Meet the Current Real Salt Lake Owners
By Rachel Jones - June 2, 2023

Remember when Loy Hansen claimed he would sell Real Salt Lake in August 2020? It’s been quite some time, and it hasn’t settled anywhere since then, despite being linked to several ownership groups – until January 2022. Some are presumably come to learn more about David Blitzer, while others are curious about who else is involved. Let’s take a look at who’s who in this group.

According to Sportico, the new Real Salt Lake owner (or, in MLS words, investor-operator) and the club’s leading spokesperson to the league. He is, however, much more. He is the Global Head of Tactical Opportunities at Blackstone Group, where he has worked for many years. Blackstone Group is a private equity firm with around $26 billion market capitalization. He’s also a party to several other ownership groupings in various sports. Let us discuss these.

Getty Images/ Getty Images Entertainment/ Cindy Ord

Blitzer owns half of the Premier League club Crystal Palace FC, Bundesliga’s FC Augsburg, Eredivisie’s ADO Den Haag, and Belgian club Waasland-Beveren through Bolt Football Holdings. Bolt’s board of directors comprises Jahm Najafi and Jeff Moorad. There’s no word yet on whether Bolt is engaged in the transaction. Blitzer is a shareholder of Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment, which owns the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, among other franchises, alongside Josh Harris. This transaction does not appear to include Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment. They also own a piece of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Ryan Smith, who bought the Jazz in October 2020, was said to be interested in RSL in the early stages of the process but backed out before becoming engaged again. Ryan Smith, the 42-year-old CEO and co-founder of online survey software business Qualtrics bought RSL with Blitzer through SEG Assets, one of his holdings. Following Dave Checketts’ founding and control of the club(2004-13), Blitzer and SEG became the club’s third ownership group, acquiring teams and related properties from Dell Loy Hansen (2013-21).