Former KCBS anchor Stan Bunger chats with San Francisco Giants President and CEO Larry Baer on this week's CEO Spotlight.
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00:00KCBS presents CEO Spotlight, a weekly conversation with Bay Area's business leaders in discussion
00:07with KCBS Business Reporter, Jason Brooks.
00:11Welcome to this edition of San Francisco CEO Spotlight.
00:14I'm Stan Bunker and I'm joined by San Francisco Giants President and CEO, Larry Baer.
00:19Larry, great to see you.
00:20It's been a few years.
00:21Hi, Stan.
00:22It's great seeing you, hearing you, and as one that, I won't say I grew up with you.
00:27You don't go back that far.
00:28Please don't say that.
00:30But you were a steady part of my adult diet here in San Francisco, especially as we came
00:36into the Giants and hearing you every morning and I don't know if you were always on in
00:40the morning, but it's great, you're a big fixture here.
00:43So I was very surprised and ecstatic to see that we're going to do this together.
00:51Well, I wouldn't do this for just anyone, so the feeling is mutual.
00:55Let's do this for a minute or so, because this is about San Francisco CEOs and about
00:59the Bay Area.
01:01Let's talk a little about your Bay Area roots.
01:03You know, for a lot of people, this area is where people come to make dreams and build
01:07their careers.
01:08You didn't have to move anywhere to do that.
01:10Well, I was lucky enough to, you know, and I view it as really good fortune, being born
01:17on 29th Avenue in the Richmond and growing up listening to the Giants games with Russ
01:25Hodges and Lon Simmons and playing ball on the street with strikeout and pretending I
01:30was Willie Mays or Willie McCovey or Juan Marichal, etc.
01:34So it was really, you know, a great, I view it as a great childhood, public schools in
01:39San Francisco.
01:41And I think that even though I went back east, which was, I think, a very positive thing
01:45for my own development for about a decade, both in graduate school and then in work,
01:52you know, I really feel like growing up in this city of San Francisco, you get a, it's
01:58a great experience.
01:59You get a unique experience for, you know, what the city is if you want to come back
02:05and be involved in something like the Giants, because, you know, it's a diverse city.
02:09It's a tolerant city.
02:11It's a progressive city.
02:13And it's a city that you have to, you know, sort of manage the political forces.
02:19And if you can, you know, that helps you a lot, especially with our situation at the
02:24Giants where we had to get a ballpark built and then we want to, we're working now on
02:28a neighborhood around the ballpark that we're bringing to life.
02:31Yeah.
02:32I want to talk about that, about the fact that San Francisco Giants isn't just what
02:36you see on the baseball field.
02:38So let's hold that thought.
02:40San Francisco obviously has taken some lumps.
02:43I mean, even this most recent news, the Union Square shooting.
02:46So this plays into a narrative, which may or may not be entirely true.
02:50And as a veteran of the news media, I'm well aware that the narrative isn't always exactly
02:56what people think it to be.
02:57How do you, as a CEO of a large organization, as somebody for whom the brand is important,
03:05address those perception issues?
03:07Well, it's a, it's, those are real because it's perception, right?
03:12So the issue of San Francisco, whether it is around crime, whether it's around, you
03:20know, sort of a hollowed out downtown, whether it's around a skewed political climate where
03:27you can't get anything done, any of those are all perceptions.
03:32And I find that in San Francisco, we have, we have a lot of forces that are, to the
03:40extent they exist, are mitigating that.
03:42You know, as we came out of the pandemic, you know, people talk about all these groups.
03:46I'm involved in a group called Advance SF, which is not a political group.
03:49It's really a group of businesses that are trying to bring back downtown, help create
03:53more housing and, and some of the, some of the really sort of non-con, more non-controversial
03:58issues and improve the narrative around San Francisco.
04:01But there's all these other groups that are, we're one of maybe 10, 15 groups.
04:05I could go rattle them off, Together SF, Abundant SF, Neighbors for SF, et cetera.
04:12There's a lot of will for San Francisco to elevate San Francisco.
