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Forty Under 40

Forty Under 40: Brent Schoeb

49ers.com

Nearly two years ago, San Francisco 49ers CRO Brent Schoeb typed up an introductory letter, put it in a FedEx envelope, threw in a Dwight Clark autograph and sent it overseas to a man he’d never met: Terry Gou, Taiwan’s richest man and founder of iPhone manufacturer Foxconn.

 

Chief Revenue Officer, San Francisco 49ers


Age: 38

Born: Windom, Minn.

Education: St. Cloud State University: B.S., marketing; Ohio University: MBA / Master of Sports Administration

Family: Wife, Jessica; children, Taetum (2), Braxton (1).

Advice to my 20-year-old self: Making less than minimum wage working in summer collegiate baseball and living in a house with eight roommates is indeed a launching pad for a sports business career.

Profession I’d most like to attempt: Venture capitalist or sports venue architect (I know, two very different occupations).

Guilty pleasure: Saturday morning coffee and croissant dates with my 2½-year-old daughter, Tae (a tradition my dad passed down to me).

Causes supported: 49ers Foundation/community relations and church.

Person in the industry I’d most like to meet: Kirby Puckett, R.I.P., as the ’91 World Series got me hooked on sports.

Sports business leaders should be more mindful of … : The opportunity they have to positively impact communities via sports, one of the last remaining societal connectors.

Remarkably, the cold letter worked. In September, the 49ers unveiled Foxconn as their latest seven-figure local sponsor, a deal that gives the tech firm prominent branding around Levi’s Stadium and a key role in upgrading the stadium’s video to 8K production.

Headquartered just miles from some of the world’s largest companies in Silicon Valley, the NFC champion 49ers have a natural advantage in sales. But the fast-moving, norm-breaking tech business is far from an easy sell, and Schoeb has trained himself and his staff to understand the subtleties of the esoteric industry.

“There’s more influx of cash in those categories, but you’ve also got to be careful, because these categories come and go pretty quickly,” he said. “Or you might sign a deal with a company that’s out of business in a year. And a majority don’t have a traditional sports buyer, so you have to know how to navigate their business.”

Now in his ninth year with the Niners, Schoeb has overseen six consecutive years of sponsorship revenue records, and the team has signed 23 $1 million-plus deals in that time, second in the NFL. Last year, Schoeb was given oversight of all Levi’s Stadium events, an extension of his work in selling the 2019 CFP National Championship Game and the RedBox Bowl.

It’s a far cry from his first job in sports, the St. Cloud River Bats of the Northwoods League, which paid him $1.75 an hour plus Arby’s lunch daily and an open bar tab at MC’s Dugout after every night game.


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