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Since billionaire Steve Cohen bought the New York Mets in 2020, he has staffed the franchise with veterans of the business world as he seeks to remake the team into a high-spending juggernaut. But for the daunting tasks of running the Mets’ Citi Field ballpark, managing its merchandise and handling business operations for minor-league affiliates, Cohen picked a baseball lifer: Katie Haas, whose work in the sport dates back to her teenage years.
Haas joined the Mets in 2023 as executive vice president of ballpark operations and experience. Two decades earlier, as a high school senior, she got her start working for the Boston Red Sox’s minor league team in her hometown of Sarasota, Florida, where Haas handled “everything from payroll to tarp duty.”
“It was a blast,” Haas recalled from her present-day office past the right-field seats at Citi Field in Willets Point, Queens. “I knew right then and there this was my calling.”
Haas stayed with the Red Sox while she studied at Northeastern University, then led their Florida operations before departing in 2018 to help run the Western & Southern Open tennis tournament in Cincinnati. She was comfortably ensconced as CEO in 2023, when a headhunter called to inquire about joining the Mets.
Haas was well aware of the new life Cohen and his wife, Alexandra, had injected into the Queens team — Haas’s husband is an executive for the Washington Nationals — and she found their pitch persuasive.
“We as a family were watching what Steve and Alex were doing here to really turn baseball on its head,” Haas said.
For Haas, that means an obsessive focus on the fan experience — from the taste of the food to the layout of the team store, whose expansion she oversaw in recent months. The 15-year-old ballpark was built before smartphones became prevalent, but Haas is excited by the idea of using technology to “surprise and delight” fans during games.
“Fans come in and they may have the traditional mindset of, ‘It’s a baseball game. We’re going to get a hot dog and a beer,’” she said. “Well, what if it’s something else completely? What if they come and they say, ‘Oh my gosh, I never thought this could be in a ballpark!’”
On a typical gameday, Haas is at Citi Field from at least 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; a recent day found her planning for Darryl Strawberry’s June 1 number-retirement ceremony while sorting out a broken hot water heater in the clubhouse. Her role spans everything from long-term capital projects to parking, security and food — plus the same responsibilities for non-baseball events such as concerts and private parties, during which Haas tries to be present at the stadium as much as possible.
As for Cohen’s well-publicized push for a casino on the west side of Citi Field, Haas said she is “involved from the operations side,” although Cohen’s separate venture Queens Future is taking the lead on the potential development.
Haas’ recent projects have included remodeling Citi Field’s swanky Delta Club, upgrading parts of the players’ clubhouse and planning for the much-anticipated release of the Mets’ five-borough-themed City Connect jerseys. Underlying them all was the mandate she got from the Cohens: “Be bold, and think big.”
Long accustomed to being the only woman in the room in her previous baseball jobs, Haas is gratified by how much the sport has evolved in recent years, with the Mets’ staff including women in several senior roles. Haas moved her husband and two children to New York from Ohio soon after getting the Mets job and admitted that it can be difficult to find family time given her around-the-clock responsibilities.
But Haas said she’s been amazed by the welcome her family has received as newcomers to the New York sports world. And the awe hasn’t worn off when she glimpses the Midtown skyline during her morning commute across the Whitestone Bridge.
“It’s just, ‘I can’t believe this is my life,’” she said.
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Nick Garber , 2024-05-01 12:03:04
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