SF downsizes staff, citing coronavirus
The Giants are among the many companies downsizing in the face of the pandemic and a new financial reality: On Friday, the team announced a 10 percent cut in baseball and business operations staff.
San Francisco completed its pandemic-shortened 60game season last month, receiving no gate revenue as fans were not allowed into any regular season games across MLB to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
The two departments contain about 500 staffers combined, so the Giants are looking at a reduction of roughly 50 jobs.
With no tickets to sell and no minor league games to scout, the team determined its financial reality was too much to bear this offseason.
The Giants released this statement Saturday:
“Yesterday was an extremely difficult day in our organization as we informed our employees that we are eliminating approximately 10 percent of fulltime positions due to the unprecedented impact and continued uncertainty of the pandemic on our operations. These reductions include positions in both the business and baseball operations divisions. We are providing a number of employee support programs to those impacted employees, including severance, healthcare and outplacement assistance.”
The team furloughed part-time staffers and laid off game-day workers with no games to be played. The Giants also asked employees making more than $75,000 to take pay cuts.
Of course, the Giants were also hit by the pandemic in a more direct way, having two games with the Padres postponed over a positive test taken by Alex
Dickerson that turned out to be a false positive.
Whether the Giants will begin receiving gate revenue in 2021 is still unclear, and probably will be for some time. Major League Baseball did allow a limited number of fans into the National League Championship Series and will also have fans attend the World Series — both at the Texas Rangers’ Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. The Giants will be subject not only to MLB protocols but to local coronavirus health restrictions, many of which are firmer than those in Texas and across other major league markets.