, Garber has a different perspective because of the efforts and strategies employed by Hansen and the organization’s technical staffs.
“I think less about big market vs. small market or wealthy owner vs. ones that have less means. I think more about perspective. What is it that an owner is trying to achieve? Speak to Dell Loy Hansen and his view of what soccer should be, what Major League Soccer should be, how the teams should be operating and that may be very, very different than what might exist in another market,” Garber said. “Most people don't hear this because they just see the teams. People should be really appreciative of it. He has a perspective about what sports can mean if they're operated effectively. Both in terms of what it could be on the field but more importantly to him what it could mean off the field. That's something I try to take advantage of. I try to get more Dell Loy than less Dell Loy.”
