Getting To Tell Our Story: A Chat With Memphis 901 FC COO Jay Mims

In 2023, Memphis 901 FC had their lowest ever average attendance. Over the course of 18 games at AutoZone Park the Beale Street Boys averaged just 3,455 fans per game. That was a drop of 11% from an average of 3,886 in 2022 and a staggering 47% lower than the 6,564 they averaged during their inaugural season in 2019.

The attendance collapse was disappointing, not just because 901 FC is trying to get a soccer-specific stadium built, but also because the team has been quite successful on the field the last several years with three straight playoff appearances and decent runs in both the 2019 and 2023 editions of the US Open Cup. Many fans had expressed their desire to see more from the organization in terms of marketing and an overall presence around town.

Enter Jay Mims.

A native Memphian, Mims was announced as the new Chief Operations Officer by the team on December 11. After his playing career, Mims had several coaching roles in the college ranks including as an assistant at both Creighton and Penn State as well as head coach at Nebraska-Omaha. He was eventually named the head coach of Union Omaha in USL League One where he won a championship in 2021 and made a Cinderella run to the US Open Cup quarter-finals in 2022, beating two MLS teams along the way. His hire by Memphis 901 FC was lauded, not just by the soccer fans in Memphis, but also by Nebraska Athletic Director Trev Alberts.

For his part, Jay Mims seems glad to be back home.

“Yeah, I grew up here. I’m a Memphian and grew up here. I’ve been moved away for about 20 plus years but have family here and so I was able to come back once a year for barbeque and Gibson’s donuts and Christmas. But now moving back here it’s been awesome to move back and connect with all the people that I grew up and played soccer with and seeing them in their professional lives now and what they’re doing and where they’re working.

I still haven’t gotten to see everybody yet. Memphis is kind of one of those big small towns but it’s been fun to be back here the last six weeks and reconnect with some of these people.”

And being back home played a very big part in him taking the COO job with 901 FC.

“I’ve had some different job opportunities after coaching with Union Omaha but I think the draw to me was to get back home to a community I grew up in and I guess revitalize a professional soccer club. I mean, shoot it would have been amazing if we had an outdoor professional soccer club when I was growing up as a kid. And I think there’s so many wonderful things to be able to do with a pro soccer team and using soccer as the vehicle to promote great things in the community. For me to get to be able to go back and be a part and grow this and revitalize and give it new energy in my hometown is amazing.”

Funnily enough, Jay Mims isn’t the only person that Memphis 901 FC brought in from Union Omaha. As one of the many roster moves that the team has made this off-season, Noe Meza followed Mims to Memphis though Mims points out that wasn’t necessarily his doing.

“Yeah actually it’s funny,” he said with a chuckle. “I think people are going to see that and me coming in here and seeing that signing, but no. I think the coaching staff, Caleb and Stephen, already had Noe on their radar and worked out some stuff with him. But it’s fun for me. I got to recruit him out of college and have been watching him play since he was about 19 or 20 years old. And to be able to see his growth and transition to the professional side, I had a great time coaching him up at Omaha. And to now get to see him be here in Memphis, I’m excited to see his growth. He’s a great kid, works hard and he’s honest.”

Just last month, Union Omaha announced they were exploring trying to build a soccer-specific stadium. Memphis 901 FC is likewise trying to build a soccer-specific stadium. Unfortunately, the City of Memphis has publicly stated that Memphis 901 FC will not be getting any of the more than $350 million allocated by the Tennessee legislature for stadium projects in Memphis. When asked about where 901 FC goes from here, Mims was diplomatic.

“Obviously people saw publicly, just like I did, what’s happened over the last couple years with some of the news. Craig is focused on that piece with the stadium and the details of that and I am able to come in here and try to work on a day to day basis with the operations here and keep on improving what we have here.”

In the mean time, the biggest thing for 901 FC is figuring out how to improve their attendance. The season opener against the Las Vegas Lights down at AutoZone Park is less than a month away on Saturday, March 9. How does Mims plan on going about trying to market and get more people to come to more games?

