Bay Area boomtown: Giants now among big boys

8:01PM EDT October 15. 2012 - SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco Giants CEO Larry Baer is back in his corner office at 24 Willie Mays Plaza Monday morning, doing what after 20 years of practice seems second nature to him — plotting the moves that will enable his ballclub to financially, aesthetically and athletically shake up the baseball world.


The adversity of this day — the Giants had lost home-field advantage in the National League Championship Series to the St. Louis Cardinals the previous night, and the Giants' starting pitching suddenly seemed about as reliable as a paper umbrella — does not overcome him.

This is, after all, a man whose wall is adorned with a framed front page of the old San Francisco Examiner. The date is Aug. 8, 1992. The banner headline: "Bye-bye, baby."

"That was our 'Dewey defeats Truman' moment," Baer says.
The Giants, who had struggled for years to attract big crowds in dreary, cold Candlestick Park and only occasionally were a factor in the NL West standings, had been sold to a group in Florida that was planning to move them to the Tampa Bay area.

They were gone. History. End of story. Except that they weren't.

The NL owners did not approve the sale, and then a group led by Peter Magowan and including Baer surfaced to buy the Giants, keep them in San Francisco and present a future that included a downtown ballpark.

"There was a complete doubt among everyone that this could ever be a baseball town," Baer says. "We were considered unrealistic dreamers."

The ballpark opened in 2000, and it is one of baseball's most precious gems, a coupling of old-school architecture and new-school amenities – with a spectacular bay view, no less.

Since then, there have been two World Series played at the ballpark – a loss in the Barry Bonds Era in 2002, a victory in 2010 – and a complete change of perception and reality in the world of San Francisco Giants baseball.

Win or lose this series, the modern Giants seem to have fully matured as a burgeoning behemoth.


AT&T Park is now the place to be in San Francisco, a community gathering spot that lifts the locals' spirits whether they have a ticket or not.

Of course, it's a lot cooler with a ticket.

Sunday night, at Game 1 of the NLCS, the vibe was typically giddy and buzzy, not unlike Baton Rouge, La., or Athens, Ga., on an SEC football Saturday.

The crowd of 42,534, the Giants' 165th consecutive home sellout, waved orange towels and sang along to songs played on the P.A. system. They wore wigs (in honor of long-haired pitcher Tim Lincecum) and beards (in honor of sidelined closer Brian Wilson and current closer Sergio Romo) and furry panda hats (in honor of third baseman Pablo "Kung Fu Panda" Sandoval) and didn't care if they looked silly. They ate garlic fries but, during a four-run rally that got their heroes back into a game they once trailed 6-0, they didn't worry about hugging or kissing the person next to them.

Monday night, which potentially was the Giants' last home game of the season, was more of the same. These extraordinarily diverse Giants fans, like the extraordinarily diverse players they cheer for, are comfortable in their own skin, and getting used to the idea of being winners.

"This is an unbelievable place," Giants fan Rohit Sikka, 30, of Union City, Calif., says of AT&T. "It's like big-time college football, like Disneyland, like a magical place."

His friend, A.K. Kapoor, 32, of San Francisco, remembers how "cold and boring" games at Candlestick were. In 2010, he was in AT&T to watch the Giants win their first World Series since moving to California in 1962.

"The best feeling in the world," he says.

Now, two years later, the Giants are trying to do it again.

Hey, didn't San Francisco used to be a football town?

"I don't know who has a stronger brand or more love," Baer says of the 49ers and the Giants. "Our two franchises are super strong. We don't compete."

The 18 investors who bought the Giants in 1992 (the group is now up to 32) privately financed the ballpark and have succeeded financially by maintaining a season-ticket base around 30,000 and by topping the 3 million mark in attendance in 11 of the ballpark's 13 years.

Maintaining that attendance level is crucial to the Giants' ability to be competitive with the rest of baseball in terms of payroll. They currently rank No. 8 in MLB payroll at $117.6 million.

"That's our sweet spot, around No. 7 to No. 10 in payroll," Baer says.

He says the team's break-even mark is about 3.25 million in attendance. This year, regular season attendance was 3,377,374. Last year it was 3,387,303. The team actually had more revenue, however, this year, because of its "dynamic pricing" – in which the team adjusts prices of tickets depending on demand.

"When we're over 3 million, we're making a little money – just a little," he says. "But that's OK. Our investors would be the happiest people in the world if we won the World Series and broke even."

The Giants hope to increase revenue from their media deal in future years. In 2008, they signed a 25-year cable broadcast deal with Comcast in which the Giants have a 33% ownership stake. They also are hoping, down the road, to make money by developing what is now a parking lot adjacent to the stadium into a 27-acre retail, residential and office complex.

Whether this will make them the Yankees of the West remains to be seen. A more nearby concern is the money being spent by the new owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Giants' longtime division rivals.

Can the Giants keep up with the Guggenheims?

"We'll see," Baer says. "They've got good people down there. The Guggenheim people are pretty smart. But baseball is still an art, not a science. What we're doing is putting our bets on good judgment. We will have the necessary resources from our revenues, and then put our bets on good judgment.

"We're going to have to try to out-brainiac them."