04:17My feeling is walking around, seeing the community here is that much of that, what you just talked
04:24about has been overplayed.
04:26Are there problems?
04:27Yes.
04:28We, and we're a small city.
04:29So to the extent we have a homeless crisis, which we do, most cities do, but it's three
04:36blocks, two blocks from some of the, you know, most elegant hotels in town and from where,
04:43you know, the convention center is, et cetera.
04:44So it's a, so it's a very high profile.
04:47What we need to do here is not just manage the narrative, but take these incremental
04:53steps to improve, you know, rattle off a few that we're working on.
04:59One is improve the housing stock, more housing for low income, but also more housing for
05:05workforce because we can't lose our middle class.
05:07Okay.
05:08That's one thing.
05:09We have to really focus on enforcement and criminal enforcement.
05:15And I think that that's happening now.
05:19And then we have to, we also realize that San Francisco is more than just the difficult
05:23neighborhoods.
05:24We have neighborhoods that are thriving and we have to understand that and celebrate that.
05:31And post pandemic with more people working from home or going into an office, say downtown,
05:37you know, two days a week, three days a week, not five days a week.
05:40We have to understand that there are neighborhoods getting created that, you know, are spectacular
05:47assets for the city.
05:48So if you walk down Clement Street on a Tuesday night or Chestnut Street or 24th Street or
05:54Irving, there's a lot going on and it feels good.
06:00And we have to understand how we can create that kind of a vibe and reimagine some areas
06:08that are challenged like the financial district where there's just fewer people coming to
06:13the office or obviously the Tenderloin for sure.
06:17And how do we reimagine Union Square where, you know, perhaps it's not just all elegant
06:23stores.
06:24We can necessarily bring back the Union Square of the 50s and 60s.
06:28So how do we reimagine that?
06:30That's not gonna be overnight.
06:31But I think though that certainly the intellectual firepower is here to do it and the care and
06:37passion all these groups that have formed is here to do it.
06:40Michael Tanner You had an observation many years ago in a
06:43different context.
06:44You'd watched a lot of Giants baseball on television for a while.
06:47And you came to the conclusion that in some ways that product was competing with the other
06:52product, the one where people put their butts in their seats at Oracle Park.
06:56And that was before the pandemic and before people began to Zoom call and all of the things
07:03that have happened to isolate us physically.
07:06How do you see the future of real world entertainment, real world experiences given everything that's
07:15happened?
07:16Mark Huffman And that's a great question.
07:17And I think, you know, home entertainment can be a challenge.
07:21I think that we have with the Giants, and I think, you know, the Warriors, this is true
07:26of the Warriors for United as well, but especially with the Giants where we play the games during
07:32the summer.
07:33There are a lot of games during the day.
07:37It's not about people walking down the street memorizing batting averages.
07:41They can and that's fine and we love it when they do.
07:44But there's a much, much bigger group that are looking for an enjoyable time out with
07:50their sons, daughters, friends, grandparents, grandchildren, date night, et cetera.
07:59And a baseball game, you can't get that by sitting at home on the couch with your remote.
08:04I mean, that could be a nice evening, but it's not an evening that's going to, you know,
08:10offer great music, offer great food, offer an exciting game.
08:16You have the opportunity to root in person, out loud in a communal setting for a team
08:22that has San Francisco across their chest and in an area that you love.
08:27So all of that, and I think we just saw it actually, I'll give you an example.
08:32We're sitting here in early September and over the weekend, the Giants, we got an up
08:37and down season.
08:38You know, 500 is not what we aspire to.
08:41We've been around 500 most of the year.
08:43But we had 111,000 people over the last three days watching the Giants and Marlins play.
08:50And you walk around and it's people just, you know, sort of enjoying an experience,
08:56right?
08:57With friends, family, a communal experience.
09:00Friday night there was a drone show.
09:02Saturday there was a Logan Webb t-shirt you could get.
09:04Sunday there was a Buster Posey item that everybody loved.
09:08So you do things to help create enthusiasm that way.
