Bill Schlough is the Chief Information Officer & Senior Vice President of the San Francisco Giants. In the following interview, he spoke about what’s next for the team, how technology impacts the game and offered advice for Harker students.

Q: First off, I want to congratulate you on a great season, Three championships in 5 years is truly amazing, what about the Giants franchise has made them so successful?

A: It’s a lot of things. We are very fortunate to be living in what we consider to be a golden era of a franchise that has been around since 1883, so as a Giants fan or as someone who has worker there, it has been 132 years, and these 5 years have been the best of 132 and better than a lot of franchises have ever had. Really fortunate, I’d say there’s a lot of factors that contribute to it. It starts with our ballpark, the beautiful ball park we constructed in downtown San Francisco in 2000. And the ownership group that we have today working hard to keep the team in the late 90s. The team almost moved to Tampa Florida, it was bought by some investors that were going to move the team to Tampa, and some owner saved the team and kept them here. The only way to keep them here and be successful, would be to build a ballpark downtown, and its not easy to get that approved, but ultimately they were able to do it. Having that ballpark downtown is what made all of this because it gives us the levity that we need to put away products on the field. If we don’t have a beautiful new ballpark with the suites and the great view and the amenities that we have, it’s tough to afford to fuel a winning team. That’s one piece of it.

Our CEO, who’s been around in his role for almost 22 years now, and our GM has also been with us for almost 22 years, and I myself have been with the team almost 16 years and out of a front office with 164 staff, I am employee number 54, so that means I might be in the top third in terms of how long I’ve been there, and I’ve been here 16 years. Our CEO is really big on loyalty and continuity, and we have the longest 10-year GM in all of sports at 22 years, and our CEO has been with us a long time. His whole executive team, the majority have been with us for over 20 years, and that extends all the way down to our players as well. We like to have our players come up through our system. You could just go down the list, players like: Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Brandon Crawford, Brandon Belt, Pablo Sandoval, Madison Bumgarner. All these are players that we drafted, that we raised through our system, and will keep on the team for hopefully their entire career if we are lucky with Panda and the lot of them. And thats what the philosophy of the team is, it’s all about how loyalty and continuity is key, and that’s something our CEO really emphasizes. The last thing I’ll say is just that our team is really just selfless, and they all really play for each other. Hunter Pence really embodies that, and he is the vocal leader who really came up with the inspirational speeches, and the ‘I just want to play with you guys one more day’ and ’25 guys, one common goal.’ Its always been about playing for each other and not about individual accomplishment, and they are a true team.

Q: Is the team already looking ahead to next season? Are there any specific changes you or the team plan to make going in to next year?

A: We’re always looking ahead to the future, not just next year, but multiple years down the road. We are trying to position our team, we want to be competitive every year. We just want to put a team on the field that will make it to the playoffs because once you make it to the playoffs it’s a whole new ball game, and everyone resets their records. It doesn’t matter if you have the best records of the season, it all resets when you make the playoffs, so we proved that this year because with the ten teams that made the playoffs, we were the number 10 seed and we were able to tryouts none the less. Our philosophy is to put a winning team on the field, we never want to have a rebuilding year where we are like yeah we’ll wait till next year and we’ll have the players next year, which some teams do, they take the year off. We can’t do that to our fans because we’ve had 327 straight sell outs at AT&T park and if fans knew that we weren’t putting the best product on the field, they probably wouldn’t come, its not fair to our fans. It’s great to have three rings, but we are always looking ahead and always satisfied. We are incredibly fortunate to be apart of the franchise at this time period, but that doesn’t mean we are going to relax now.

Q: I know you do a lot using technology to connect the fans to the game. Why do you think that’s important and In terms of fan involvement, did you see anything this year that was different than previous years?

A: I think it’s absolutely critical to enable fans to stay connected when they come to a game. I’ll say there are 4 things you need when you go to a game. When you come to a ball game, you obviously need a game. People aren’t going to just come and sit in the ballpark without a game, or maybe they would, it does have a beautiful view by the bay. You probably need restrooms; that’s critical. Then you come to things that are a little less critical. How about seats, but if it’s a really exciting game, like the World Series Game 5, people didn’t really sit down much, so you could argue that people don’t necessarily need seats. Then there are video boards. Video boards really add to the experience, but some ballparks like Rigley Field in Chicago doesn’t have a video board. Then the last thing I would say is connectivity. Would you come to a ballpark if your phone would not work? What is more important to you? Having a seat, having a video board, or having a mobile device to connect with your friends? We feel that as each year passes, the mobile devices that fans bring to the game are more critical than ever before. I might say, if you could choose between having no food, no seats, or no connectivity, I think a lot of people would prefer no food or no seats. We view it as really critical to the fan experience, and it’s a worth wile investment for us. We put close to 20 million invested over the past 10 years to the connectivity of our fans, and we think its an investment not only because it keeps fans coming back to the ball park, it also allows people to share that experience with others, and makes others more likely to want to come to a game.

Q: What has the response been on social media to the victory?

A: I think social media has come a long way in the last 4 years. I think you’re seeing a lot more people expressing their enthusiasm for the team through twitter or instagram, snapchat. What has changed the most from our 3 world series, is just the different dominant platforms. Snapchat didn’t exist in 2010; Facebook was much bigger than Twitter in 2010; Instagram has grown a lot since then too. I think people have been acting through social media and promoting their allegiance to the Giants, but the channels have evolved over the years, and they will continue to do so. Nearly 3 million on Facebook over 700,000 on Twitter, and over 300,00 on Instagram and those are in the top 3 leading followers counts in baseball in every one of those categories. Our fan base has really grown significantly. There’s a map on the New York times, it’s super cool, it shows the whole country in different colors based on people’s favorite baseball teams on Facebook. It’s really cool to see where the Giants, A’s, and Dodgers territory are. It’s fun to keep doing those studies every few years to see how that evolves as the team has successes.

Q: At a school without many students pursuing professional baseball, how would you encourage students to stay involved with the game?

A: I’d say, realistically, a very, very small percentage of kids who play baseball are going to play at the major league level. Even a very small percentage of kids who play in college are going to play at the major league level, or high school. Baseball is different from the other sports like football, particularly football. Basketball, there’s a little bit, but we draft a lot of people straight out of high school, and then draft a lot through college, and basketball there’s a little bit out of high school, but football, there’s nobody out of high school. They’re just all out of college, but I’d say, if you’re passionate about baseball, you’re going to know at a very young age if you have what it takes – the talent – to play in the major leagues. And if you do, odds are, you’re probably not going to be in Harker, and that’s okay. You’re going to take a different path. I don’t expect my son to be a major leaguer, but he can still be passionate about baseball. You can go play the game, and love the game, and you can still follow the game, and you can get involved in baseball analytics, you can become a general manager someday, you can get a job in operations if you’re passionate about it. You can be a ball catcher, there are so many different careers that you can pursue as opposed to being just on the field. Being on the field teaches you great skills and lessons: teamwork, fitness, agility and everything, so I would expect my son to play sports at Harker, but not with the expectation that he’s going to become a pro. There are very, very few people who have that talent and ability, but that shouldn’t stop people from playing the game because I think there are a lot of benefits from playing whether you’re going to be a pro or not.

An abridged version of this piece was originally published in the pages of The Winged Post on November 21, 2014.