The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Last Call From The Minor Leagues to Building Nashville’s $1.5 Billion Sports Blueprint by Jay Grider

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

Last Call From The Minor Leagues to Building Nashville’s $1.5 Billion Sports Blueprint by Jay Grider Jaygrider.com

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Some guests of the show may be an endorsement or review of any kind. Terry amazing young man on the show. We're going to be talking about his book and insights. He has written a book called Last Call from the Minor Leagues to Building Nashville's 1.5 billion sports blueprint. Jay Greider joins us on the show. We're going to be talking to him about his interest in what he does. He's a veteran sports management executive with over 38 years of experience leading world-class event operations.

He currently serves as the chief operating officer and special advisor for the Nashville Sports Council, where he helped leadership cement Nashville as one of the premier sports destinations in the United States. Welcome the show, Gray. Jay, how are you doing? Good afternoon, sir. How are you today? Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. I'm doing excellent.

Give us any dot coms, Jay, that you want people to find you on the interwebs, social media, etc. Absolutely. Jay Grider, that's J-A-Y-G-R-I-D-E-R.com. That is currently under construction, but that will be the website where the book would be available. If you want to learn more about the Nashville Sports Council, that's Nashvillesports.com. And you want to shoot me an email, that's the letter J. Greider at Nashvillesports.com. Give us a 30,000 overview.

what's inside this book? This book is the inside story about how Nashville became a premier sports destination city. It pulls back the curtain and talks about how the people in the relationships made it possible. Essentially, Nashville is the star of the book, and I'm the tour guide that gives you that piece of history. Now, with this last call, you were one of the people who sat on the front lines of this. Tell us how that worked and how you got into that. That's correct. Yes.

I grew up about an hour south from Nashville. I graduated from Middle Tennessee State University back in 1987 and was lucky enough to get on board with a minor league baseball team in Huntsville, Alabama, and was in minor league baseball for almost 10 years. And then I found my way back to the Nashville area and began working for the sports council back in 1997. Wow. And back then, the sports council was only five years old. the time. So from 1997 until now, I've been lucky enough to be able to be on the front lines of all the different events that we've put on. Over 200 live events over the years to the tune of about $1.5 billion in economic impact of the city. Wow. That's pretty wild, man. Most people don't

have a career that spans that long anymore. Getting old. Yeah. The world's changed a lot, but you don't hear people staying in one field and one job and one stuff. So it's giving you incredible insight and you've been part of what was the initial, you said you were there kind of near to the start of it. What was the initial thing you guys were trying to do? What was the problem you were trying to solve for Nashville? It was really bringing larger-scale events to the city. And the timing was really good because at the time that I started,

the Houston orris had already determined they were moving to town. So at the time, the new NFL state, was being built. Mayor Phil Bredison had already started the renovation of the downtown Broadway area, which included a brand new arena being built. So not only having a brand new NFL stadium with an NFL team and having a brand new arena, the possibilities to bring large-scale events like a bowl game, which we've been doing since 1998, or a southeastern conference men's basketball championship since we first started that 2001, those possibilities became endless, if you will.

Yeah, yeah. And it's working over these 38 years, is that correct? 38 years total with sports career, but about 28 years with the sports council. What were some of the things you achieved? And I guess you talked about this in the book. Yeah, again, we've been able to put on a bowl game since 1998. That's one of the more prouder things. We built that from the bottom up.

None of us had no idea what we were doing at the time, and that's going to be in the book on all the struggles that you go with. obviously cultivating our relationships with the NCAA, the Big Ten Conference, the Southeastern Conference, the FCC, and being able to bring events to town because of those successful relationships. Having an NHL All-Star game in 2016, having the NFL draft in 2019, having the women's final four in 2014, all of those large-scale events continuing to show how great Nashville is, is a sports city. And then obviously this past month with the NFL's announcement that we'll be hosting the Super Bowl in 2030.

