Soon after she took a job with the Atlanta United FC of Major League Soccer five years ago, Catie Griggs was put through the gentle hazing ritual the team inflicted on new hires: Sing at karaoke night. Naturally, most people would pick their favorite song or something that wasn’t too challenging. Perhaps they’d even give themselves a chance at grandstanding.
But Griggs is different. What song, she calculated at the time, regardless of how she sang it, would get people to sing along so they wouldn’t have to hear her? She settled on Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer.” Griggs wasn’t entirely successful, though. “Singing is not one of her strengths,” said Darren Eales, president of the Atlanta club and her former boss. “But she did it.”
For Griggs, 40, using strategic analysis, even to determine how karaoke night might be tweaked for maximum benefit, is the trait that so many of her co-workers and former colleagues point to as the reason for her outsize success. Now, one year into her tenure as the Seattle Mariners’ president of business operations, and one year away from Seattle’s T-Mobile Park hosting the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, Griggs faces a unique challenge: Helping the only MLB team that’s never been to a World Series prosper on the field and off.
The Mariners have enjoyed baseball success, but only a taste. The franchise has been home to Hall of Famers Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson and Edgar Martinez and even won a record-tying 116 games in 2001. Now, however, they could be on the verge of a feast. A combination of exciting young players and little-known veterans has made them one of the hottest teams in baseball, and they head into this week’s MLB All-Star break having won 14 games in a row. As happy as team owner John Stanton may feel about on-field performance, however, he’s demanding more from the franchise on the revenue side. That includes strengthening corporate ties in a market that’s home to behemoths like Amazon, Microsoft, Costco and Starbucks.
“We don’t have as extensive a relationship with sponsors as we should,” Stanton told Forbes. “We underachieved in that area, and we’ve been struggling, frankly, for a couple of years, to figure out a good way of being more effective.”
That’s precisely where Griggs comes in.
Bringing a fresh perspective
When told of Eales’ karaoke memory, which occurred as part of a 2017 Christmas party, Griggs laughed. She then referenced the “chicken-and-pig” story, popular at business schools to illustrate the price of success. The chicken’s commitment to a plate of bacon and eggs lasts just a few seconds; the pig’s dedication is much greater. “If you’re going to do it,” Griggs says, “you got to be the pig.”
Raised in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, Griggs’ talent for strategic thinking showed early. At age 10, she devised a plan to win a gig promoting Golden Corral restaurants. (The role didn’t involve singing.) All Griggs had to do was smile while enjoying the food. “I nailed that audition,” Griggs says, noting she made the final cut. The thing is, putting together a strategy to locate footage of the commercial is proving to be a challenge. “My entire digital and social team tried,” she says. “It’s gone, which is spectacular for everyone.”
Griggs graduated from Dartmouth in 2003 with a degree in international relations and four years later earned an MBA from the college’s Tuck School of Business. A paid internship as a market researcher with consultancy firm Octagon introduced her to the world of sports business. She instantly impressed John Shea, the company CEO. He noticed Griggs’ knack for taking “complex information and making it easy and digestible,” describing her as intelligent, “confident and competent.”
Griggs joined Turner Sports in 2012. The TV network shares an estimated $8 billion media rights agreement with CBS Sports for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and needed someone to figure out production schedules and logistics for the networks. The job also required negotiating media rights and sponsorship contracts. That role, she says, provided “a look under the covers of how a multibillion-dollar media company comes together.” It also strengthened Griggs’ reputation in business circles as someone who can use strategic thinking to figure things out.
Outfielder Mitch Haniger chats with Seattle Mariners CEO John Stanton before an April game. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
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Mariners owner seeking growth
In August 2021, Griggs became the first female president of the Mariners, making her a member of a very small club of women at the highest ranks of baseball management. Caroline O’Connor, chief operating officer of the Miami Marlins, is the only other woman currently in a top spot. Pam Gardner ran the Houston Astros until 2012, and Wendy Selig-Prieb, the daughter of former MLB commissioner Bud Selig, was the Milwaukee Brewers’ president and CEO from 1998-2002.