09:14But it was just being out in the sun and enjoying or being in a fun evening.
09:19So that, I think, post-pandemic index is much higher for people.
09:25And they want to get out of the house.
09:27So home entertainment will be there.
09:29We love crook and kipe.
09:31Turn them on when the team's out of town and turn them on sometimes when the team's in
09:36town.
09:37But getting out is...and you're seeing this with concerts outside of sports.
09:43Concerts, look at how well concerts are doing now in the post-pandemic era.
09:47Michael Tanner I imagine anybody running an organization
09:50where a change of the product.
09:52So the basic product of baseball is, you know, nine guys on a field, et cetera, et cetera.
09:58The reality, though, of what people expect of that product.
10:01So guys of our generation, you know, I'm betting that you were also that kid with his elbows
10:05on the newspaper on Sunday morning reading that long column of batting averages and RBI
10:09numbers.
10:10And as you pointed out a moment ago, an awful lot of the people in the ballpark could care
10:13less about that.
10:15It's never going to be the reason they go to the ballgame.
10:17How do you...this is almost like changing the menu at a restaurant to keep that one
10:22item that everybody loves, but also pay homage to the people who now want something new?
10:27David Stilwell Yeah, that's a great question.
10:30And the something new is, you know, you really need to try to figure it out what this new
10:38generation of sports fans and people that are coming out of high school, coming out
10:42of college, teenage.
10:44And the things we know, you try to understand it, the things we know is they're more pressed
10:49for time, right?
10:52They want to be engaged and excited and they want to do it in ways that weren't conventional
11:00to us, right?
11:01So we talk a lot about the Giants, the two, three screen experience, meaning if you're
11:08watching a game at home, you probably, you might want to be texting your friend or you
11:14might want to be looking up statistics on your own to amplify the experience.
11:19If you're watching a game at the ballpark now, you will see on the scoreboard a lot
11:25of statistics beyond home runs, batting average.
11:27Trevor Burrus I'm still trying to figure out some of these.
11:29David Stilwell Whip and FIP and everything.
11:31Trevor Burrus FIP.
11:32Tell me what FIP is.
11:33David Stilwell I'm not very good at all of this.
11:35You're coming to the wrong...but how you cut up the data, right?
11:39And that is interesting to a segment.
11:41So we provide that to the segment.
11:45The analytics is interesting to a segment.
11:49But the one conventional things or a few conventional things that we've been able to move the game
11:55in the direction of is faster games.
11:58So pitch clock, average game time is now 2.33.
12:03It was just a few years ago 3.05.
12:06And we're starting the games earlier because people don't want to be on a school night.
12:11This is not just on the West Coast.
12:13School night, work night, we used to start games at 7.15.
12:16Trevor Burrus Remember, did we in our youth start games
12:18at 8?
12:19Am I crazy?
12:20That's just true, isn't it?
12:21David Stilwell Yes, 8 o'clock.
12:22Trevor Burrus But then the games back then were only taking
12:23two hours.
12:24David Stilwell They were shorter.
12:25Trevor Burrus Yeah.
12:26David Stilwell But then we went through this period of 7.15
12:27and just as a marketing, as a business, 7.15, you're in your seat at 7.15 and then you're,
12:35it averages 3.05, game ends at 10.20.
12:38So what does that really mean?
12:40That means a lot of people aren't staying to the end of the game on a Tuesday night
12:43in September or April where the kids are in school and you're definitely going to work.
12:50So now we start games on the weeknights at 6.45, the games are 2.30, you're out at 9.15
12:57and you know what?
12:58Guess what?
12:59Everybody pretty much is staying to the end of the game, right?
13:02If it's a two average game.
13:03You can have long games but most games are 2.30 and a lot of games are two hours straight
13:07up.
13:08So it's 2.45 when you're out and you feel like you can, you might even go get a beer
13:14at a neighborhood tavern after the game and talk about it or near the ballpark.
13:19The other thing, Stan, that's really interesting is what type of environment you create at
13:25the ballpark and people want to be in social settings.
13:30So we have something called the 415 at the ballpark which is out in the bleachers.
