PART ONE
There were mini flower bouquets being assembled, cupcake deliveries, and cards and letters for San Diego Mojo players amassing in the coach’s office before last night’s final home game. From behind the locker room door, the players were singing and chanting joyous cheers, amping up for a match against the Grand Rapids Rise.
In my 22 years of senior status across three professional sports, I’ve never seen, or heard, anything like it.
It was a celebration of life for the San Diego Mojo—a team that, days before, announced it was not returning in 2027, even as it prepared to head to the MLV championship in just one week. Ironically, it was great leadership that got us to a night of farewells.
The Mojo never had a true ramp-up period to prepare, marketing or sales-wise, for any of its three seasons. We can speak to the 2024 and 2025 seasons another time.
Mojo owner Gary Jacobs acquired the team on November 1, 2024, with a season opener looming in January. Between that and the December holidays, the 2025 season became a “grounding” year; the team had been saved, but the 2026 preseason (April 2025 to Opening Day 2026) was supposed to be the building time.
But it wasn’t.
As the 2025 season wound down, rumors began to swirl that the league would not return in 2026. What happened next is Remarkable Leadership Exhibit A.
Those rumors became real behind the scenes. The league was in limbo regarding its direction—which is not at all unusual for such an ambitious, expensive project. I assure you, it’s par for the course. There were teams that staffed up, hired coaches, and signed players anyway. San Diego did not.
Jacobs’ stance was clear: we will not hire the front-office talent we need and pull them away from secure jobs if there is any chance the league or team might vanish weeks later. Putting the livelihoods of people we haven’t even met, and the welfare of their families, in harm’s way simply wasn’t an option for Jacobs.
His grace extended to existing employees as well. Parting ways with staff is always difficult, but rather than terminating people while knowing the league’s future was not 100% certain, he kept them on the payroll. His logic: there was a chance the natural order of things could save someone the career humiliation and personal trauma of losing their position. It remains one of the most humane actions I’ve ever witnessed in any business I’ve seen.
Treating people the right way put the Mojo “behind the volleyball” for the third season. By the time the league’s future eventually solidified, Jacobs had already chosen people over business. From a ticket sales and revenue standpoint, the 2026 season was already lost because Jacobs insisted on doing the right thing. He took a financial bath.
“Leaders eat last,” as they say.
Regardless, the Mojo staffed up, and Jacobs empowered yours truly to invest in a complex, high-concept, flywheel branding and marketing engine that raised the team’s profile in the city meteorically. He invested despite knowing that branding cannot catch up in 60 days—it takes months, sometimes years, in a top-ten population market.
We took a ticket sales team from two people to eight and a sponsorship sales team from one person to three. We hired an experienced sales leader. We moved into a new, dedicated office with a five-year lease to give our operations a command center for the first time in three seasons.
He and I had lengthy discussions over data and market strategy. Jacobs went all in.
But back to the preseason. The Mojo then needed a head coach at a time when the other teams were already actively building despite the uncertainty.
Enter Mojo head coach Alisha Childress—Remarkable Leadership Exhibit B.
That story is next, coming soon to an IDK blog near you.
Note: A version of the Broken Heart Mojo image in the header above appeared on t-shirts fans wore to a recent season ticket holder event. I regret not recalling their names to credit them for the wonderful sentiment.
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