You never know what’s going to happen in sports. Outside of, “you win some and you lose some,” sports are extremely unpredictable. Especially baseball. Once you get into the playoffs, it’s a crapshoot.
That’s how CEO and President Larry Baer and the San Francisco Giants see it. During the 2014 Major League Baseball season, the Giants won 88 games on their way to winning the wild card, Division Series, NL Championship Series, and World Series. Fast-forward to the 2021 “boys of summer” and the team won a franchise-record 107 games but didn’t make it out of the divisional round, losing a heartbreaker to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-1, in Game 5.
Do you think they would have traded some of those regular season wins to be the last team standing and add another championship banner to Oracle Park? That’s a rhetorical question.
“Last year, we won 107. We had never won more, but we still lost 55,” Larry Baer recalls. “If you came to one of the games we lost, if the ballpark was clean, and if the ushers, and ticket takers, and security, and parking people, they were all friendly and nice and welcomed you, and if you enjoyed the food, and the music, and the mascot, and all that, you could still have a great time.”
Players and coaches focus on what’s happening between the lines. Their jobs are measured in wins and losses. The front office executives want to win too, but they also prioritize providing an excellent customer experience to their fan base. The Giants are in the memory-making business.
Larry Baer and the SF Giants’ Pandemic Dilemmas
SF Giants CEO Baer remembers barren days at the beginning of the pandemic. Stadiums were empty. But late in June 2021, the SF Giants had a game with about 40,000 fans. Everyone could feel the excitement that comes with fans and face-to-face interactions.
“In our communities and throughout the country, one thing that’s very gratifying is to see that the feeling of the ballpark elevated spirits,” says Baer. “There’s that psychological, emotional appeal that you can’t take for granted, right? I mean, it’s well known and discussed that mental health challenges [increased] in the face of the pandemic; people across the board are at record levels and record challenges. So the first thing is, a simple way, but an important way, we feel we can elevate the community spirit by the team. And you elevate it more when the team wins, but just the communal game back together.”
He adds he couldn’t count the number of people who reached out to him once fans were allowed back in the stands. They wrote notes and sent emails and text messages with communications along the lines of, “Thank you. It was a great family experience, and we haven’t been able to get out and reengage in the community.”
Building on Success
The San Francisco Giants are looking to build on last year’s phenomenal season. They have a solid baseball operations side with manager Gabe Kapler, general manager Scott Harris, and president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi.
“With them at the helm, the fans, I think, now understand. They understand what we’re doing, and how we’re doing it. They saw the way the team was constructed last year. And I think they have faith going into this year,” adds Baer.
Baseball is a sport where the best of the best individual players fail 70%of the time and teams who are successful only win 60%–65% of their games. Numbers can be misleading sometimes. However, there are some things clubs must get right and San Francisco has figured that out.
“I think, in ways like customer service. It’s that there are certain things you can’t control when you come to a game. You cannot control when the team wins or loses,” Baer explains.
SF Giants CEO Larry Baer: A Son of San Francisco
San Francisco native Larry Baer grew up taking the city bus to the ballpark with his dad. He remembers seeing generations of fathers, sons, daughters, and grandchildren going to the games together. That creates memories.
The San Francisco Giants have won three World Series championships. Giants CEO Baer will never forget the parade for the first one in 2010. He was on the podium at city hall sitting with then-general manager Brian Sabean. Sabean was an intense baseball executive, coming from the Yankees organization with baseball greats like Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera. His job was putting the best players on the field.
Sabean looked at the crowd, leaned over to Baer and said, “This is about families enjoying a shared experience, you know? And taking advantage of a shared experience. When you win, it’s even greater.”
Baer took that to heart. “It’s the shared experience and the making memories with people you care about, in a communal setting,” he says.
Winning lifts the energy. But just the thought of spring training brings a smile. Opening day is exciting before the first pitch is ever thrown out. And it doesn’t hurt when other professional teams in the city are doing well. San Francisco is electric when the Niners are winning playoff games and the Golden State Warriors are hanging banners. That allows everyone to support everybody. But the game isn’t the only draw.
Into the Future
The Giants have multiuse development Mission Rock under construction. The NBA’s Warriors and the Giants are bookends, with the Warriors calling Chase Center, an arena less than a mile away from Oracle Park’s home. It’s a short 10-minute walk between the two professional sports franchises. Mission Bay is in the middle and it’s going to make for one of the hottest areas in the country for sports, entertainment, and dining. It has nearly half a dozen new restaurants going in.
“We think this is going to be a mecca for not just sports, but sports, and entertainment, and recreation,” says Baer. “And it’s not just baseball and basketball, but the Warriors are doing concerts and corporate events, as are we.”
Larry Baer thinks a renaissance is ahead for the San Francisco Giants as well as Major League Baseball. There are so many young players who appear to be great ambassadors for the game, and diverse talent on rosters on every diamond in the league — that adds up to a very exciting future.
As engagement continues to grow, the Giants are working on a lot of social media ventures, including a new relationship with TikTok.
Gaming is on the scene in some states and that’ll only increase and improve engagement. Gambling isn’t legal in California, but online sports betting will increase MLB’s visibility. And as far as the little kids go, San Francisco will continue to support youth leagues and their Junior Giants leagues.
With the pandemic approaching year three of its impact, the Giants feel better prepared than ever to keep fans safe at the ballpark. They’re hoping to invite 40,000 fans out like they did last October.
Larry Baer understands it’s all about making the fans want to come back for more.
“Right. Exactly. Somebody once said, I think this is true, what business are we in? What is our real calling? And it’s, we’re in the memory-making business and experience.”