Some people recall a date by looking at a calendar.

Ted Griggs, vice president and general manager of Comcast Sports Net Bay Area, Channel 40, recalls a date by what team played in that year’s Super Bowl.

“Let’s see, that was the 49ers’ first Super Bowl season, so that was 1981,” Griggs said from his sunlit corner office in downtown San Francisco, talking about when he started his first job in broadcasting.

But there’s more to Griggs than a sharp memory and strong passion for sports. The Hayward native and SF State alumni was recently named the most powerful man in Bay Area sports by the San Jose Mercury News.

“I would say it’s more about responsibility than power,” Griggs said when asked about the article in the Mercury News.

A humble answer coming from the man who has the final say in what Bay Area sports fans watch on TV.

As VP and general manager, Griggs controls what appears on CSN Bay Area’s main channel and the CSN Plus channel, which reaches over 4 million sports fans in northern California and Nevada.

He is responsible for programming and production for the Giants, A’s, Warriors, Sharks, Stanford and Cal sports, and various high school sporting events throughout the year. In addition, Griggs is responsible for marketing, affiliate relations, advertising sales and public relations.

“A lot of broadcasting execs don’t relate to the average Joe on the street like Ted,” said Mark Purdy, San Jose Mercury News writer of 'The Bay Area’s 25 Most Powerful Sports Figures.' “Ted knows what it’s like to be a sports fan, to be the son of a sports fan.”

Griggs got his start as a sports producer for KRON-TV while he was a student at SF State. “KRON was great,” Griggs said. “I worked four or five days a week, worked nights until about 11:30 and wouldn’t get back to the dorms until about midnight.”

His second production job, at Golden Gate Productions, wasn’t so great. “That was during my last semester of school. I was living in Vacaville, commuting to school in the city, and then driving to Marin for work.”

Despite the hectic schedule, Griggs received the Bob Brown Memorial Scholarship, an award given to top broadcasting students.

While in the BECA department at SF State, Griggs was an anchor for the news program, which he said helped prepare him to be on-air at Golden Gate Productions. He also mentioned BECA professor John Hewitt as someone who made a positive impact on his education.

Griggs graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in radio and television in 1984, or as Griggs remembers it, “the last time the Raiders won the Super Bowl.”

After graduating, Griggs worked on camera and in production at Golden Gate Productions until 1997, at which time he had moved up the ranks to executive producer. Griggs then produced series for CBS, NBC and ESPN, which included pre-Olympic programming and Super Bowl specials.

After traveling all over the country producing different sports series, he returned to the west coast and spent nine years as vice president of programming and operations for Fox Sports Net Bay Area.

FSN Bay Area re-launched as CSN Bay Area back in March, and will be relocating to larger headquarters early next year to accommodate the networks expansion. The network growth will bring what news director Chris Olivere calls “a buffet table of original sports programming.”

Olivere, a new addition to the CSN Bay Area family, said that Griggs has made the transition from FSN to CSN “very smooth.”

“Ted, more than any other reason, is why I took this job,” Olivere said.

So, does the most powerful man in Bay Area sports have any words of advice for the broadcasting generation of the future?

“Get ready to work hard,” Griggs said. “There are a lot of great opportunities out there.”