Rayo OKC co-owner Sean Jones' passion for soccer drives success

Local businessman and soccer enthusiast Sean Jones is a co-owner of Oklahoma City’s newest professional soccer team, Rayo OKC.  La Liga’s Rayo Vallecano de Madrid partnered with Jones to bring the North American Soccer League team to Oklahoma City. Rayo OKC will begin play in the 2016 NASL Spring Season.

 

Jones said he wants Rayo OKC to be a success on every level.

 

“I want this project to work, but I also understand that it’s not going to work because of me or anyone else,” Jones said. “It’s going to work because we put the right group together, the right team together and every single person has a hand in it. If we succeed or fail, it’s going to be because of the efforts of the group.”

 

Rayo OKC became a reality for Jones just when he had began to run out of options. Jones said one of the men they were talking to about coaching the team asked if they would be opposed to foreign ownership and connected him to Rayo Vallecano.

 

“Soccer’s a 90-minute game and we were about in the 89th minute and I didn’t think it was going to go forward,” Jones said. “I said I wouldn’t be opposed to it if it was the right foreign ownership. I’d like to have local ownership, but if we get the right group to bring what we need to the table, absolutely we would be happy to speak with them.”

 

Jones said Rayo Vallecano had expressed interest in expanding to the United States previously but wanted to get on financially sound footing before they did.

 

“So, when this opportunity came out, they were right at the cusp of being able to do the expansion overseas,” Jones said. “It took quite a while to get it to prompt this through, but I think it was well worth the time and effort to get where we are today.”

 

Jones’ passion for soccer began at a young age, partly because of his mother’s European heritage.

 

“I was interested in soccer before I even played,” Jones said. “My mother being German, during the summers when I was a kid, I would often spend summers in Germany with my grandparents and my cousins and relatives and we would play a lot and I would get to watch it on television.”

 

Edmond’s first organized soccer league, Edmond Soccer Club, gave Jones the opportunity to play on his first competitive soccer team in the fall of 1978.

 

“When I got the opportunity to play in seventh grade, it was the first time I go to really play and I just absolutely fell in love with it,” Jones said.

 

Jones said soccer became a large part of his life during a tough time for his family.

 

“When I was a freshman in high school and my parent’s were getting divorced, my mom worked nights,” Jones said. “The parents, a lot of times, would take me places and take care of me when my mom was working and get me back and forth to practice. I just really felt the bond with the people I grew up with and we all had that common sport. That’s probably where the passion started.”

 

While Jones was attending college for his undergraduate degree, he spent a semester at San Diego State University to play soccer in California, but soon decided that he wanted to stay in Oklahoma.

 

“Growing up I was saying I was going to get out of Oklahoma and once I got out, I realized how much I loved it,” Jones said. “I thought, ‘you know what I’m tired of this semester’ and went back and never looked back and never had the desire to move.”

 

After graduating from Oklahoma State University in 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast Journalism, Jones doing office work for his stepfather’s healthcare business while he went to school for his master’s degree. Jones graduated with a Master’s in Business Administration with a double major in Finance and International Business from Oklahoma City University in 1989.

 

“About the end, when I was looking for a job during the recession and most of the offers were out of town, he approached me and asked if I would stay and work for him because we had grown quite a bit and I had a hand in quite a bit of the growth,” Jones said.

 

Jones continued to work for his stepfather while studying for the Certified Public Accountant exam as well, which he passed in 1992.

 

In 1995, Jones’ stepfather was lost to a plane crash, leaving the business to either be sold off or continued without its sole physician, according to Jones.

 

“We chose to continue the business and we had, at that time, maybe 18 employees and we sat and talked to the employees and made the decision that we were going to go forward,” Jones said. “It was hard, but eventually we did really well and kind of expanded from there into other healthcare-related businesses.”

 

The tragic loss of his stepfather resulted in what Jones views as his greatest professional achievement thus far.

 

“I would say being able to basically save the jobs of 15 to 20 people and take that tragedy and be able to go on and continue the place and make it grow from there, I think that’s probably the greatest professional achievement,” Jones said. “But, it wasn’t without the help with people there.”

 

Jones said growing the company from a point of catastrophe to the 70 to 80 employees today has taught him important lessons about growing a business and will translate to building the fan base for Rayo OKC.

 

“It taught me persistence; it taught me patience,” Jones said. “But, it taught me that if you just stick with and work through something long enough and learn from your mistakes and move forward that you can achieve just about anything. … I think that can translate into this project. We might make some mistakes, but we’ll learn from them and we’ll be persistent. We’ll make things work.”

 

Becoming a fan of soccer is an instantaneous and contagious result of attending a live game, according to Jones.

 

“I think once people watch a game in person, I think they kind of get bit by the soccer bug a little bit,” Jones said. “I think if we bring in this fantastic level of soccer, that people have never seen live, I think we’ll slowly build the fan base.”

 

According to Jones, the Rayo OKC team has the opportunity to build a fan base from those that are not already being catered to - the Hispanic community in Oklahoma City.

 

“We want everyone to come; our target market is not only Hispanics,” Jones said. “But, I think there’s an opportunity there because Hispanics don’t have to be introduced to the game of soccer; they know it. Their brothers play, their sisters play, they watch it on the weekends.”

 

Jones said translating a community’s passion and culture to a local team is the greatest hurdle to jump.  

 

“Their culture has grown up around soccer and they’ve been exposed to it since a very early age,” Jones said. “So, they’ve already got the passion for the sport. Now we have to translate that into ... a passion for our team and I think we have an opportunity to do that.”

 

The Rayo Vallencano style of soccer differs from English and European styles of soccer, according to Jones.

 

“I think, the brand of playing in the Rayo Vallecano style of soccer is very conducive to Latin America,” Jones said. “It’s very technical soccer - short passing, high pressure when we lose the ball. I just think it’s a style of soccer that Hispanics really like to watch.”

Ultimately, Jones said bringing the fantastic atmosphere of foreign soccer to the United States would intensify the fan base, even if it requires a learning curve.

“I think one of the great things about soccer, when you go to an international soccer match or a national team match, the atmosphere in the stands are almost as big a part of the game as the play on the field,” Jones said. “I think if we put a fantastic product on the field and draw in fans, and start really making that team something they can be proud of, I think that will help create that atmosphere.”

 

Jones said that the message he tells his children is that same that he tells those working for him. He said he wants Rayo OKC to be a place where fans know that they are welcomed and appreciated and that is inherent at all levels.

 

“I always tell my kids, even since they were little, one of my favorite quotes - ‘You can judge the character of person by the way they treat those that can do nothing for them,’” Jones said. “I expect every person that works for us from the time a fan gets there or calls on the phone to be treated with dignity and respect and kindness.”

 

Rayo OKC is about hard work, passion and integrity, according to Jones.

 

“It’s about leaving everything on the field,” Jones said. “I want people, when they walk off the field that played against us to say, ‘You know what, that was the hardest working team I’ve ever played against. They never gave up; they never quit; they were persistent. But in the same token, they played with passion, they played with enthusiasm, but never played dirty.’”