The money would help fund a planned arena in Ivins.

Utah legislators, do you have a spare billion dollars or two for an arena-village so that a developer can build a minor league venue for a basketball and a hockey team? The Black Desert Resort ownership group in Ivins wants to build an arena that could potentially host a minor league hockey team, NBA preseason games, the Utah Jazz business’ G League team, concerts and other events. Ivins is in the southwest corner of Utah near the Nevada border and the Arizona border and not too far from Las Vegas which is about a two-hour car ride away. The Black Desert Resort group plans to discuss its plans with the Utah legislature in 2025.

There is no actual request for funding at the moment and in fact there is a number out there, $2 billion, but that has been suggested by the State Senator Jerry Stevenson who plans to introduce a bill that could come up with a mechanism to help fund for whatever the Black Desert Resort group wants. There is still about four months to go before the legislative session starts. Utah is spending a lot of money on sports. The International Olympic Committee is bringing its 2034 Winter Olympics to town and if there is one thing that the IOC does well, it is extracting every last dollar it can from taxpayers’ pockets into staging its crown jewel event. Utah is spending roughly $900 million of taxpayers’ money to help Ryan Smith, the National Basketball Association’s Utah Jazz and the National Hockey League’s Utah franchise owner, to renovate the teams’ present facility and build an arena-village. Utah lawmakers are also willing to spend around one billion dollars to help build a stadium-village if Major League Baseball puts a team in Salt Lake City. The cost of being a big-time sports town.

Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191

Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com

Utah State Senator Jerry Stevenson