Utah Jazz Agrees to Pay Superdome $280,000 for Breaking Lease in 1979

The Utah Jazz, which played its professional basketball in New Orleans from 1974 to 1979, has agreed to pay the Louisiana Superdome $280,000 for breaking its lease when it moved to Salt Lake City, the state attorney general’s office said Friday.

The Jazz were sued for $60 million in 1979 by the State of Louisiana; the Superdome Commission, administrators of the Dome, and HMC Corp., which manages the Dome. HMC Corp. has since changed its corporate name to Facility Management of Louisiana.

The suit was filed a month after majority owner Sam Battistone announced he was moving the Jazz from New Orleans to Salt Lake City because the National Basketball Assn. team was losing money.

Robert Redmann, an assistant attorney general who handled the suit for the state, said the state granted a Louisiana franchise to the Jazz and NBA, and the team could not be moved without state permission.

When the team moved anyway, Redmann said, the suit alleged it was a violation of Louisiana antitrust statutes.

“We lost that issue in the state appeal court in late 1979 and all that has remained to be settled is reimbursement for having broken at lease at the Superdome,” Redmann said Friday.