That's been the culmination of all of our hard work all these years. Congratulations. That's quite a feat. The Super Bowl's a big deal. That's the, to me, that's the granddaddy of them all. That's the most popular sporting event that one could hope to try and bring to your city. Now, Nashville was always known as a music city back then, wasn't it? It still is.

Yeah, yeah. And so I know there were a huge tourist spot. Isn't Elvis's thing there? That would be Memphis. Oh, that's about three hours to the west. Okay. And I've clearly never been to it. But I want to go one of these days.

It would be fun to go see it. It's cool. Yeah, I remember driving in my grandfather's big Chevy Impala, those huge things that you could throw a rock from the driver's seat to the passenger seat, not hit anyone. And it was crazy, man. I'm a tall guy. I could probably lay down on one of those on the bench seats.

with no seat belts of our car really or maybe they were just new it was a tank on wheels for sure oh it was but i remember it came over the radio i was driving with my grandparents and they loved elvis because my grandparents that was the music of their age and so they grew up with him and came over he passed away in his in his bathroom and boy oh the world ended for that day it was kind of crazy it was pretty weird i remember exactly where i was when i heard on the radio i was a huge elvis fan myself. That was the first album that my mom ever bought for me and my brother, live from Madison

Square Garden in 1972. And he wasn't that old, really, when it comes down to age these days. 42. Yeah. Geez. Think about, I don't know, he had such a huge library of work that he did, but, yeah, Nashville is a wonderful place for music.

I know Branson, boy, they sure came out of nowhere, and I remember thinking when Branson started becoming something they were like, I was like, What the hell? Yeah, it was kind of like a Nashville, a little brother for a while, I think. And I think they still got stuff going on today. I've not been up there, but obviously it's not Nashville, but they're making a dent.

Yeah, yeah. Probably rising tide lifts all boats. Absolutely. The same place. But Nashville, you do all this stuff. And so you, how many, the Super Bowl is pretty awesome to have. What other sports teams move there with your guys as help? Obviously, the Houston owners moved to town and McKee.

came to Tennessee Titans. Oh, yeah. Obviously, the Nashville Predators came to town in the late 90s. Nashville SC, which is our soccer team. The Nashville Sounds, believe it or not, was the very first professional sports team that we've had to town. And that, they started in 1978. So as a child, growing up, minor league baseball was really the very first professional sports team that you could, or a sporting event that you could attend here in town.

Oh, wow. Whenever I moved away and started working in minor league baseball myself, I could obviously relate because Nashville having the sounds here. But then whenever I was living in Jacksonville, Florida, working for the Jacksonville Sons, I get a call from my brother telling me that the Oilers are moving to Nashville. And I thought, there's no way. And then next thing, you know, you got a hockey team come into town. And then several years later, here comes a soccer team. And it's, oh, my gosh, what's next? And I would have, if you, if you, if I were a betting man, I would have said major league baseball would have been the first major just because of the sounds being in town first.

But, you know, I learned a long time ago in this business, you never know. So you never know what's next. And it's, it's hard to, it's hard to land these deals because there's a lot of the cities to compete for it. My Raiders, I remember when they were, they wanted to get out of Oakland again, again. and they were looking for host cities that would be. There's a lot of competition for that. And Vegas, of course, was slided by its gambling, been slided by sports,

but it's funny how sports have just become open to online gaming. Or, yeah, online gambling. And for a long time, I'm like, they're never going to ever have a sports team here really in Vegas. That's huge because the gambling thing. But it was like, I don't know what, like five years ago or something, then they quit fighting all those online gambling things, and they adopted them.

And it seems like once the NFL was like, okay, we're going to support online gambling, they're like, we must go to Vegas. They went from zero to 100 real quick. They did. Like overnight, you're like, wait, this is okay now? Yeah, exactly. I thought this was bad, whatever.