Stanton recalls the strong impression Griggs made during the hiring process. Finalists created one-year, three-year and five-year plans for the team without financial information. “Her strategic sense came through,” says Stanton.
The presentation was “long and intensive,” Griggs says. She said she used Forbes’ MLB valuation list to estimate profit-loss and identify top sponsors for the club. She described the presentation as a “consumer-centric-value-delivery-product-creation,” she says. “That’s my sweet spot.”
Stanton says he wasn’t necessarily looking for a candidate with baseball experience. “What we were looking for is someone who represented a fresh perspective,” he said. People who usually run baseball teams “historically for the most part look like me” — an older white male — “and I wanted to broaden the candidates.”
With Griggs at the helm, Stanton, who purchased a majority stake in the Mariners from Nintendo in 2016, suggests the franchise can grow substantially with revenue generators like uniform patches advertising sponsors and virtual ads on the field. Asked to predict what improvement the team could make during this decade, Stanton wouldn’t provide an exact amount. “I think we can be in the top third” of MLB teams, he says.
The Mariners are valued at $1.7 billion, which ranks 16th in MLB. The club made $313 million for the 2021 season, according to Forbes data. That’s up from $129 million in 2020, which was impacted by the pandemic. In 2019, the Mariners made $315 million and $320 million the year prior. Should the team meet Stanton’s expectation, it would have to push into the $400 million range.
Stanton also wants T-Mobile Park to transition into a top-tier MLB stadium after committing roughly $100 million to upgrades. The Mariners will spend $55 million for in-stadium improvements, including a premium seating area expected to be ready by the 2023 season. The team will also open a restaurant and bar near the stadium to capture revenue from ancillary real estate.
Most importantly, Stanton says, the club will need to innovate and create “unforgettable experiences” at Mariners games. “That,” he says, “translates into revenue, and revenue translates into resources that allow us to build championship teams.”
Stanton, Griggs, Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray and Jerry DiPoto pose with Ray’s trophy before a game earlier this season. Griggs handles the business side while DiPoto heads baseball operations. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
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The ‘Jack Nicholson’ experience
Can Catie Griggs revive the Mariners? “Heck no,” Griggs says. “But I’m hopeful Catie Griggs plus a great team might be able.”
Stanton has confidence. “Catie turned Atlanta into a soccer town,” he says.
During her time with United FC – an expansion franchise in 2017 – the club led the league in attendance, averaging more than 40,000 fans per game, according to Soccer Stadium Digest, a website that tracks MLS. The team won the MLS Cup in 2018, and that accelerated fan interest. The challenge was increasing ticket revenue when the team, owned by billionaire Home Depot cofounder Arthur Blank, moved into the $1 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
The strategy: create premium tickets Griggs labeled the “Jack Nicholson” experience. The concept mimics NBA courtside seats, where Nicholson prowled for years. In the soccer version, $1,000 seats are located on the field and include wait service. In Atlanta, Griggs explains, “people have style and like to be visible.” In Seattle, she says, “it’s about finding those places no different than the Nicholson seats. … How do we get really disciplined about understanding the various people who make up the market?”
The Jack Nicholson seats still sell out regularly and generate significant income for the Atlanta club, according to Eales, who wouldn’t reveal financial details. A large part of MLS club revenue is attendance and Forbes last calculated the Atlanta team made $78 million in revenue in 2018. That’s up from roughly $47 million in 2017.
Griggs’ ticketing strategy “won over a Euro-skeptic,” says Eales, a Brit who initially didn’t think the seats would sell.
Today, Griggs’ premium-seat plan serves as one of the positive legacies of her time in Atlanta. As long as no one mentions the karaoke challenge. “I blocked that out of my mind,” Eales jokes. “I think most people have.”
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Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jabariyoung/2022/07/18/can-catie-griggs-make-the-resurgent——-seattle-mariners-more-profitable-everyone-is-singing-her-praises/