A good idea
Item: The best idea I have heard for permanently honoring Larry Miller comes from Wade Schillo in Sandy.
He suggests the Jazz honor Miller by lowing the official seating capacity of EnergySolutions Arena from 19,911 to 19,910.
Schillo also suggested leaving Miller's courtside seat empty but, as I told him, those two family seats will likely remain in Gail Miller's possession until she is no longer interested in coming to the games. I'm guessing there will be some nights where Larry's seat remains empty. I'm also guessing that there will be some nights when Gail might want to bring someone to the game -- a grandchild, a neighbor, a friend, whoever -- and I think Larry Miller would be the first to approve her having some company, rather than sit next to an empty seat every night.
Down the road, when the day comes when Gail Miller no longer wants to attend all the games, those two seats will be extremely valuable and, if sold, would be worth thousands of dollars in annual revenue to the franchise.
Still, I like the idea of lowering the official seating capacity. It is a low-key, unpretentious way of permanently honoring Miller, who always considered himself an owner/fan, not just an owner.
-- Steve Luhm
He suggests the Jazz honor Miller by lowing the official seating capacity of EnergySolutions Arena from 19,911 to 19,910.
Schillo also suggested leaving Miller's courtside seat empty but, as I told him, those two family seats will likely remain in Gail Miller's possession until she is no longer interested in coming to the games. I'm guessing there will be some nights where Larry's seat remains empty. I'm also guessing that there will be some nights when Gail might want to bring someone to the game -- a grandchild, a neighbor, a friend, whoever -- and I think Larry Miller would be the first to approve her having some company, rather than sit next to an empty seat every night.
Down the road, when the day comes when Gail Miller no longer wants to attend all the games, those two seats will be extremely valuable and, if sold, would be worth thousands of dollars in annual revenue to the franchise.
Still, I like the idea of lowering the official seating capacity. It is a low-key, unpretentious way of permanently honoring Miller, who always considered himself an owner/fan, not just an owner.
-- Steve Luhm
9:08 AM
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2 Comments:
I thought of this idea as well. It seems like retiring the seat would be more meaningful than hoisting a jersey to the rafters. That said, it seems unlikely the Jazz organization would be interested in forfeiting the future revenues that seat would generate down the road (and understandably so, in my opinion).
To satisfy these competing desires, some sort of funding initiative could be taken up - set the seat's 30-year value (that number is completely arbitrary...maybe it should be longer or shorter), double it, and then open the phone lines for the donations. Half the money goes to the seat, half goes to a LHM charity.
Implementing this idea would obviously take far more effort than it has been to spend the few minutes I've spent typing it out. Still...I'd be thrilled to see something like this happen.
How does lowering the seat count (without actually lowering the seat count) honor Larry at all? Where is the honor in saying, "we know we have the same number of seats, but we're going to say we have one less?" Not to mention, there's some irony in the suggestion since, as an owner, Larry would have wanted to fill as many seats as possible for his games.
Also in terms of the how-to-honor-Larry debate, I would love to see the Jazz play Saturday's game (the one that will take place mere hours after the funeral) in the old Jazz note jerseys. But alas, I don't think it will happen, since that's a pretty quick turnaround to get the right size equipment and get numbers and names sewn on. I thought that would be a fitting tribute.
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