But then you see them sponsoring it and running ads for it, and I'm like, I guess I guess they're indoors. It's kind of like the lottery, especially in the deep south. You never thought you'd get it. finally. And then now of a sudden it's, it's betting, but you can't really walk into a casino here in Tennessee. You've got to do it online. But again, who knows? I wouldn't be surprised in the future you can walk in and place a bet somewhere. So I imagine being in the leadership that helped a lot of

these things happen, you're pretty valuable. I know guys in Vegas that do this for the city, and they try and get business leaders to come and people to bring their companies here. Sure. And so there's a lot of, there's a lot of promoting of the city. There's selling of the city, reaching out to people, glad-handing, I guess, I don't know what you call it, but basically inviting people come to the city, tour, showing the city around, selling the benefits of the city and what's about really being an emissary for the city or an ambassador. And what are some techniques that you found in your management skills? Because a lot of this comes down to business and leadership as well.

What were some of the techniques and leadership that maybe you utilize to make these things happen? It's a really good question. I'm going to give everybody kudos that we work with. It's a collaborative effort of the city, and that's one of the things I think that separates Nashville from everybody else, is that whether you're talking about the Convention of Visitors Corporation or the hotel community or the hospitality community in the downtown area or the venues, whether that be Nissan Stadium or Bridgestone Arena or whomever it might be, and the mayor's office, the police, the fire, everybody, we all need to kind of work together in order to be able to put together,

let's say a bid if we're going after an NCAA event, to where whenever they come to town on a site visit, we can roll out the red carpet and show them how that we can put on a quality event. A lot of people think when you come to Nashville, you roll the balls out on the court and you start playing. they have no idea that it took months, even years, to get it to that point, whether it's putting together a bid four years out to try and get the women's final four, and then finally getting it, but then you're pre-planning for a year and a half on making sure everything that

you need from the ancillary events to the facility, to the city services, to the transportation, the logistics, everything. You're putting together a cake or a, you're putting together a cake or a pie or you're putting together a meal and you've got all these ingredients. And it's all the people that are involved, the partnerships of the city and its stakeholders working collectively together in order to get that together. So I give credit to all the entire city when it comes to our management skills. We all work in our own silos, which we all do. But we come together as a whole, I think arguably better than any city when it comes to prepping to put on an event and then actually executing it.

It takes a lot of work. I've seen the work that they've done. In fact, one of the Las Vegas hosting places paid me to come interview people at an event that they were holding outside of the thing and profile them. They were some of their top business leaders. But you have to network not only through the new people that you're trying to get to come to the city, but you also have to network through my understanding. So correct me if I'm wrong.

You have to network through a lot of the other business leaders that are currently in your city and try and help develop them to do their expansions or do more or be able to integrate with the new people. So you can introduce, hey, Bob, this is Bob who wants to me and brings a business to Nashville. And here's John. John's a business leader. He owns five restaurants here in Nashville. And imagine you did a lot of that sort of stuff. Absolutely. The Sports Council itself is a nonprofit.

It's a 501C6. And our Music City Bowl game is also a nonprofit. It's a 501C3. And with those, you've got two separate budgets. You have one staff that does both, but then you also have two sets of board of directors. And to your point, the people that serve on those boards are those people that you're talking about, whether it be hotel industry people or hospitality industry of people or bankers or lawyers or whomever those folks might be. But those are our business leaders that are.

are crucial for our community success and having those people on our board and integrating new people whenever they come to town is crucial. And that keeps us sustainable for sure as a quality organization for sure. Definitely, definitely. I wonder some of the challenges maybe that you, I don't know if you talk about in the book, maybe some of the challenges you overcame. A lot of challenges. Event business, just like in any business, you never know. So weather has been challenging at times. Obviously, some teams can be a little bit more challenging than others. You just have situations.

A perfect example is, unfortunately, COVID, how everybody had in the world had to pivot on that one. Oh, yeah. If we look at the COVID year on Christmas Day in 2020, it was essentially about three or four days before our teams were supposed to come to town. Oh, wow. There was a bombing, if you recall, in downtown Nashville. Oh, yeah, I remember that.

