SF Giants' doomed jersey patch contract with Cruise to continue
The SF Giants offseason is in trouble. Not because they missed on Shohei Ohtani. Not because they likely won't trade for a top starter. Not even because prized free agent Jung Ho Lee has an opt-out after four years. No, it's because a Giants spokesperson confirmed to the SF Examiner that the team's "partnership with Cruise had not changed."
In August, the Giants announced a jersey patch sponsorship with Cruise, the self-driving car company that's a "large autonomous subsidiary" of General Motors. Then, they went on a losing streak, losing 4 of their next 14 games. In fact, the team went 60-49 pre-Cruise patch, 19-34 after. Just as the Cruise taxis were stalling, blocking the streets of North Beach, the Giants' offense was stalling out as well, averaging 3.5 runs in the patch era.
Due to the team's late-season swan dive, the team fired manager Gabe Kapler three games before the end of the season. Kapler starred in a promotional video for Cruise when the partner ship was announced, which may have doomed his job.
But Cruise might be having a worse second half of 2023 than the Giants.
On October 24, the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended the company's permit to operate driverless cars as commercial taxis in the state, or to do tests of their cars without human drivers as backup.
That happened after the DMV determined that Cruise had hid video of its car's involvement in a crash where another, human-driven car knocked a pedestrian into the path of a robo-taxi. The pedestrian was trapped under the driverless car, but later footage withheld by Cruise revealed the car had actually dragged the injured pedestrian an additional 20 feet.
Since then, Cruise's founder and CEO resigned. The company recalled 950 robo-taxis, the company laid off 24% of their workforce, and General Motors announced they'd cut funding to Cruise by "hundreds of millions of dollars."
But they won't be cutting ties with the Giants! The hated patches will continue through the 2025 season, no matter how many pedestrians are dragged or how many bases-loaded opportunities are squandered by the Giants. Reportedly, the team will still be installing hundreds of vehicle chargers around the stadium, even if the all-electric taxis are legally prohibited from operating in San Francisco.
It's setting up a strange situation where every player's jersey will be advertising a dangerous service unavailable to anyone in the state of California. In fact, Cruise will only be available in one yet-to-be-named city, which is hopefully full of Wilmer Flores superfans if the company wants to get its money's worth.
Why is the deal still in place? Probably because Cruise can't get out of their contract, much like the Giants with Aaron Rowand in 2010years . The SF Giants will take that ill-spent General Motors money and pour every dollar of it into a bid for Yoshinobu Yamamoto. It will probably fall short.
After all, you can't spell "I Curse" without Cruise.
