Annie Kuo: Hello, and welcome back to Discovery, a podcast at the ºìÌÒÊÓƵ, where we interview the law school’s distinguished guests and experts from around the world. I'm your host Annie Kuo. Today we're taking you out to the ballgame for a conversation with Seattle Mariners general counsel and executive vice president Fred Rivera, who visited ºìÌÒÊÓƵ in the springtime as a special guest of the Entertainment Law Association. The students were very intrigued to find out how Fred, with his 18 years at Perkins Coie, then pivoted to—sounds like a dream job—at the Seattle Mariners working on community relations and community impact work as well as the more traditional stuff. However, I hear from Fred that he actually has more of a nontraditional general counsel role. And I'd like to welcome you Fred to the podcast and also ask you, if you can tell us a little more about that nontraditional work that you do day to day. Welcome to Discovery.
Fred Rivera: Thank you, Annie, and the University of Washington for the invitation. I do have a bit of a nontraditional role as general counsel and part of it stems from the fact that the Seattle Mariners organization, like most major league baseball organizations, are relatively small. We have a total staff of about 350 employees, and that includes on field staff or coaches, staff that we have in Peoria—our spring training complex—and in the Dominican Republic. And so because of the size of our staff, many of us have to play multiple roles. So, in addition to overseeing the traditional legal work, litigation, contracts, things of that nature, I oversee our community impact group, which includes the Mariners Care Foundation, our 501(c)3 organization, real estate development that we're doing outside of the ballpark, government affairs and general external affairs as well.
AK: Yes, and it sounds like for the past five years, you've been busy with leases, renewed the lease in 2018 with T-Mobile Park and then just recently signed, or maybe not so recently, during the pandemic signed a 23-year lease with the old Pyramid Brewery spot that last night, August 23, had a grand opening to the public. I wonder if you could tell us a little more about the considerations around opening a gameday destination like that that is actually open beyond game days. Tell us more.
FR: It starts with the mission of the Seattle Mariners and we have three components to our mission. One is to win championships. The second is to create unforgettable experiences for our fans and guests and our employees. And the third is to serve our communities.
Opening the old Pyramid building, which is just to the west of T-Mobile park at 1201 First Avenue South, really hits on the last two pillars to create unforgettable experiences and serve our communities. When pyramid ran that space, it was a gathering spot before and sometimes after games. And it also is a gathering spot for our community for lunches and to watch other sporting events. When pyramid vacated that space in early 2020, we saw an opportunity to continue what they had been doing and perhaps amplify it even more to create a gathering space for our community for our fans who come to our games, for fans that go to Lumen Field, and so we, as you mentioned, signed a 23-year lease. That term runs with the lease of T-Mobile park that we have with the owner, the public agency that owns T-Mobile Park, to create a restaurant called Hatback Bar & Grille. The name Hatback is a nod to one of the greatest athletes to play in Seattle, Ken Griffey Jr, who started a style trend of wearing his hat backwards, but also that represents what we're trying to create inside of Hatback Bar & Grille. And that is a relaxed atmosphere where people can gather with family, friends and really just enjoy community within that space.
The second element is called Steelheads Alley and it's a taproom. Steelheads Alley is named after the Seattle Steelheads, which was a Negro League baseball team that played in Seattle for only one season in 1946. And we've named it Steelheads not only to pay homage to the Seattle Steelheads, but also it's an entry point to learn more about the really rich history of baseball and softball in the Pacific Northwest from voices that we don't hear about.
We have pictures and memorabilia of African American teams of Asian teams of Native American teams, Latino Hispanic teams. One of my favorite sets of pictures is of the Seattle Owls, which was a women's softball team that played in the Seattle area and won multiple state championships in the 1930s, and 1940s. And we have some just amazing pictures of that team inside Steelheads Alley. So, when you walk into that space, it's a beautiful space with brick walls and exposed timber. And almost 100 pictures and pieces of memorabilia representing those diverse teams that are played here. And then we have a mural that was completed by an artist named Damon Brown, an African American artist here in Seattle that represents a number of teams that have played in Seattle over the years.
The last piece, which will open about April 1, 2023—opening day— is a large event space in what was a warehouse—it was not open to the public when Pyramid ran it—creating a 10,000 square foot event space that will be open pregame for pregame gathering, but also it will be available for rent for conferences, weddings, community events as well.
AK: Fantastic. I love that you've got a nod to both the Steelheads and the first black-owned brewery as well inside the space. And a nod to some of the fantastic professional women athletes of Seattle, right? We have like the most winningest franchise in the Storm.
I learned from you that the Mariners are a private organization, but are paired with that public asset in the public agency. The Mariners don't own T-Mobile and that it's actually through the public agency of the Public Facilities District formed 25 years ago. Can you tell us a little more about your role as general counsel in negotiating the legal elements and working with King County Council for the ballpark capital improvements?