And we were trying to get over the COVID hump. Yeah. And then when the bombing hit, it hit literally a block away from the stadium. So you had two teams that were scheduled to come to town, barring anybody on the team getting COVID. But once that bomb hit, everybody was like, are we safe? Are we safe? Are we safe? team perspectives. We had the FBI and the TBI and the Metro Police and all the entities that needed

the mayor's office that needed to be involved to try and assure them that that wasn't going to happen twice. Yeah. But unfortunately, the sign of the times, one of the teams did have a strain of COVID that take over the team. So our game got canceled. But again, COVID or again, a bomb or a tornado or whatever it could be. It could be a floor for a basketball tournament, not being even an hour before the first shoot-around, which is one of the little stories in the book. Oh, really?

Or a snowstorm that blankets a field with snow and ice whenever you need to paint the logos on said field. So there's a lot of things that go on behind the scenes, and that's one of the things that I tell young people that start to work for us when you're working the event. business or the sports business. You just never know what could happen. And everybody

that maybe comes to your event where there be a football game or a basketball game, they have no idea the organized chaos that goes on behind the scenes. But that's what you sign up for. That's what this business is all about. And one of the things that you have to be good at

is and changing on the fly because something could happen in an instant and you've got to be able to pivot. But to be able to communicate to the people that we work with that, hey, even though all this stuff's going on behind the scenes, they have no clue what's going on. So as long as we prep and we're prepared and we can pivot to try and solve whatever problem it might be, everything should work out the way it's supposed to be, unbeknownst

to them. Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts in the background that you've got to, it's due and there's plates to spin and trying to get everything going the right way. That keeps you on your toes. Yeah, the details. And it's very fluid, really. When you think about some things, because you've got so many things that have to go on to put on an event. Most people just think, oh, they just put on a concert and you go and that's it.

You buy some tickets. But no, there's so much work that goes into it and trucks and timelines and making sure, like you said, you got to paint the field, the logos and stuff. So this is probably a great, if someone's in your line of work or wanting to be in your line of work, this is probably maybe a little bit of a, maybe a good guide or instruction manual of different ideas on how to provide good leadership. 100%. If you're a young person, just wanting to get a job or a young person that wants to work in sports. The first third of the book is about me growing up wanting to work in sports and going to college and preparing to how in order to find a job in sports.

and once I graduated, the struggles that I had trying to get a job in sports. So I think even if you're not a sports fan, it's an entertaining read. I call it it a very casual read. The tone that I wanted to show in the book is you and I sitting at a bar having a drink and I'm just sharing stories with you. This is not a master class by any means, but I think it's something that everybody can learn from, whether you're trying to find a job or are you getting burned out or hey what all does it take to put on a sporting event or hey i'd love to work in sports

well the idea of working in sports and working in sports are two different things you separate the one the ones that do from the ones that think they want to do pretty quick uh yeah that'll do it that'll do it it is a it is a lot of work but you network with a lot of people and you get to know a lot of business people locally and people that want to make the city better and contribute to their thing. And those guys usually have a pretty good vision of the world in which they operate and can inspire other leaders too. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. I imagine you guys put on some local events for local people to network, maybe? Absolutely, yeah. The Sports Council itself, we do produce sporting events, but then we also are a membership-based organization. So you as an individual, you could

purchase a sports council membership or as a company you can have a corporate membership. And essentially, I would say that's a community give. You're helping fund the sports council engine to bring these sporting events to town. But in addition to funding that engine, we do have probably five to seven speaker events throughout the year. Or as a member, you can either come complimentary depending upon your level of giving or at the corporate level, you may have multiple free admissions to these speaker events, whether it's a Titans event, a Preds event. We may have a commissioner from a conference or the NCAA come to town, where you can actually come and network with other business folks, but then also see what the National Sports Council

is all about. It's pretty wild. And now you consult with them and give them advice as you go. What a great business. You probably get to meet a lot of great athletes, too, right? I have had the pleasure of a few in the past, but again, working in sports, it's not the glamour. You're not necessarily sitting in a suite watching the game. You're down in the bowels.

