In 2012, while watching American Idol, Juan thought it would be cool to see a music competition with different genres going head-to-head. That evening, he went to sleep and found himself in a massive arena where thousands of people were cheering on the match between a rapper and singer. Mesmerized by the excitement of the audience, he felt the ambiance of a championship fight. In that same dream, he, then, found himself watching a press conference between those very same artists. He noticed that they were speaking as if they were athletes. That's when it dawned on him that he was watching some sort of music competition that had a sports-like vibe to it. That morning, he called his mother and explained the dream, to which, she responded, "Juan, I don't think that was just a dream, I think you were given a vision." Juan thought to himself how this could be something unique to offer up-and-coming independent recording artists seeking a new way to engage fans. He then began studying different forms of sport, learning their infrastructure and business models. 

 

In 2013, Juan hosted his first music competition in the living room of a friend's home, in which, he had a few artists competing. He called the event, "Def-U-Jam" because he had Def Jam A&R Wise McGriff and Universal A&R Bway attending the event. In 2014, he incorporated IACS Music-Sports League, LLC, and put on his first music competition with the sports concept when he hosted the "IACS 7-Cities Championship" on April 14th, 2015 at Shaka's Bar & Lounge. Despite a few hiccups, the event was a success with the winner "B.A.S.I.C.", a rapper from Virginia Beach. Juan continued to host various events from 2014 - 2017. In 2018, Juan decided to scale back and restructure the organization to make it more consistent with organizations like the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL which are nonprofits. He felt this was the route that needed to happen to see Music-Sports one day being recognized as an actual legitimate sport. On January 25, 2021, Juan incorporated Music-Sports League as a Virginia nonstock organization and received 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status that May. That same year, under Music-Sports League, Juan commissioned the Song vs Song Series (SvS), a virtual series that incorporates voters deciding the winners of independent artists' songs matched up. He successfully ran 3-games receiving over 23,000 votes combined. In 2022, he organized the 2022 7-Cities Song vs Song Series, in which he was able to commission five virtual games and one live game. The series received 10,600 public votes, with 87% of the voters coming from Hampton Roads. On Oct 29, 2022, MSL made history by hosting the world's first-ever live Music-Performance sports game, "Song vs Song Series: Playoffs", at Rough House Boxing & Fitness Center in Hampton, VA. with rapper B Menace, Suffolk, Virginia winning the SvS Championship belt.

 

Juan's ultimate vision is to see Music-Performance sports become a multi-faceted platform that could create a new culture, and industry to better support independent music creators worldwide. 

​