“I think the biggest thing is we’ll get to hire some people here. You know, right now it’s kind of bare-boned. The first step was hiring me and now we get to hire a soccer staff of people and have a marketing person, have ticketing people, have sales people. It’s going to take time. Obviously, we start the season in a month and we’re not close to getting that done yet. But I think we’re in the first stages of that: of getting some people hired. We’ve hired two or three people and then hopefully there’s a stage two of that where we get three or four more people. So it’ll take some time. It might take all season but I’m excited at least to bring in good people that work hard and can support what we’re doing here.

And like you said be able help get out in the community and market the games. Because it’s a great story to tell, you know? There’s a good team that we’ll have and there’s such a rich history of Memphis soccer. And we know there’s a precedent of a lot more people that have come out to these games and now it’s just building it back up and getting it to where it was.”

When it comes to more visibility in the community, 901 FC has already started to do a better job of getting out to local schools. Just last week both Head Coach Stephen Glass and Assistant Sporting Director Caleb Patterson-Sewell were at Lewisburg High School in Olive Branch as the Patriots boys and girls teams prepared to play in the state playoffs. Things like that are definitely on Mims’ radar.

“Yes to all those things. I’ve talked to Coach Caleb about that as well. I know he’s excited to keep on doing stuff like they’ve done in the past in having guys out in the local community. For us to be able to have a staff to be able to execute on some things and really get into the community and partner up with special partners we’re definitely excited about that.

There’s so many cool, unique stories in Memphis. There’s so many great non-profits in Memphis, there’s so many passionate fans that have so many ideas as well. For us to be able to come in and partner up with a lot of people and be able to do some creative stuff, I think we’re definitely excited about that. Obviously it’s going to take some time to get in. There’s a thousand different ideas that we’d obviously like to try to implement. But it’s day by day and seeing what we can do. If you give us some time I think we’re going to be able to be at youth tournaments and partnering with different associations that are in town and seeing our name and our brand out there being visible. It’s super important.

And that’s what we’ve been doing recently. Just going out and listening. Listening to people and having them tell us what we can do and what their thoughts are.”

One thing that has garnered positive reactions from the fans is the list of benefits for season ticket holders this year. Following last season, several fans expressed their dissatisfaction with season ticket holder benefits or lack thereof. This year’s list of benefits seems to be quite extensive. It includes a concession credit, an exclusive scarf, the ability to bring a friend to a match, ticket exchange options, invitation to a pair of season-ticket holder events, and of course priority options for playoff, mid-season exhibition, and US Open Cup games. According to Mims, it’s been well received.

“I think very positively. They’re great fans. Some of them have been season ticket holders since Year 1 and some of them will be brand new this year. That’s just something small that we can do to really reward people that are going to come out here for the season. It’s a thing that we can control. They’re going to have a concession credit, they’re going to have a scarf, they’re going to be invited to team events. It’s really taking care of the fans that have been coming here and obviously attracting new fans. That’s just a small gesture for us to be able to really take care of some of these fans and give them an incentive to be a season ticket member.”

While season tickets have been available for purchase since New Year’s Day, single game tickets are not yet on sale to the public. Mims said that he expects single game tickets to be available soon.

“I think very soon. Single game tickets and group tickets will be out. Our plan is hopefully early next week we’re going to have that stuff out there. There will be group information: 8-packs, 4-packs, single games, all kinds of great stuff.”

But those tickets are obviously only for the home games. Following the team when they are on the road is a much more difficult task, which has been compounded for the 2024 season by 901 FC’s move to the Western Conference of the USL Championship. Fortunately there could be plans in the works for the team to host watch parties at various local establishments for 901 FC road games.

“I think there will be for sure. I know they’ve done that in the past and I think it’s working with our partners. There’s some different pub partners that we’ve had that sponsor events like that and we’re able to go there. So I think it’s just looking at that partnership list and listening to the fans and seeing what we can do. But I think that’s always a great thing to support these guys when they’re on the road.”

Along those same lines, there will be a ton of high level international soccer being played this summer. Euro 2024 in Germany will be on Americans TV’s during the day while the Copa America will be played here in the US at night. And then both the US men’s team and the US women’s team will be competing at the Olympics in Paris, the first time that both teams have qualified since the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. The question for Jay Mims is, can 901 FC find a way to capitalize on what is going to be a summer of soccer?