There's not a whole lot you watch, but I will say I've been lucky enough to cross-path with some people over the years. And they've been able to meet a lot of great folks. You got to be at the shows. I've often, I was recently figuring how I can be a local photographer for the local concert halls, because I've got back in a photography and I'm like, it'd be great if I could be like a concert photographer because then I can get free tickets. Or just buy a ladder and put on some coveralls

and grab some light bulbs and just walk in. Dude, dude, I saw that one time. There was like, I think it was a vine or something or what it was. It was back in the day when memes were like really huge. And these guys were, these guys wear work clothes and carry a ladder into places. And they would just let them in.

because he looked like the crew. He just let it. They just were like, we got, we got to have this ladder here, man. Yeah. We had to grab the guy out of the trucks. And they just let him in.

I've heard stories of people offering $100 for a concessionaire t-shirt. And then they just put on the t-shirt and walk in. And then they take the t-shirt off, throw it in the trash can and they're in. I, I went to the journey concert recently last year. And the guys, they're like,

no cameras because I really want to take my beautiful cameras, but they're really obvious. They're huge. And so they're like, oh, those are pro cameras, which is so much bullshit. I just, for some reason, people seem to have great cameras. They get great pictures out, but I don't know how they sneak them past the metal detectors. But so I went to, I went to Journey and I saw guys with bags. And I'm like, hey, I thought we couldn't bring bags. And they go, oh, those diaper bags.

And I was like, what? And they go, yeah, you could, you can bring a diaper bag. I go, what if I don't wear diapers and I bring a bag that's a diaper bag and it doesn't all have all diapers in it. Can I do that? And they're like, yeah, you can bring a diaper bag. I don't have to have a baby or anything, right? I'm old. I'm 58.

I can tell you I'm wearing a diet. I'll put one on to get a bag into a show, man. I got to just pull it up and show them when you get the batting. Yeah, yeah, you just show them. You just put one on and then you go in the bathroom, toss it and stuff. I'm not at that age. Or hey, not use it. Who knows?

That's the other thing. You just bring up a good point I was having with one of my friends. I was talking about the diaper bag story and telling her. And then it occurred to me, I'm at that age where when I got to go, I got to go. When I go downtown photographing, they don't let you in a lot of bathrooms and trying to find one sometimes that'll let you in is hard. And so I have these pouches that you buy off Amazon that are designed to, you're designed to pee in them. And so sometimes I'm finding an alleyway or a stairwell that's to a basement to goes nowhere or something in the city. And I'll find some corner to be in with those bags.

And so when I got to go, I got to go. I'm 60, so I understand what you're talking about. You understand, yeah. And so my friend and I were talking, I'm like, I should just wear a diaper to a concert. And then I wouldn't have to leave because there's always, I'm always going to leave once or twice to go to the pee. Right. And so I usually try and pick the songs that aren't my favorites. But recently I went to the Rush concert.

There was a couple favorites I was able to go, or that I didn't like that after new albums that I could go pee on. But I did want to be there for the concert. And I'm like, yeah, maybe I'm just going to learn to be that diaper guy in all the right moments. I'm so old. Are you like me where when you see those big crowds like a Coachella, where there's like just a football field or larger of people just crammed into one space?

And you're just like, I would pee myself by the time I walked out of the middle of that. Yeah. When I see those big crowds, it's generally on Broadway in downtown Nashville, and I've been there long enough to where I can maneuver and I know around the backways to get to the bathroom. That's one of the other keys to the city that you have doing the work that you do. Oh, it's amazing. Yes. I highly recommend it. So, hi, what do you, what do you hope people come away with when the book, and do we have an issue date, too, when the second year? I'm hoping sometime next month is when they're in the process of building it, I guess you would say. but this is my first time dealing with a publishing company writing a book. So I don't know all the terminology.

