SportsTravel Catches Up With Utah Governor Spencer Cox

Spencer Cox has been governor of Utah since 2021 and during that time, sports have played a significant role in his priorities. Last year, the NHL moved a team to Salt Lake City, adding another professional league to the area’s portfolio. MLB is mulling an expansion team there as well.

But the region may be best known internationally for its successful hosting of the 2002 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. And the area is on the clock again in 2034, a point of pride for the state’s top elected official.

SportsTravel caught up with Cox in Milan to discuss the return of the Games in eight years’ time, the potential long-term hosting opportunities for the region and what he is hoping to see while he leads a delegation to the Games in Italy.

SportsTravel: From your perspective, how would you describe the significance of Utah hosting the Olympic Winter Games again in 2034?

It’s huge for us. I mean, if you look at the success that Utah has had over the past couple decades, we’ve been No. 1 for GDP growth in the United States for the last 10 years. We were No. 1 again, last year, for the fastest-growing state in the nation. So much of that ties back directly back to (the Olympic and Paralympic Games in) 2002. To bring the Olympics back, this time, we actually know what we’re doing, having done it before. It’s just a huge opportunity economically, culturally, for the state, and for the movement. 2002 was the most successful Winter Olympics to that point. And we have an opportunity to build on what’s happened over the past 24 years. And so it’s just awesome for the United States and incredible for the people of Utah.

SportsTravel: 2034 is still a ways out. However, the IOC has talked about the notion of some sort of rotation for future Games with Utah possibly in the mix as an ongoing host. What are your thoughts about that potential long-term future?

We put our bid together for 2034 with the understanding and idea that there may be a rotational plan in the future. And so that’s always been on our radar. We’re hoping that that will be the case, and that Utah will be the North American venue on a rotation because of the success we had in 2002. We were the first Winter Olympics to make money. We reinvested that money. We kept it, put it aside to make sure that our venues were always up to Olympic standards. We’ve been hosting World Cup events ever since, every single year, dozens of those events. And that type of forward thinking, by people before me, made it possible for this Olympics. We hope that this Olympics is a springboard to a 16-year rotation of some sort — 16, 20 years, whatever they decide — that Utah continues to be the place for Olympics in the United States.

SportsTravel: What are you primarily focusing on this week while you’re in Milan?

As much as I’d love to just sit back and enjoy the events, for us, it’s all work. So it really is looking at what they’re doing with transportation, technology, ticketing, the hospitality piece of it. We were proud of what we did in 2002, but we think we can do better. And we’re here to learn those lessons. So I’m actually most excited about the behind-the-scenes tours that we’re taking of the venues. Just understanding how the credentialing is working. Those are the boring things to everybody else, but that’s what makes a successful Olympics. The games will take care of themselves. People love the competition, but if you have a bad experience, because technology doesn’t work, or you can’t get people to venues, that’s the kind of thing that leaves a negative legacy for you, and we want to make sure that doesn’t happen.

SportsTravel: On a high level, what are your thoughts about sports as a driver of economic development?

I’m a big believer in experience and sports. Look, we live in a very materialistic world right now, and I think people are getting tired of just having Amazon packages delivered to them and thinking that’s happiness. That’s not where happiness comes from. I think true happiness comes not from things, but from events and experiences. I didn’t get to go to any of the events in 2002. We had just moved back. We were very poor. But I did have two little kids in strollers walking around downtown Salt Lake City at the Medals Plaza, and, I mean, those are core memories in our minds and watching those events on TV. Being able to experience those events is something entirely different. So we’re trying to open that up to more people in Utah. We’re constantly working on getting more big sporting events to Utah We have (an NHL) hockey team now. We’re working on getting a baseball team to Utah. That looks very good, expansion wise, to have MLB there. And so we think that that’s important. Not just economically, but culturally and socially as well.

SportsTravel: If you do get to any events this week, which ones are you looking forward to?

So, hockey’s my favorite. Getting a hockey team in Utah was a big deal for us. We’re in our second year now and seeing some of our players here, not just on the U.S. team, but on other teams as well is great. We’ve become big hockey fans in our family.