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SALT LAKE CITY — Rudy Gobert had a simple answer for why the Utah Jazz were able to sell out every single home game this season.
“The wins,” the Jazz center said with a smile. “The first few years, there were a lot of empty seats.”
It’s true, fans in Utah love a winner, but the full season of sellouts — not to mention the 31 straight heading into this season (playoffs included) — is rare. The last time the Jazz sold out an entire season was all the way back in 1992-93.
Yes, the 2018-19 Jazz can now claim something that not even the 1997 and 1998 NBA Finals teams or any other squad in the last 26 years can: They packed the house every single game. The sellout streak, which now stands at 72, is the second longest in franchise history.
While the Jazz reached 50 wins on Tuesday by beating Denver, even that mark has been fairly common. It's the 12th time since the 1992-93 season the Jazz have reached that plateau — those years were also filled with a couple MVP seasons from Karl Malone, several Western Conference champion squads and plenty of All-Stars scattered through the decades.
So what was different about this season?
As Donovan Mitchell walked to the free throw line in the fourth quarter of Tuesday’s game, a single fan was heard. He provided the voice of a fan base, screaming, “I love you, Donovan.”
There have been a lot of things of late that have helped draw the crowds in to the arena. Vivint Arena went through a $125 million renovation in 2017, which included fully cushioned seats, better food options and a better overall atmosphere at games.
The team is also winning consistently and have made the playoffs for three straight seasons. But what might be the biggest factor of the sellout is how this team has forged a special bond with the community.
On Tuesday night, Mitchell's nightly shoe-giveaway went to a special guest. Mitchell invited a little girl named Evie to the game after a video of her throwing a tantrum because she wanted to “watch Donovan Mitchell!” instead of going to bed went viral.
Evie got to do more than just watch him on Tuesday. She got to meet him and left with one special souvenir as he handed her his shoes after his pre-game warmup.
"I can not go to bed tonight without expressing extreme gratitude to the entire Utah Jazz organization and especially Donovan Mitchell for truly a once in a lifetime experience!" Evie's father Mitch Tulane said on Twitter. "It was truly something we will never forget and means the world to me that people went completely out of their way to make a remarkable moment for my little girl!"
And it's not just Mitchell who reaches out to the fan base.
Ricky Rubio gives back to cancer research and regularly visits patients. Joe Ingles, too, gives back. When Ingles signed his extension with the Jazz, he said he wanted to give back because “no one in the world needs that much money” and hasn’t missed a game since. And this list goes on and on.
It also doesn’t hurt that the Jazz players seem to go out of their way to say how much they enjoy playing in Utah. For a fan base that has felt spurned in the past, that means a great deal.
“It’s no secret that I love the fans in Utah,” Mitchell said. “They just show up every night. They show their passion. Doesn’t matter if we are playing the No. 1 seed or the No. 15 seed in either conference. It doesn’t matter if it’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday — it’s every day, every game. It’s really easy for us to kind of go out there.”
And when they do, they are a really easy group to cheer for.
“Not to get too philosophical,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said, “but, if we can, for me as a coach and I think for our players, if you can live your life the way you ask your players to play. Every now and then I check myself and say, ‘Am I being unselfish? Am I doing my best?’ — all the things that kind of become catchwords that we expect a team to show.
“And I think that’s one of the reasons people identify with certain teams and certain players, because they play the way that you want to try to live,” he continued. “There’s been a lot of that I think this year with this group. And that’s one of the reasons that you have an appreciation, from me and my coaching staff, to be with this group over the course of the year.”
