Comcast SportsNet President shares his journey

On Underwood Avenue in Hayward, Calif, Ted Griggs started out the same way many young sports fans do: with family, a snack, and a game on the television.

“My dad would come home every Monday night, we would get a Togo’s sandwich, which was new back then and they only made them out at San Jose State,” said Griggs, now 53, and President and General Manager of Comcast SportsNet Bay Area and California. “We would get a sandwich every Monday night and would watch Monday Night Football. My dad would say every Monday, ‘What channel is it on?’ and I was like ‘Dad! It’s ABC, it’s Monday Night Football, channel 7!’”

Griggs attended St. Bede Catholic School before going to Moreau Catholic High School where he did some theater but mainly, due to TV series “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau,” wanted to be a marine biologist.

After graduating from Moreau, Griggs attended California State University, East Bay, and then known as Cal State Hayward, as a biology major before transitioning to the Theater Department, where he did not quite fit in.

“I sort of discovered that no one in the Theater Department cared about the Giants,” said Griggs. “I don’t really fit in with these kids, I liked them but they were talking about Shakespeare and I was talking about Mike Ivie and Larry Herndon.”

While attending CSUEB, a guest speaker, Newscaster John Hambrick came and spoke about the television industry that helped change Griggs’ career outlook from then on.

“He came and spoke and I thought ‘that is really a nice sort of middle ground between theater and performance and some of the more real world stuff,” said Griggs. “And that is when I decided.”

It was then that Griggs transferred to San Francisco State and began taking broadcasting classes.

During the summer, while interning at a Vacaville radio station where his parents had moved, he saw an opportunity as he read that there was a strike at KRON and that their producer was leaving for CBS.

“I sent them a press release, it was silly, but I had had a marketing professor who said, ‘you have to stand out,” said Griggs. “So I wrote it as a press release that I was available like a free agent baseball player. I attached my resume like that and that was my cover letter. I’ve never not worked in television since then.”

Lucky enough for Griggs, KRON had hired almost all talent with few producers so within a week he found himself producing Sports Final with almost no producing experience.

“I remember I got a memo once and it said use more graphics in your show and then I walked around and asked ‘What are graphics? I didn’t even know,” said Griggs. “I was 20 and they just gave me the keys to the car.”

Soon after Griggs’ obvious love of television producing became evident.

“I got really into the job and started sleeping at work,” said Griggs. “The business was just figuring things out so there were a lot of opportunities if you were energetic and enthusiastic. Just about anything behind the scenes, if you wanted to do it, you could do it.”

After leaving KRON, Griggs went on to work at Golden Gate Productions for 15 years and more sports-orientated programming, most notably 11 years of NFL Super Bowl Specials, 12 years of Olympic programming, and events for ESPN, among others.

Out of the many highlights of Griggs’ working career was working on a documentary in which President Bill Clinton read the introduction. Griggs was put in charge of writing the introduction before sending it off to Washington D.C.

“I was just a dumb kid from Hayward who was too afraid to work for the campus newspaper but next thing you know we get a tape back from the White House and the president read my words,” said Griggs.

Now president of two regional sports networks, Griggs still seems to be enjoying his job as much as the 20-year-old who started sleeping at work while at KRON.

“There is never a day that is like any other day and I get really bored with routine,” said Griggs.  “So what I love about my job is that one day I am doing accounting and we are doing ‘accounting’ down to whether we are going to have cheese on a sandwich in June for our budget.

“Then on another day, I will be looking at a feature and saying ‘do this,’ ‘move that piece over here.’ Sometimes it’s going out with clients, some days it’s about negotiating a contract with an agent.”

Griggs explained he enjoys the variety of jobs and positions he has been in throughout his career, going back to Cal State Hayward. He said his job allows him to take on a number of different and exciting roles in the industry.

“This is the best job in the history of the world,” said Griggs.

Now the Hayward-native finds himself surrounded by people with Ivy League educations and multiple degrees. While initially intimidated, Griggs sees the way he was brought up and his education as a way of relating to the millions that tune into the stations programs and games.

“I can hopefully live with the guys that went to Harvard but I can go hang out in the San Jose flea market and get along with those people too,” said Griggs. “I know what it is like to have a Togo’s sandwich, Monday Night Football and that’s living! That is our audience and that ultimately is who I am too. I try to use that as a strength.”