FR: T-Mobile Park is owned by an agency called—it's a long name—but we go by the Public Facility District, the PFD, and that's an agency that's made up of seven members appointed by King County Council and the Washington State legislature and governor. There are four appointed by the county and three appointed by the state. That organization or that agency was set up when T-Mobile Park, formerly Safeco Field, was built. And so it was set up to own the property and to actually own the ballpark. The mariners entered into a lease to use the ballpark for baseball and other purposes. That lease expired at the end of 2017. And so one of my first tasks when I joined the Seattle Mariners was to negotiate a new lease with the PFD. We entered those negotiations with a goal of having T-mobile Park be a 100-year ballpark. We want T-Mobile Park to be the Wrigley Field of the West, the Fenway Park of the West, and really have that tradition for decades to come.
In order to do that, you need to take care of the ballpark. You need to have capital improvements and repairs. We've got a state of the art roof on our ballpark to account for the Seattle weather. And it takes money to keep that up. And so a significant part of those negotiations was ensuring there was capital from this ballpark that is publicly owned, and that both the Seattle Mariners and the PFD were able to contribute necessary funds for those capital upgrades and repairs and we were able to negotiate what I think is a very fair deal. The King County Council was ultimately responsible for approving the capital contributed by the county for those funds. The state legislature over a decade ago designated King County hotel lodging tax for capital repairs at T-Mobile Park. And so those funds had already been earmarked for this purpose. And we were able to negotiate what percentage of those funds would go into T-Mobile park for capital improvements. And I think we reached a very fair deal. It’s a 25-year lease that will not only keep the Mariners in T-Mobile Park and in Seattle but also ensure that T-Mobile Park is one of the best ballparks in Major League Baseball
AK: It’s gonna be awesome to have some really amazing arenas in Seattle, now that we've got climate pledge as well.
I'm really intrigued by your transition as a civil rights attorney into the sports arena, and I wonder if you can tell us more about how that transition has been since you took the helm.
FR: My career path or trajectory has been interesting and nontraditional, I would say. I started as a civil rights lawyer in the Department of Justice. I was in the Civil Rights Division, Housing and Civil Enforcement Section out of law school, and I was there for six years, based in Washington, DC. And that was really something that I was passionate about, am passionate about, and having that opportunity through the Attorney General's honor program to join the DOJ was really special and I had a formative time, while I worked for the Justice Department.
From there, I transferred to private practice and moved to Seattle in 1998 and joined Perkins Coie in their employment group and eventually in their litigation group, applying litigation to, or using the skills I developed at the Justice Department into private practice. And I also did some counseling and financial services and government regulatory matters as well while I was there. My last few years at Perkins Coie, I was the managing partner of the Seattle office. And so much of my time at the firm had transitioned from practicing to management.
My move to the Seattle Mariners is not frankly expected by me. I grew up a baseball player, I played through college, and I have a son who is still playing in college. So, baseball is part of who I am. Frankly, baseball kept me in college. I went to a junior college. And the only reason I I went to college was to play baseball. And so it's more than a sport to me. It's something that is part of who I am.
I got a call from some folks at the Mariners asking if I was interested when my predecessor was retiring. And I said yes. So, I went through a very robust interview process and luckily was accepted an offer, the position, in March of 2017. You know, the transition has been relatively smooth. And I think largely because I had transitioned within Perkins Coie into more of a management role that made for a bit of an easier transition into what I do now, which is more of a management role than it is as a practicing lawyer. That said, as I mentioned earlier, this is a small organization. And so we need to be utility players, so to speak, and I have found that challenging, exhilarating, exciting, and makes it very interesting to get up and come into the office every morning.
AK: I imagine that your lived experiences as an ethnic minority and your background in civil rights is an asset to the Mariners in that many of the race and equity programs that have been developed after the murder of George Floyd when the Mariners took that period of self-reflection and how you can help in developing these programs, kick started some new initiatives that I'm curious about how you'll measure the success of and if you could tell us a little more about what's developed since the pandemic began.
FR: I think the Mariners like most organizations recognize the importance of diversity, just from a decision-making lens, having people from different backgrounds, different experiences, lived experiences, different professions, different regions, different ethnicities, results in robust discussion, and better outcomes. And so I'm happy I can be part of that within our organization.
After the murder of George Floyd and the movement that started that summer, we did some self-reflection as an organization to determine how we can be part of change within what we can do in our in our community. And we came up with a couple of different ways to do that. One, we are a baseball team. And so we wanted to use that platform to try to expand youth activity and make youth activity more equitable, particularly with baseball and softball. Unfortunately, we have a number of kids, because of either where they live or the income of their families, that are being left out. Simply the ability to play and in particularly to in play in organized activities, because of the cost of joining a team, the cost of equipment, and perhaps most significantly, actually, the cost of transportation. Transportation is one of the most significant barriers of kids being able to play organized sports. If you think about the number of times kids need to go to practice and travel. And particularly if you're in a community that doesn't have play fields in that community, you have to travel to go and play. And so we've come up with a number of programs to simply expand access for play and particularly organized play in baseball and softball for kids.
