Sports & Recreation
A second Winter Olympics confirmed by the IOC for 2034, an NBA assists record that's stood since 2003, and one of only two operating Olympic sliding tracks anywhere in the country, sitting a few miles from where it was built for 2002.
Real Salt Lake
Real Salt Lake, founded in 2004 and an MLS expansion team from 2005, won the 2009 MLS Cup, beating the LA Galaxy in a penalty shootout for the club's first championship. The team's stadium, America First Field (Rio Tinto Stadium when it opened in 2008, renamed under a 2022 naming-rights deal), seats 20,213 and sits at 9256 S State St. in Sandy, Utah -- one of this market's own guide cities, not Salt Lake City itself -- with a TRAX Blue Line station built directly into the stadium.
Salt Lake City 2034 Winter Olympics
The International Olympic Committee awarded Salt Lake City-Utah the 2034 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, confirmed at the IOC's 142nd Session in Paris in July 2024 -- making Salt Lake City only the second U.S. city, after Lake Placid, New York (1932 and 1980), to host the Winter Olympics twice. The plan reuses the same venues built for the 2002 Salt Lake City Games rather than constructing new ones, including Park City's Utah Olympic Park and the Maverik Center in West Valley City, which hosted 2002 Olympic ice hockey.
Utah Jazz
The Utah Jazz relocated from New Orleans to Salt Lake City in 1979, keeping the "Jazz" name despite the move -- a mismatch between team name and city that gets remarked on regularly. Guard John Stockton, who played his entire 19-season career with the Jazz (1984-2003), retired holding the NBA's all-time career assists record, a mark that still stands. The Jazz have retired ten numbers, including Stockton's #12 and forward Karl Malone's #32; Malone is the franchise's all-time leading scorer.
Utah Olympic Park
Utah Olympic Park, just north of Park City, hosted bobsled, luge, skeleton, and ski jumping events during the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and remains an active U.S. Olympic training facility, open to the public year-round for bobsled rides and museum tours. Along with Lake Placid, New York's Mount Van Hoevenberg, it's one of only two operating bobsled/luge/skeleton sliding tracks in the United States -- a genuinely uncommon piece of sports infrastructure that will see competitive use again when the 2034 Winter Olympics return to Salt Lake City-Utah.