13:35Then we have something called the Cloud Club which is upstairs, more business oriented.
13:39Then we have the Gotham Club which is a pre and post and in-game experience out in right
13:43field and they like the social environment and they also like deciding for themselves
13:50when they go to a game.
13:52So the days of, I mean the old days, I say the old days, this is 10, 15 years ago, not
13:57that old, but you know, you go back a decade and it's sell those season tickets, well what's
14:04a season ticket?
14:06It's two tickets, you talk about how you adapt.
14:10It's two tickets, four tickets, six tickets, whatever it is for a fixed seats and we tell
14:15you where you're sitting and we tell you, and you're going to all the games, right?
14:20Or you deal like I did for years with how do I get rid of these, we used to say the
14:24Tuesday night Montreal games back when Montreal was in the league, but yeah.
14:27Yeah, that's right and that's what I remember, Gary Radish is the target.
14:32So now we have a lot of different products.
14:34You can still do that and we still have to do that, it's kind of like linear television,
14:38it's not going away, but you need to add sort of the new behavioral elements to it.
14:44So the behavioral elements is like I'll go when I want to go and I might not want two,
14:49I might want seven or eight or nine tickets.
14:52So we have a product where you buy basically a giant subscription, this is something called
14:59the Cloud Club and we're moving it into all really all seating areas where let's say you
15:04buy $5,000 worth of Giants stuff, okay, Tuesday night I'm going with my wife, Wednesday night
15:12I'm getting a bunch of buddies so I'm going to use six.
15:15So what you do is you just download, you have Giants subscription, you just download what
15:19you want and oh, by the way, you can buy a cap, a soda, a crab sandwich, garlic fries
15:25with those chits.
15:27So that and people like that, they want the flexibility, just like kind of like watching
15:32television on demand.
15:34I don't have to stay up Saturday night at 11.30 to watch Saturday Night Live, I'll watch
15:39it the next morning on demand or on YouTube or whatever.
15:43So that's changed a lot and that's okay, I mean we embrace those sorts of changes.
15:48The days of when we opened the ballpark, 30,000 season ticket holders having their same fixed
15:55seat for, you know, we could do well with half that number but selling these other products.
16:01Let me ask you about gambling because it's inescapable as an engine of modern sports
16:07all around the world.
16:08I mean I spend a portion of my year in France, I'm blown away by what I see on the bus stop
16:12shelters there and I can't figure out how they gamble on soccer but they do.
16:17But baseball, football, basketball, this is growing.
16:21So how is that integrated into the business?
16:23How does it fit into the model of running a local baseball franchise?
16:27That's a great question.
16:29So the first thing is in California, it's not, sports betting is not permitted.
16:33So we're now sort of assuming it will be permitted.
16:37So I can talk about some of my colleagues where it is, who are in states where it is
16:41permitted.
16:44But just overall, I think it's a couple of things, a couple of very important guiding
16:51principles from my standpoint.
16:53Number one is you've got to make sure the integrity exists, right?
16:56And you can't have situations where the athletes obviously are, you know, somehow compromised
17:01and you can't have a situation where those that are betting are somehow compromised through
17:06other channels, information that, you know, somebody gets a hold of.
17:11So I think that in baseball at least where it is legal, states it's legal, I think that's
17:16been regulated where everybody has the same set of information, so that's one thing.
17:21So that's obviously the dangers.
17:24But the positives are in today's world with everybody carrying a phone, it does allow
17:30engagement and it does promote engagement.
17:34More than allow, it promotes engagement.
17:36Sort of insists on it.
17:37It insists on engagement, right.
17:39So in a fun way though.
17:41So let's say, you know, Elliot Ramos, I'm going to say that Elliot Ramos is going to
17:47get two hits tonight.
17:49And I'm rooting for Elliot Ramos to get two hits, you know, and through whatever, you
17:55know, sports gaming, you know, device.
18:00And that can be fun, that can be, now you obviously have to protect folks in underage
18:06and all that.
