When Ashley Smith watched 18,000 strangers erupt in unison at a Utah Mammoth playoff game, she saw something electric—and increasingly rare. "People who don’t know each other, high-fiving and hugging and all holding their breath at the same moment," she recalled. "Everyone’s living an alone life, a lonely life. We’ve kind of programmed loneliness into our world, and sports bypasses that."

Ashley and her husband Ryan, co-owners of the Utah Jazz and Utah Mammoth, shared this vision of live sports as a cure for modern isolation during the Atlantic Across America Utah event, held in partnership with the Deseret News at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City. The conversation, hosted by Atlantic staff writer and Deseret Voices podcast host McKay Coppins, highlighted how the Smiths are betting big on the unifying power of the arena.

The couple brought hockey to Utah in 2024 by acquiring the players and personnel of the Arizona Coyotes, launching a new NHL franchise. But their journey into sports ownership began in 2020, when they purchased the Utah Jazz from the Larry H. Miller family—the same family that saved the franchise from relocation in the 1980s. Former Jazz owner Gail Miller, who attended Monday’s event, didn’t sugarcoat the responsibility she was passing on.

"Gail sat us down multiple times and was a little bit like buyer beware," Ryan Smith recalled. "She was handing that off like, 'OK, I know you’re going to do it different than us, but you care about Utah and you’re going to keep it here.'" Ryan said he’ll never forget Miller’s parting words: "I hope it’s as good for you and your family as it’s been for us."

Now, he says, "There’s moments where I’m like, 'OK, this is what she was talking about.' It’s really the first thing that Ash and I have been able to do together. And that’s really cool."

Before stepping into the sports world, the Smiths spent what Ryan calls a "20-year tech journey together." (Ryan co-founded Qualtrics, which was acquired for $8 billion in 2018.) The couple is always asking what their next "why" is—and for now, the answer is clear: bringing people together under one roof, sharing one breath, and remembering what it feels like to belong.