When the Jazz moved to Salt Lake City, why did they not change the name of...

[Max R]

...the franchise? When the New Orleans Jazz NBA franchise moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, why did they not bother to change the name of the franchise to reflect the city of Salt Lake City? The name "Jazz" does not seem to fit the city well. Was there ever an effort to change the name to something closer to home? Also, why did they chose "Utah" over "Salt Lake"?

[Indiana FIJI]

name recognition. it is weird though since in utah, they don't allow music.

[wdx2bb]

As far as Jazz goes, it probably was to establish a little continuity with the previous franchise -- no matter how silly it was to keep it in Utah.

As for the city/state, ownership probably was trying to market the team to the entire state, since it was the first pro franchise in the state.

By the way, there were lakes in Minneapolis, but not many in Los Angeles when that franchise moved West.

[Wyody]

Originally Posted by Max R

...the franchise? When the New Orleans Jazz NBA franchise moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, why did they not bother to change the name of the franchise to reflect the city of Salt Lake City? The name "Jazz" does not seem to fit the city well. Was there ever an effort to change the name to something closer to home? Also, why did they chose "Utah" over "Salt Lake"?

Utah has had a long tradition of hockey teams and minor-league baseball teams. Names reflecting Utah were pretty much used up by the continuing change in franchises, leagues, ownerships over the years. Names like "The Gulls" - (Seagull being the state bird) "The Bees" and "The Buzz" (beehives being the LDS reflection) and a few others were all gone - nothing to change "The Jazz" to.
I don't believe I was living there when the Jazz moved there - although it's possible I was based out of there at the time - but simply, Salt Lake itself did not have the population to support a pro team so the tab had to be picked up by a variety of "owners" and tax-dollars thus making it more of a state-wide team than a Salt Lake City investment. A local do-well car dealer bought the team back in the 80's and although I could be wrong ... I think he still owns the team (Larry Miller). To this day, the population of the city is limited to about 1.5 mil - tops ... and that's actually the entire Salt Lake Valley which is made up of several smaller cities (ex: Murray, Sandy, West Valley, West Jordan, Midvale, Magna and others).
Salt Lake is still not a huge place for jazz - it's there - but so are myriad other forms of music, i.e., blues, bluegrass, metal, rock, wave, country, etc.