The San Diego Padres have promoted Christopher Connolly to executive vice president and chief marketing and operations officer, a title that combines the portfolio he already held with the one vacated by Caroline Perry, who left recently to join the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Mr. Connolly, who has served as the team's chief marketing officer for five years, will now add ballpark operations and guest experience to a mandate that already included marketing, brand strategy, creative services, social media, advertising, broadcasting, in-game entertainment and fan engagement. He will continue to report to Erik Greupner, the team's chief executive.
The move comes after Ms. Perry's departure for the division rival up the coast — a transition that carries its own subtext, given that she was Mr. Greupner's first hire at the Padres some 16 years ago. (In baseball, as in advertising, the people you train have a way of ending up across the street.)
Some of Ms. Perry's former responsibilities will be absorbed by Mr. Greupner himself, with the remainder to be distributed among senior hires yet to be announced. The team did not specify which duties would go where, suggesting that the organizational chart is still being sketched in pencil.
The consolidation of marketing and operations under a single executive reflects a trend that has been gaining momentum across professional sports, where the line between selling the experience and delivering it has grown pleasantly blurry. Whether Mr. Connolly's new title represents a battlefield promotion or a vote of institutional confidence is, perhaps, a matter of perspective.
Either way, the Padres appear to be betting that the person who knows how to tell the story is also the right person to run the building where it unfolds.
Original story published in sportsbusinessjournal.com: "Padres promote Christopher Connolly to EVP, Chief Marketing & Operations Officer"