Running the Field of Dreams
We met on a cold, snow-covered February afternoon at Citizens Bank Park, when baseball seemed so very far away. The entrance gates were locked. The parking lots off Pattison Avenue were iced over and empty. And a bitter wind rustled red-and-white team flags that flapped and clanked incessantly against their metal poles.
Inside the ballpark’s front office, the temperature may have been warmer, but the atmosphere was equally subdued. Sitting at the head of an enormous boardroom conference table on the second floor, Phillies Controller Mike Carson was joined by Michael Harris, the Phillies’ director of marketing and special projects. Together they gazed through several large windows overlooking a section of concourse as dim and noiseless as an abandoned fairground.
“It’s ironic that everything’s so quiet, because this is one of our busiest times of the year,” Carson said. “Right now is when we’re really ramping up our efforts to make this place come alive on opening day.”
And so the silence had a purpose: It got the two LeBow College alums thinking a bit philosophically about their respective day-to-day roles in a larger picture to which most casual fans of Major League Baseball rarely devote a second thought.
“This is an incredibly complex business,” said Harris, whose dark-rimmed glasses and fashionable black sport coat played an interesting counterpoint to Carson’s more conservative blue oxford shirt and pressed chinos. “There are a multitude of layers people don’t see or understand. The best analogy I’ve heard is that we put on 81 Broadway shows every year. But the show is different each night. And that’s not easy to execute.”
“This team has been in existence since 1883, and it will well outlive both Mike and me. In a lot of ways, along with many others, we’re just caretakers for this business during a little slice of time.”
To be sure, even the sale of the simplest widget is often a multi-faceted effort requiring a legion of supporting characters with complementary strengths. But when it comes to an entity like the Philadelphia Phillies — an organization Forbes values at $893 million, the fifth-highest in all of Major League Baseball — the umbrella of “business” takes on an entirely new level of complexity.
For Carson, a Boston native who received his MBA in finance from Drexel in 1997, that complexity comes in the form of fiscal coordination. As the Phillies’ controller, Carson and his team are responsible for all of the organization’s accounting, and on a daily basis he can be found juggling a staggering number of financial responsibilities.
These include everything from making sure the team’s bills are paid on time to balancing the budgets of Phillies baseball academies in far-flung locales like Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, assessing the finances of Citizens Bank Park concessions, and monitoring myriad revenue streams like game-day parking, ticket sales, and Phillies brand merchandise.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
“A lot of businesses are focused on a single revenue stream, but the business of a Major League Baseball team involves countless moving parts. And it can get very complicated,” says Carson, who found entrée into the Phillies organization while working for Aramark in 2003, helping the concessionaire smoothly transition its operations from Veterans Stadium to Citizens Bank Park, where he managed both finance and the installation of the point-of-sale systems for the concessions and retail businesses.
While at Aramark, Carson also oversaw other large venues throughout the city, including Lincoln Financial Field, the Wells Fargo Center and the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Then, in the fall of 2011, the Phillies needed a new controller, and he was tapped for the job.
“As controller, I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire, because, financially speaking, things are always moving left, right, up and down all at the same time, and it’s my job to understand how all of those pieces are performing and how they all work together,” says Carson, a 42-year-old married father of three. “From the person who collects your money in the parking lot to concessionaires down in Clearwater, all of it comes with a different set of financial variables.”
To the outside observer, this juggling act sounds positively overwhelming. And while Carson admits that the job could easily lead some to a state of paralysis, he relishes the challenge.
In many ways, Harris’ role within the Phillies organization is the antithesis of Carson’s. While his colleague deals in the relatively objective trade of dollars and cents, Harris toils away in the thoroughly subjective maze of brand marketing, advertising and digital media. What unites them, however, is a shared understanding that a successful baseball team is built on much more than a single season’s win-loss record.
“The big question in sports marketing is: How do you define success? Is it getting a fan to come to a game? To watch it on TV? To wear T-shirts and hats? There are multiple ways of defining our success, but we try to look at it very holistically,” says Harris, a 43-year-old native of Center City Philadelphia. He started out as an intern with the organization in 1994 and then worked in various sales and financial capacities for the Phillies before arriving at his current position in 2007.
“Sure, direct revenue from ticket sales and parking and buying sodas is important. But there are many other tentacles.”
Perhaps the most enigmatic and evasive of them all is the notion of public perception. Harris admits that it’s incredibly difficult — if not impossible — to measure such an abstract concept with concrete metrics, but he and his team are wholly dedicated to the pursuit nonetheless.
“I think the most difficult thing to get used to in sports marketing is recognizing that you can only control so much, which is both comforting and terrifying at the same time,” says Harris, who earned his MBA in marketing and finance from LeBow in 2001.
“We go through a four- or five-game losing streak, and it can feel like your whole world is crashing down on you. But you have to realize that it ebbs and flows, and all you can do is strike while the iron is hot.”
For instance, after winning the World Series in 2008, Harris and the entire Phillies marketing department engaged in one of the most aggressive campaigns in its history.
Sometimes that’s easier said than done. Consider, for instance, the upcoming season. The Phillies finished last year with a dismal 73-89 record, the worst for the franchise since 2000. Moreover, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Phillies saw an average decrease of 8,359 fans per game in 2013.
Harris says it’s cyclical. “Even when we were on top we knew we wouldn’t be forever, and we spent more time thinking about the next phase than the team at the time. We’re fighting some perceptions right now about the age of our team and some other things. But if we can focus on a great fan experience we put ourselves ahead of the game.”
If there’s a common thread that unites both Carson and Harris, it’s this undying dedication to “the fan experience,” a phrase they repeat like a mantra. Sure, ticket sales are nice, but these guys are in the business of selling more than just tickets. They are selling the ethos of a team that loves its fans and tries to make the entire experience as enjoyable and varied as possible.
“This place doesn’t turn on with the flip of a switch. It takes an incredible number of people to make that happen. Thousands,” Harris says. “And we are just specks in the wheel of what makes this a success.” Interestingly, this unifying perspective of cooperation and humility also speaks to the ways in which their respective experiences at Drexel helped propel them to such heights of success.
“When you get your MBA at Drexel, you’re exposed to so many disciplines beyond your own immediate specialization,” Carson says. “And that’s so important because the worst thing you can do is think that any business begins and ends with the discipline you’re in.”
Just a few weeks after we met, Carson and Harris traveled down to spring training in Clearwater, Fla. And as the weeks marched on and the weather urged the snow to thaw, the two of them looked ahead not only to another baseball season, but also to their roles in the larger legacy of the Philadelphia Phillies.
“This team has been in existence since 1883, and it will well outlive both Mike and me,” Carson says. “In a lot of ways, along with many others, we’re just caretakers for this business during a little slice of time. We don’t turn the double plays or hit the home runs, but we can make sure that there’s a wow factor when people walk through the gates of this ballpark, and that when they come here they look forward to coming back.”
Feature photography by Shea Roggio