18:07But if with regulation, it can be fun and it can promote engagement.
18:11And baseball in some ways, you know, they talk about prop bets and I'm not a gambling
18:15expert, gaming expert, but, you know, the prop bets, it doesn't have to be something
18:19as clear as win or lose or how many hits does a guy get.
18:22It's like, you know, I predict this guy's going to hit an 0-2 pitch.
18:29Next pitch is a slider.
18:30Yeah, exactly.
18:31And, you know, as I had that conversation with a friend once, I said, don't you understand,
18:34baseball has more opportunities than any of the other sports.
18:38There are about 300 some odd pitches in a game, each one of them leading to outcomes
18:42that could be way too much.
18:44So that could be fun.
18:45And we have to look at it from that, in that respect, we just have to be able to put the
18:50guardrails up.
18:51Okay.
18:52Let's go back to something I promised to come back to.
18:53And this is this question of what San Francisco Giants, Inc. is beyond what we see on the
18:59baseball field.
19:00I know what's on the other side of McCovey Cove, but there's other stuff too.
19:03How big is the organization and what piece of it is baseball?
19:06Yeah.
19:07So that, it's a great question.
19:08And I think it's changing.
19:11Not because we don't love baseball and not because we're not bullish and optimistic about
19:15the future of baseball.
19:16It's just because the nature of sports has gotten so much bigger, the industry has gotten
19:24much bigger, right?
19:26And what you have now is integrated companies that have the sports holdings but that do
19:35other things that play off of the sports usually as the core business.
19:41So what am I saying?
19:42Excuse me.
19:43What I'm saying is you have a, you have the ability to put on other events in your ballpark.
19:52So you have a ballpark 365 days, the old days, excuse me, is, you know, 80 baseball games
19:59and you preserve the field for use, you know, the pristine, you know, beautiful green grass.
20:07No.
20:08And the reality is there's technology that allows a field to basically come back, you
20:14have to be careful, post-concerts or post-events.
20:18So that in its most simple form is you do other things with the ballpark.
20:22What we're interested in is going beyond that and taking our skill sets that relate to the
20:30ability to develop the ballpark and develop neighborhood around the ballpark.
20:34So that's one area.
20:35Another area is other teams that could we manage, could we own, could we do the business
20:41back end for a other related team.
20:44Now we're not directly doing that now.
20:46We have participated in other efforts.
20:50We have, we put on races.
20:52We put on running races.
20:53That's another team.
20:54But we do a San Francisco Giants race and then we do races in San Jose, Sacramento,
20:58and Scottsdale.
21:00Those are smaller businesses, but they're growing.
21:02We also do, we also have an ownership of the NBC cable, NBC Bay Area, which is our cable
21:11broadcast.
21:12And those are, you know, moving in a different direction now with more streaming.
21:17So we see ourselves being part of the future of bringing, you know, our content to folks
21:23and maybe in an ownership position.
21:25So we see ourselves basically as an integrated media entertainment, sports, real estate firm.
21:31Sports at the top, the Giants at the top.
21:34The Giants right now are 85 to 90% of our revenues.
21:41But we see that changing as we build out the real estate around the ballpark.
21:45It's a 30-acre development.
21:47Actually earlier today, we just opened our fourth building, a residential tower called
21:52Verde.
21:53You know, 17 stories overlooking the ballpark.
21:56Anybody who can get residential built in San Francisco must be walking on water.
22:01Well, it was really wonderful because what we pride ourselves on, Stan, is the two, we've
22:07gone to the ballot twice.
22:09One for the ballpark and the second for this real estate development, Mission Rock.
22:13And they were, you know, in vastly different eras.
22:171996 was the measure for the ballpark and we were able to get 67%.
22:22We just need 50.
22:23And in 2015 for Mission Rock, it was, we got 73% of the vote.
22:31And the thing we pride ourselves on, everybody says San Francisco is so divisive and there's
22:35all these, you know, nobody can ever agree on anything.
22:38We'd have one elected official oppose us on either measure.
22:45Now we put in a lot of things that were attractive, right?