“And the World Cup’s not too far away either,” Mims adds. “I know people have heard it for years. ‘Soccer’s on the cusp, it’s on the cusp in America.’ But yeah this is another year where there’s so much stuff. For us to have a pro team in Memphis and be able to do some unique things where we can connect with fans of, not just 901 FC, but of soccer I think would be great. There’s so many different things going on at different times and for us to be able to be creative and come up with something to see what kind of support we can get in combining some of these events is a great idea.”

An additional piece of good news for Memphis 901 FC is that over half of their home games (10 out of the 17) fall between the Grizzlies final game in April and the Tigers first football game around Labor Day weekend. Is it possible to attract fans of those two teams and use 901 FC as a way to fill the summer sports gap?

“I was just talking about this to someone the other day,” he said with a laugh. “When people talk about sports in general in Memphis, we want to be right up there. People talk about the Grizz and people talk about the Tigers and we want to be in that conversation. We want to be up there and we think we have a great product here and we want people to talk about that.

We do think we have a great home schedule. Some of the games are a little spread out so we’re going to have to do some creative stuff. For us, can there be six or seven matches that we can really highlight to try and do some creative stuff around and get people to come out and really highlight those matches? Absolutely.”

One thing that many fans have wanted for years that Memphis 901 FC has little to no control over is coverage of the team by local media outlets in the city. Bluff City Media, of course, was at 16 of the 18 home games last season (plus one on the road @ Louisville City) while John Varlas of the Daily Memphian was at more games than not. Additionally, the Sports56 WHBQ morning show hosted by Greg Gaston and Eli Savoie had Head Coach Stephen Glass on several times last season, as well as Bluff City Media’s own Lawrence Dockery. But those examples seem to be the exception rather than the rule. When asked if there’s anything he can think of to get more media attention for 901 FC, Jay Mims gave a thoughtful answer.

“I think the best marketers of the program are your players, your coaches, and your staff. I think the product on the field has been very, very good. And I think us getting out in the community as much as we can and telling our story and talking to fellow Memphians and really attending everything that we can attend in 2024 is all we can do. Sometimes we can’t worry about outside stuff and when people can cover our games and not cover our games. We get it.

Media’s changed over the last ten years. It’s different. It’s more about storytelling and more about content than it is physically coming out here. I think the best story to tell, we have to tell it and do our job to get people out here. Yeah we want to become a place where, if you’re a media member, you’ve got to get out here and see it because of what we’re doing on the field.”

The regular season may not have begun just quite yet, but the Beale Street Boys have already managed to get a preseason game under their belt as they earned a 1-1 draw with Atlanta United of MLS earlier this month, the goal coming courtesy of Nighte Pickering. They also have another preseason game against an MLS opponent (@ Nashville SC on February 15) and then a pseudo-road preseason game against the University of Memphis at the Billy Murphy Track & Soccer Stadium on Saturday, February 24. Is it possible that either of those two MLS teams plays a return preseason leg here in Memphis in 2025?

“I don’t know. That’s probably question for the coaches,” Mims said with a hearty laugh. “Obviously the MLS teams schedules are busy with the competitions they’re doing with Mexico and whatever’s going on with some of that stuff. And obviously with them starting earlier and earlier they’re now basically starting earlier than the USL teams so sometimes it’s hard to get on that track. But obviously you saw the Atlanta game and it was amazing. Our guys were great and out-played them for a lot of the game. We’re way behind as far as training time because those guys start a lot earlier. I think it’s a credit to the team and the coaching staff with how prepared they were.”

And finally, Mims was asked what success off the field would look like for Memphis 901 FC. After a brief pause he said, “It’s such a rich city of soccer history. There’s so much soccer history in Memphis. For me it’s really getting to tell our story with 901 FC and getting out into the community and telling our story. It’s such a new club but within the short history of our team there’s been some great stories and I think there’s more great stories to come. And for us having so many soccer people around here it’s us getting out there and sharing that story.”