But to answer your question, I guess what people will get out of it. I hope they're looking to be just entertained, to be honest with you. I hope they're looking to see, hey, what does it really like to put on a sporting event from the front office side, from down in the bowels? They're going to get stories that they've never thought about before, never heard about before. They're going to hear stories from volunteers and from security details of weird things that have happened. So I hope they're entertained by it, but I think if you were to ask me the type of individuals that would be interested in reading it, I think, or would find it entertaining. I think it's all types.

Again, as I mentioned before, you don't have to be a sports fan to enjoy this. You just have to be a person that has lived life and is looking just to take a couple, three hours out. out of their day and be entertained. Yeah, be entertained and stuff. And it's a great lesson for somebody who wants to get into this business. You're selling the city. It's a fun job. You're meeting lots of very successful people usually.

You can hang out with stuff. My friends who run that Las Vegas one, they hang out with the owner of the Raiders, and they get to go to the Raiders games and the promotional stuff, which makes me jealous because I'm a Raider fan. But, yeah, just lose, baby. It's Armada. Oops, sorry, I said that. Yeah, it's, it's tough, man, when you're on the low end of the totem pole.

I understand that, sir. But at least we've got some, at least we've got some, some Super Bowls from the 70s or something, I guess. I can't say that, but I can say we're having the Super Bowl here in 2030. We'll be here. We'll be playing in it. Yeah. Didn't, didn't Brady steal the Titans from winning, or am I thinking of the Falcons? That was the Falcons.

That was the Falcons, yeah. That guy gets the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. That was the most insane thing every much. at that point I've always hated Tom because he stole the Super Bowl from us with that tuck rule that was bullshit that was our that was our Super Bowl

our Super Bowl was with the Rams at the very end we almost scored to not go ahead but to potentially tie the game that was recently that was recently wasn't it no it was 99, 2000 season okay maybe 20 years it's going by too fast for me I can't remember any of I remember buying

the Oilers pencils they They had these pencil. They would sell pencils with all the NFL names on it and the colors. I remember buying the Oilers thing. And I always love their logo and colors. And then when they disappear, I was like, well,

that's kind of shitty. Chris, I have a surprise for you, sir. Oh, really? Colors are now what the Oilers used to be. So,

really? If you watch a Titan game this year, you're going to go, holy moly, that looks like the Oilers. I always thought it was a cool logo. The team was kind of cool. I don't know why.

It's just, it was a pencil. But I had all the pencils of all the teams. And I did too. You collected. Those things that we did in school. Nowadays, you're like, what's a pencil? Perse of writing, you know, all that stuff.

Janicee right now is going, what the hell is you talking about? He's talking about some Neanderthal caveman shit. Anyway, so give us your dot-coms. We go out, any social media you want to do, and people will be watching for that book to get released on Amazon, etc. Awesome. J.Gryder.com for the book. Currently under construction.

If you want to know more about Nashville Sports Council, it's Nashvillesports.com. And if you want to email me, it's the letter J. Greider, G-R-I-D-E-R at Nashvillesports.com. And the J-R-R-R-S-V-E-R-R-S-K-E-R. Yes, it's J-A-Y-G-R-D-E-R. Okay, just want to make sure because it doesn't pull up and it's being built, obviously. But we'll have a link for that on the Chris Foss show so people can check that out there. Jay, thank you very much for coming the show.

It's been fun to have you and wonderful story and great leadership, lessons, and business. Appreciate it, brother. Thank you. Thank you. And thanks for tuning in. Order up his book, wherever fine books are sold. You can take and get them there and enjoy all that good stuff with it. The book is entitled, Last Call from the Minor Leagues to Building Nashville's 1.5 billion sports blueprint. Thanks for us for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com.

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