The other thing we wanted to do is help with the recovery of COVID and particularly for the black, indigenous and persons of color communities who have been hit particularly hard by COVID, including because it exposed some of the inequities that existed even before. And really for us with a focus on BIPOC-owned businesses. And so we committed to increase our business with BIPOC-owned businesses through our vendor programs, and a number of other ways and also to provide grants to organizations that are supporting that recovery. And we've joined the Seattle foundation and their recovery grant making program, provided a grant to the University of Washington Foster School’s program that supports minority-owned business owners.
So, we've done a number of things in that area and how we determine success I think will be ultimately at a macro level, whether or not diverse businesses and business owners and founders improve their stake within our community. Whether their market share goes up. And we are tracking it within the Seattle Mariners organization, ensuring that we are measurably showing improvement, and an increase in business with minority of vendors. And, and we are doing that. And we are tracking it. And I think as a community, the businesses are joining and ensuring that we're providing equitable access to all business owners.
AK: Thank you. That's amazing work. And thank you also on behalf of our neighbor across the street, the UW Foster School of Business.
I read in the Puget Sound Business Journal that there are a couple other programs I wanted to touch on quickly before we have to go. But one of them was that you're seeding rental assistance and eviction support programs to help people experiencing homelessness. And I noticed in our conversation, Fred, that you and me had in the spring, the Home Base Program. I wonder if you could tell us about your involvement with the King County Bar Association and the study on evictions. What were some of the findings, and some of the solutions proposed after that study was released?
FR: In 2018, the study came out of the King County Bar Association that really confirmed the nexus of evictions to homelessness. Essentially, it's a pipeline. About 70% of families who are evicted from their rentals end up homeless for some period of time. And that was not a surprise. National statistics show that as well. What was surprising to me was the causes of those evictions, and the average amount of either rent or other fees that were in arrears that caused those evictions. And it was a relatively small amount. In general, it was about 50% of monthly rent payments. So around $1,700 was the average amount that was in arrears that caused an eviction. And when you compare that to the cost of getting a family out of homelessness and into shelter, that's a nominal amount of money.
So, the Seattle Mariners put together a program in partnership with the King County Bar Association and the United Way of King County to really address that pipeline of eviction to homelessness. And what we did was pair those two organizations so that the United Way, through its partners, would provide rental assistance to address the cause of the eviction process through grant making. And we brought in the King County Bar Association to provide the legal services. As any of the lawyers who may be listening to this who are law students may know, the eviction process is complicated, particularly for somebody who is not familiar with receiving a summons on his or her door and understanding what to do with it. And often, families that received eviction notices, don't know how to challenge it. So, they pack up and they leave.
It was important for us to pair lawyers with grant making to make sure these families were properly taken care of as they navigated the eviction process. The Mariners started the program with a $3 million donation that came from the organization and our own owners, and started the framework for the program. And after that the community really stepped up. Microsoft came in, Nordstroms came in for significant amounts of money to really increase the amount of those grants that could go to families. This is all pre-pandemic. Post-pandemic that program became the main rental assistance program in King County, and public funds were added to the program. And now it really is an important part of the community's effort to address homelessness.
AK: That's really fantastic for all this community relations work to center around social services and to helping solve social problems, which is something we believe here strongly at the University of Washington.
I just have one final question for you, which is a little bit more personal. You know, in reading about the Mariners Care Foundation and the pillars around increasing access to baseball and softball for kids, including those from underrepresented communities and working on your community partnerships, including the COVID vax clinics and Home Base for Homelessness. When you mentioned that baseball had touched your life as a young child, and continues through your family today, with your son playing on the team, on a team in college, did you benefit from programs such as that, such as these when you were a child growing up?
FR: Yeah, I did a little bit. I didn't have some of the transportation barriers because at the time, the baseball ecosystem was community oriented. And so I didn't have to have parents to drive me or guardians to drive me across the state to go play in a weekend tournament and put me up in a hotel, which is what the baseball and softball at the system has, by and large become. And a lot of the community programs are starting to disappear. So, I didn't have the challenges that that many kids particularly once they hit 13. At age 13, there are very few community programs for baseball and softball, and it becomes part of the travel program.
I did absolutely benefit from the Boys and Girls Club, which was two blocks away from where I lived most of my childhood and they had free programs for not only baseball, but like football and basketball. And I signed up for all those programs as I was growing up. And that was certainly meaningful for me and allowed me to learn about organized sports. The benefit of organized sports to have coaches who became mentors that I could look up to. So, I understand from my lived experience, the importance of just being able to play and even play in organized activity where you have teammates and teammates who come from different backgrounds and different experiences that you have to get along with in order to achieve a goal. So, it is very personal for me.
AK: Thanks so much for entertaining that question. I really enjoyed reading about your push for equity through housing and youth sports programs in the Puget Sound Business Journal. I wish you and the mariners a great rest of the season as we kick off our new academic year, our own new season here at ºìÌÒÊÓƵ. Really appreciate your taking time to come to campus for our League and the Law event in the springtime and for taking time to chat with us on the podcast today.
FR: It's my pleasure and again, thank you ºìÌÒÊÓƵ for the invitation.
AK: Fred Rivera is the executive vice president and general counsel of the Seattle Mariners.
