If the recent sideline episode is an indication, it means a dash of cool and a side order of buzz. Tisch is taking an active role in the construction of a stadium that the Giants and the Jets are building together, and he is pondering ways to inject the Giants and their games with electricity befitting a team representing New York. The use of celebrity — a relatively foreign concept in the history of the Giants — is part of the plan.  “If the Giants are a big soup bowl,” Tisch said, repeating a question about the ingredients each family supplies, “I think the Maras bring the beef, the vegetables. I think I bring the spices, the taste, the flavor, what makes our soup tastier, a soup you want to have again, what makes you want to come back for seconds.”  He punctuated each phrase with a laugh, then stopped.  “But I can’t overstate how well the relationship between my family and the Mara family has developed,” he added.  The somewhat accidental partnership between Tisch and Mara was forged by their fathers. Preston Robert Tisch bought half of the Giants in 1991 and helped Wellington Mara oversee the franchise for nearly 15 years. The men died three weeks apart in 2005.  Their widows, Joan Tisch and Ann Mara, are the team’s co-owners, since stakes have not been divvied among the children. But the roles their husbands had in running the Giants were bequeathed to their oldest children.  Long before Wellington Mara’s death, John Mara was entrenched as his successor; now he is president and chief executive. Steve Tisch had no role and only limited interaction with the team until his father became ill; now he is chairman and executive vice president.  Bob Tisch was a self-made billionaire who oversaw a conglomeration of companies under the Loews Corporation umbrella.  “Bob implemented business practices here that really were nonexistent before he came in,” Mara said. “This has always been, and in some extent still is, a mom-and-pop operation, but I think we’re a little bit more professional now in how we handle certain business matters, how we negotiate contracts with vendors and just the financial controls that we put in place.”  Steve Tisch’s impact may become more apparent to fans. He brings an entertainment-based perspective, something Mara said the Giants could use. Tisch sees symmetry in filling football stadiums and movie theaters.  “A movie producer has to be able to manage — manage talent, manage the studio, manage creative people, manage the business end of it,” said Tisch, one of three partners of a production company called Escape Artists. “I can honestly say that I have done that very well. The results creatively are some very good movies. The results from the business side are movies that come in on budget and are supervised by very committed businessmen who are also very passionate dreamers and storytellers. That’s what’s great about the movie business, and I don’t think there’s enough of that in pro football.”  After graduating from Tufts University in 1971, Tisch — born in New Jersey, raised in New York — headed west. After five years at Columbia Pictures, he ventured out on his own. With five children from two marriages, he has remained in Los Angeles since.  He temporarily moved his family to New York when his father was ill, and he gladly inherited the role with the Giants despite being the sibling least connected to the team.  “I don’t think it’s because I’m the oldest,” Tisch said. “It’s a question that I never asked.”  His sister, Laurie, and brother, Jonathan — the team’s treasurer, the chairman and chief executive of Loews Hotels, and an oft-mentioned potential candidate for mayor of New York City, among his many taglines — join Steve on the team’s six-member board of directors. The other three members are Maras.  John Mara runs the team’s day-to-day operations, inherently gauging when consultation with the Tisches is required. The Tisches were involved in retaining Coach Tom Coughlin and promoting Jerry Reese to general manager after last season, for instance. Mara wields the single vote the Giants have on league business, a practical concession made by Bob Tisch.  But Steve Tisch regularly attends league meetings. He flies in for Giants games and often watches from the sideline. Mara prefers the press box.  “When I go out on that field before a game, it is such a rush,” Tisch said. “I say to myself, What could be better than this?”  Tisch estimated that he spent 35 percent of his time on the East Coast. He has no plans to move permanently. But he will have an office in the team’s new headquarters and practice facility, planned to the west of the stadium.  “I will gradually become a New Yorker again,” Tisch said.  In a separate interview, he added: “Now I have not only the opportunity to be bicoastal, but a wonderful reason. In addition to the Giants, my entire family is still in New York. My kids have grown up and are growing up in Los Angeles, but my mother, brother, sister and cousins are all still in New York. This may be a story of the 22-year-old maverick, black sheep, whatever you want to call me, who took off in 1971 to head to Hollywood, now starting to come back home with a big smile on his face and a tremendous love for the city and the Giants in his heart.”  Mara said that he was not concerned that Tisch or his family’s influence would overtly alter the culture and the reputation of the Giants. The Tisch children consider the Giants part of their father’s legacy, and they want to maintain balance between the team’s tradition and its potential.  “Bob Tisch always knew that he had a responsibility of protecting one of the great franchises in the history of sports, and the New York Giants represented that for a good decade and a half in his life,” Jonathan Tisch said. “It can be the same for the Maras and the Tisches going forward.”  Steve Tisch’s involvement with the Giants has risen in time with the new stadium. He was involved in negotiations nearly from the start. He now thinks of the stadium as a fan experience, from lighting to sight lines, video boards to luxury boxes.  “I don’t think the contributions that I’m making are about glitz and gloss and sizzle and any kind of sexiness,” Tisch said. “I think I have a real sensitivity to the fan.”  Among those fans, he hopes, will be some famous friends. Tisch continues brainstorming ways to make the stadium a place to be and to be seen for people like Moore, Kutcher and Diaz. He would like to devise an N.F.L. equivalent of frontcourt seats at Los Angeles Lakers games.  “I’d like to think we’ll start seeing a little of it at Giants games — that this is a cool place to be,” Tisch said. “This is where you want to be on a Sunday, at the stadium or watching what’s going on at the stadium, especially when we’re on the field. It’s an exciting sport, the most exciting sport in the world, and I want our team, and even the Jets, to be part of what’s so exciting.”
John Mara and Steve Tisch are an unlikely pairing of old-school football and movie-style glamour, leaders of the only N.F.L. franchise evenly divided between two families.