Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, an economic adviser to President-elect Barack Obama, told Major League Baseball owners that it will take longer than many people expect to repair the U.S. economy.

Volcker outlined his concerns about the financial industry and consumers that are driving the slowdown, said Oakland Athletics owner Lew Wolff. He didn't provide a timeframe of how long the decline will last, Wolff said.

``He was pretty much alerting us that this is not over yet,'' said Wolff, also co-chairman of Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc. ``The biggest idea was that we all needed to measure the concerns of the economy in our own businesses.''

MLB Commissioner Bud Selig invited Volcker to speak to the sport's 30 owners at their quarterly meetings in New York. He talked for about an hour yesterday and took about a dozen questions from team officials on everything from automakers to unemployment. The media was excluded from the event.

Volcker said U.S. consumers will have to lead the rest of the world out of the global recession, according to Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg, a former executive at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

``He said the same things we are getting in the papers, but when you hear it from the foremost financial authority in the world, it has a bigger impact,'' Sternberg said.

Volcker, chairman of the Fed from August 1979 to August 1987, addressed the owners as the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell to its lowest level in 11 years on concerns about the economy. First-time claims for unemployment insurance rose last week to the highest level since 1992, the Labor Department earlier today.

Major League Baseball isn't increasing spending for the first time in four years because of the deteriorating economy. The sport is talking to its corporate partners about the sponsorships and clubs including the Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds are keeping ticket prices the same next year.

Selig said he asked Volcker to address the owners when they spoke at the World Series in Philadelphia.

``Obviously, this is a time to be very cautious as far as central baseball is concerned,'' Selig said at MLB headquarters in New York. ``Every club will have to determine themselves what to do, what's the best thing to do, or if anything is necessary.''

Selig declined to discuss specifics of Volcker's speech. A woman picking up the phone in Volcker's office said he wasn't going to discuss what he said.

Baseball's Revenue

Selig said baseball's revenue for this year was about $6.5 to $6.6 billion; both numbers would be a record. He declined to provide a projection for 2009.

Volcker has been called on by Selig in the past to help baseball. He was on Selig's blue-ribbon panel on baseball economics in 2000 and on committees in 1990 and 1991.

Sternberg said Volcker rescued the economy in the late 1970s and early 1980s by curbing inflation. Volcker was on the board of the American Stock Exchange when Sternberg began his Wall Street career there in 1978.

``I told him, you saved the planet,'' Sternberg said he told Volcker when they spoke at the World Series. ``What he did back then was nothing short of heroic. He tamed the world's inflation.''

Sternberg retired as a partner at Goldman in 2002. He had been at Spear, Leeds & Kellogg LP, a New York Stock Exchange specialist firm that was bought by Goldman in 2000.

Oakland's Wolff owns luxury hotels around the world through his real-estate companies including the Carlyle in New York, the Fairmont San Francisco and Park Hyatt in Sydney.

To contact the reporter on this story: Danielle Sessa in New York at dsessa@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 21, 2008 00:11 EST