MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Tuesday, the City of Memphis announced that it would be splitting $350 million in state funding for upgrading local sporting venues between Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium and FedExForum.
That did not sit well with Craig Unger, president of Memphis 901 FC and the Memphis Redbirds, which both play in AutoZone Park.
“You can very much tell it’s a 20-year-old stadium,” said Ian Johnson.
AutoZone Park is a place that Johnson knows well. He is a member of the Bluff City Mafia, the group of soccer super fans which supports 901 FC.
“It’s been a jewel of the city for a long time and it’s started to crumble,” he said. “If we don’t take care of it, it’s going to suffer the same fate as the (Mid-South) Coliseum.”
Johnson weighed in after Unger posted a three-page response Tuesday to the city choosing not to allocate any state money to AutoZone Park, listing all of the repairs and upgrades that stadium needs, like being responsible for its own heating and air conditioning and cleaning up the bathrooms.
“You go to the bathrooms and some of the doors are hanging off the hinges,” Johnson says.
The list also includes better stadium lights, improving the concession area and fixing old, cracked seats.
“The (seats along the) actual third and first baselines need a lot of work,” Johnson added.
Johnson says that there is an appetite in the city for other sports besides basketball.
“While we love the Grizzlies, and also we have the U of M, we can’t be a one-sport town,” he says. “There’s 365 days a year, you can only play so many basketball games.”
And by not upgrading AutoZone and not allocating money for a new soccer-only facility, Johnson says the city risks losing both 901 FC and the Redbirds.
“Memphis is trying to keep its footing with Nashville,” Johnson says. “A large part of that for any major city is sports.”
The city’s proposal would send $120 million to Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium and the remaining $230 million would go to FedExForum.
ABC24 reached out to AutoZone Park for further comment but they referred the station back to Unger’s statement.