Larry Baer spends a lot of time focused on people.
“People picking is a very important part of what I do,” said Baer, president and chief executive of the San Francisco Giants. “And what I’m looking for are passionate people who really want to be here and be invested in our mission.
We don’t want the Giants to just be a steppingstone or a stopping-off point for somebody, or just a job. That’s the kind of culture we’ve worked really hard to create. And when you look at the top of our org chart, routinely you see people who have been here a decade, two decades, even more in some cases. I’m very proud of that.
“And for me, I obviously like to be involved. But at the end of the day, I have to trust the people I have selected, and let them run in their areas of responsibility. And these are people I trust implicitly,” he said.
The club has a senior executive team, including Bill Schlough, chief information officer; Russ Stanley, managing vice president of ticket sales; Staci Slaughter, executive vice president of communications and senior adviser to Baer; and Alfonso Felder, executive vice president of administration and key business development executive, who are each seen as industry thought leaders in their respective areas. And each was hired or groomed by Baer, or both.
Baer oversees one of the most successful franchises in all of U.S. pro sports, with three World Series titles in the last
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six years, a sellout streak at AT&T Park of 408 games entering the 2016 season, and a reputation as one of the industry’s most progressive and forward-thinking teams.
Still, Baer has never been able to really relax. His initial involvement with the team in 1992 was as part of the Peter Magowan-led ownership group that saved the club from relocating to St. Petersburg, Fla. Even when AT&T Park opened in 2000 to rave reviews and the club began to pile up playoff appearances, there was still no ease. The private financing of the $357 million ballpark required 3 million in annual attendance just to break even. That figure, never even approached previously in franchise history, has been surpassed in 14 of the facility’s 16 seasons.
Even in today’s more prosperous era, competitive threats such as the record spending of the rival Los Angeles Dodgers continue to surround the club.
“There’s been a real sense of urgency around this organization, right from the very beginning,” Baer said. “This [ownership] group began under some very tenuous circumstances. And in some ways, things are still very tenuous. And it’s what’s helped keep us sharp.”
The Giants’ core local revenue streams are now largely maxed out, with the sellout streak still going and the club’s long-term local TV contract with Comcast SportsNet in place until 2032. As a result, Baer has been spending more time in recent years on entrepreneurial ventures, such as the planned Mission Rock mixed-use development near AT&T Park and more uses for the ballpark outside of baseball. Baer similarly chairs a new long-term strategic planning committee for MLB created last year by Commissioner Rob Manfred.
“In order to keep growing, we have to be entrepreneurial,” Baer said. “There are some inherent constraints around the core baseball business. But the team is really sort of a quasi-public trust. At least that’s how we think about it. And there are a variety of interesting things we can do around building off our brand.”