22:49Affordable housing in the Mission Rock project.
22:52No private, no public financing in the ballpark project.
22:56But still, you know, somebody could have taken shots.
22:59So I think things can get done in San Francisco and that's a big message for us is that we
23:04want to be a convener of, you know, making things happen in the city as opposed to, you
23:10know, all the discussion about what can't happen in San Francisco.
23:13A couple of areas I'd like to hear your thoughts on that might be of value to other executives
23:18in other industries.
23:20One of them would have to do with the ownership structure.
23:23You know, you have lots of startup folks in the Bay Area, you have some whose companies
23:26have gone public and now they're dealing with that.
23:29Yours is a little different.
23:31And so that must have its own particular set of challenges and maybe some benefits.
23:35Well, I'm really proud of our group and it is a group and it's the same group, it's the
23:41same core group as 32 years ago.
23:44So we came together 32 years ago and I think that a lot of times when you lead with your
23:48heart and you don't necessarily have the business plan but you say, we will figure
23:54it out, good things can happen.
23:58And what happened with us was Peter McGowan, I was involved, we had a core group back in
24:041992 facing the giants leaving San Francisco and going to Tampa.
24:11And we put together this group and basically said, we don't have the business plan, we
24:16don't have time because the team has been sold and pending league approval will move
24:21in four months and we couldn't put together a business plan in four months that was going
24:26to ensure the longevity of the franchise, especially getting a ballpark built.
24:33But everybody leaned in with their heart and there's something to that, Stan, where if
24:41you want it to happen, you figure out a way to make it happen.
24:45Now, as we've gone through the years, we were able to get the ballpark built privately,
24:49did a different approach than the previous owner who had four elections where public
24:55money was voted down.
24:57But then as we've gone through the years, you talk about ownership structure, we've
25:02kept the same ownership.
25:03Now we've had folks that we have a number of second gen, so if you were 60 years old
25:10and it was 32 years ago, maybe you're not alive and maybe you've willed it to a descent.
25:15Many of our owners have done that and they see it as a civic asset and as something that's
25:20not going to be the number one wealth creator for the family, but something they take a
25:27lot of pride in.
25:28So there's been that element.
25:29And then there've been others who have come in who have been added to our group who are
25:34from Silicon Valley or who are in and of the area who have added great expertise to
25:41the core group.
25:42But the ownership has not really changed.
25:46We've had, you'll have a control person change.
25:48So you've had Peter McGowan, we started out with, then Bill Newcombe, and now we have
25:55Greg Johnson.
25:56And those are the largest individual owners, but we have 35 owners.
26:01I'm going to talk about one owner, especially, he's one of our most recent owners.
26:06I think I know where you're going.
26:07Yeah.
26:08I had to ask you about Gerald Posey.
26:10Yes, Gerald Posey, so I tell you the very quick story here.
26:16You know, we were all surprised when Buster, after his retirement, after the 21 season,
26:22he had a fantastic season, but we completely understood, right?
26:26They had four children and he's done so much in baseball and being a catcher.
26:31So much for the Giants and being a catcher, that's tough duty, right?
26:34And so, you know, typically on somebody like that who's Hall of Fame and superstar, you
26:39know, we'll go to him and say, you know, okay, you've retired but we want you to remain involved
26:44with the Giants.
26:45And he said, yes, let me think about it.
26:47And you know, it wasn't I want to be a broadcaster, it wasn't I want to be a manager or a coach,
26:54it wasn't I want to, you know, be the general manager or whatever.
27:00It was, is it possible to become an owner of the team?
27:05How long did you have to think about that?
27:06Oh, a nanosecond, maybe?
27:09And here's now Buster on our board and, you know, what value add we get from him, you
27:16know, and just thinking about how not just team construction but how to approach everything
27:22including the fans and player, you know, the way we handle players, the way how we treat
27:28players, you know, around the clubhouse, on the road, it's just been super valuable
27:32having Buster.
27:33So sports is the ultimate human capital business, right?
27:36I mean, you're no good without the human capital.
