World Cup watch parties drawing crowds at Mud Bums
It's a little easier to fall in love with the World's Game when the world comes to you.
With World Cup matches filling stadiums across North America, television audiences soaring and the United States riding the momentum of a group-winning performance into the knockout round, soccer has become must-see TV this summer.
In McMinnville, Mud Bums Family Sports Grill is making sure those fans have a place to gather. The restaurant is going all out with World Cup watch parties, turning matches into a spectacle outdoors that everybody is welcome to come witness.
“We’ve really had a tremendous response,” said Brett Simmons, co-owner of Mud Bums who has been running the restaurant since 2018. “The large projection screen doesn’t hurt. The turnout has been pretty impressive, obviously for the US games and also for the Mexico matches. But we’ve also had people in here wanting to watch basically any game that is on.”
Traditionally, Mud Bums has kept people entertained with his multiple TVs inside the restaurant. “We have three over the bar and more scattered throughout our lobby,” noted Simmons. But when it came to the World Cup, everything felt like it needed to be bigger.
A 24-foot inflatable projection screen, which can be set up right in front of the new outdoor stage at the establishment, has helped.
“We broke out the big screen when Mexico played South Korea and it was an instant hit. We got everything running pretty smooth that first night and it was wild when Mexico scored that game-winning goal,” said Simmons, who estimates Mud Bums has room for 100 people or more to sit outside and watch the games.
Fellow co-owner Miguel Gomez, who has partnered with Simmons over the last two years, echoed the sentiment about the fanfare bringing a new level of excitement to soccer locally.
“It’s been awesome. I didn’t expect it to get this big, but people are really showing up and the energy has been incredible,” said Gomez. “It’s one of those things where you just feed off the crowd, you know? I mean, I knew there were (soccer) fans around here, but seeing how many people actually came out - that’s nice.”
Expect to see the big screen come back out multiple times this week. The marquee matchups expected to draw big crowds at Mud Bums will be when Mexico faces Ecuador at 8 p.m. Tuesday night and when the United States takes on Bosnia-Herzegovina at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
And if both Mexico and the United States keep advancing deeper into the World Cup bracket, expect the crowds to get even bigger. “If that ended up being the World Cup final, that would be a dream scenario,” said Simmons.
Gomez added, “And we’ll have people rooting on both there.”
Mud Bums Family Sports Grill is located at 231 Northgate Drive, Suite 400. They can be reached by calling 931-507-2867.
Editor’s Note: Brett Simmons is the brother of Warren County Way General Manager Jeff Simmons.