27:38So what, based on the Buster Posey experience, for example, what would you tell other executives
27:44about where to find, how to preserve, maybe to change your game plan with a given individual
27:50or a group of individuals?
27:52Well, I would say you have to really play the long game in sports.
27:55You're not going to get create, and I think most sports owners are not in it specifically
28:00for this reason, but you're not going to have a short-term cash flow event in, you know,
28:07year-to-year in sports.
28:09You'll have some good years where you'll be profitable, you'll have some other years.
28:13But if you do the right thing in the community, the asset will continue to gain value and
28:18that's what we found.
28:21There aren't that many of them, right?
28:23There's 30 Major League Baseball teams.
28:26And if you do the right thing in the community, and if you care, and if you, in our case,
28:31you know, we try to get to the playoffs every year, it doesn't always work.
28:34We know we're not going to be in the World Series every year, but you, on the one side,
28:41you work hard to do that and credibly can promise your fans you're trying to get there.
28:46And then the other side, you control what you know you can control.
28:50So we can control the cleanliness of the ballpark.
28:53We can control the workforce and how they treat their customers, the customer service.
29:00We can control food and music and the environment.
29:06Those areas that you can control and then marry that to working hard.
29:12And then doing then the third leg of the stool, which we find very important, is your community
29:16initiatives, right?
29:18So we have 26,000 kids in low-income neighborhoods playing junior giant baseball.
29:23We do events at the ballpark.
29:25We just, yesterday we had, or Sunday, we had a Cancer Awareness Day where we celebrated
29:33the doctors and nurses from around the area.
29:37We had an Autism Awareness Night, Friday night, with Will Clark, whose son threw out the first
29:42ball, Trey.
29:45So it's all those, those three legs of the stool I think are important.
29:52And then, so what I would say is play the long game and realize that some years you'll
29:58make money, some years you won't make money, but overall you're going to be okay if you
30:03do the right thing.
30:04And there's another area, because not everybody who a fan interacts with at the ballpark works
30:10directly for the San Francisco Giants.
30:12You have concessionaires, you have organizations with which you work.
30:16How do you inculcate your values down through those organizations?
30:20There aren't very many of them.
30:21If you fired one of them these days, you'd have to go get another one, and there aren't
30:25very many in that game.
30:27That's right.
30:28And so what we really try to do is our partners, our third-party providers, we really try to,
30:36you know, get them to embrace the customer service and the principles and the ethos of
30:42the organization.
30:43So for instance, when we were preparing to open what was Pac Bell Park in year 2000,
30:49we had, we brought in somebody who was just in charge of customer service.
30:54And this is a person who had been trained by Disney and Ritz-Carlton and the time Nordstroms
30:59who were really kind of at the pinnacle of customer service.
31:03And as we brought on a new food and beverage concessionaire at the time, and we brought
31:08on, you know, a parking concessionaire, and we brought on even SFPD, believe it or not,
31:14we asked them all to take the same training as the Giants employees take.
31:19So the Giants group, you know, so we control the usherettes, our ushers and usherettes
31:23are Giants employees.
31:25The security are Giants employees by and large.
31:28You know, the folks that are ticket takers and sell the tickets are Giants.
31:32And they go through customer service training.
31:34I mean, very few people, you know, one-tenth of 1%, not even that, will interact with me
31:41or anybody on our management team.
31:44They are the front face of the Giants, is the person that takes your ticket, the person
31:49that greets you, the person that shows you to your seat, the person that sells you the
31:53hot dog, the person that sells you the ball cap.
31:57And if they don't work for the Giants, the companies we work with have all agreed to
32:02do the customer service training so they all, because you're right, everybody thinks they're
32:06Giants employees whether they are or not.
32:09So that has really helped us a lot, is having those third parties agree to, you know, really
32:16work in the same way as our Giants employees.
32:19I think you touched on, you used the word analytics a while ago, and we were probably
32:22in the context of the game itself, the actual statistics, the data being gathered, you know,
32:29staggering amounts of visual and statistical data that are now being massaged and used
32:33to improve the efforts of the players themselves.
32:36Overall, though, you know, what are you learning that you didn't know when 32 years ago you
32:42and the gang decided to buy the team?
32:44Well, I think we know that there's ways to analyze players that you have to avail yourself
32:55of those ways.
32:57I also think what I've learned most recently in the last several years is that you have
33:04that all in-house, but there are a couple of sort of caveats to it.
33:11And I think most teams have most of the data, not, you know, there may be some team that's
33:17five or 10% more up the curve, but I think there are two key things to it.
33:24One is you have to balance the data with the real-life human interaction, meaning you
33:32can suggest a lineup or you can suggest, you know, an approach for a hitter or a pitcher,
33:39but you've got to be able to get that information to that player in a way that's meaningful.
33:49And not all players digest the information the same.
33:52So some players might, you know, might be want a lot of explanation.
33:58Some players might be like, okay, I get it, but I'm still better at seaball, hitball.
34:04And then on the managing coaching side and general manager, et cetera, you want to make
34:10sure that there's a balance that given all the data, it's still a human sport.
34:18They're not robots.
34:20And how a guy is motivated, how a guy is, you know, how he feels comfortable in the
34:28clubhouse, you know, long season, small clubhouse, that matters too, right?
34:34And we've had some managers here who have been very good at that, whether it was Dusty
34:38Baker, who was our very first manager in this, you know, in this ownership group.
34:43We hired him in Peter McGowan's living room in 1992 all the way through.
34:50That element is important.
34:51So take a manager or the coaching staff, we have an expression.
34:58You have to be good at managing and coaching from first pitch to last out, but you also
35:03have to be good last out to first pitch.
35:07Like are you going and talking to the 26th man on the team, on the team plane?
35:11You know, are you checking in with guys that aren't getting playing time because they'll
35:15get playing time eventually.
35:16So all of that, so what I've learned is there's a blend.
35:21I've learned that a lot in recent years.
35:25What do you not know that you'd like to know going forward?
35:31You know, I mean, I think that about our sport, what I'd like to know is can we continue,
35:39you know, the injuries are out there and that's been, you know, that's been well reported
35:46through this season.
35:47What I'd like to know is, but overall the athletes are bigger, stronger, and better
35:52than they were, you know, in my several decades doing this, the athletes just keep getting
35:59better.
36:00What I'd like to know is how they can get even better than they are now because, you
36:05know, a pitcher comes in the fifth inning and if it was a middle reliever because the
36:09starter gets knocked out in the past, it's, you know, okay, that's the vulnerable pitcher.
36:14No, now the fifth inning pitcher is throwing 100 miles an hour, okay, and the hitters are
36:19bigger and better and stronger.
36:21So from the game standpoint, that's part of it.
36:25The other thing I'd like to know is that, you know, will the kids, so that's, but from
36:31the fan standpoint, which is really important to us, that the kids will be able to get off
36:39their screens and back playing the game.
36:43We actually have record level of signups of Little League and youth baseball, youth sports,
36:50but there's also this, you know, this adherence to screens and to, you know, and to video
36:57games.
36:58So what I'd like to know is that we're able to continue to, or to move kids into playing
37:03the game and not playing the video games.
37:06All right.
37:07It's been fun.
37:08Great to see you and thanks for the conversation.
37:11Thanks, Stan.
37:12And it's wonderful seeing you and I expect to see you at most Wednesday and Thursday
37:16afternoon games.
37:17I am available whenever you need somebody in the fifth inning, but I can't promise to
37:20throw 100 miles an hour.
37:22Sounds good.
37:23We'll talk soon.
37:24All right.
37:25Larry Baer, the president and CEO of the San Francisco Giants.
37:27I'm Stan Bunger with this edition of San Francisco CEO Spotlight.
37:32CEO Spotlight is every Wednesday evening at 6.53 p.m. and Saturdays at 7.50 a.m. on the
37:38Bay Area's news station, All News 106.9 and AM 740, KCBS and streaming on the Odyssey
37:46app and kcbsradio.com.