Monday, September 8, 2008

Fenway's Sellouts

The Red Sox are celebrating the fact that, with their next sellout, they will break the record for most consecutive full houses in baseball history:

Boston's regular-season sellout streak, which began on May 15, 2003, is slated to reach a major league record 456 when the Red Sox host Tampa Bay on Monday night. On Wednesday, the Red Sox tied the record set by the Cleveland Indians at Jacobs Field from June 12, 1995, to April 2, 2001, a run that ended on a 42-degree day with a 7-4 loss to the Chicago White Sox. Fenway Park has the fewest seats in the major leagues, with a capacity of 37,400 for night games and 36,984 for day games. During the streak, 16,298,532 fans streamed into Fenway.
Optimist's take: Wow! What an impressive feat!

Pessimist's take: Wow! Way to underserve the demand for your product! If you were an electronics company you'd be out of business right now!

And before you take me to task, yes, I am valuing snark over analysis here (it happens). As a baseball fan I'd much rather have old Fenway around, even if they could be selling 40,000+ tickets and an untold number of suites a night if they had moved somewhere else. Indeed, the fact that they haven't gone that route is probably more impressive than the sellout streak itself.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's only a matter of time before they use this as evidence that they need a new building.

EricInBoston said...

i've been like 16 of those

Unknown said...

Fenway is one of my 3 favorite parks...
Except that in order to get a ticket you must plan well in advance, and be willing to pay $25 for the cheapest seats, or $40 for reasonable seats.
Other alternatives: wait 2-3 hours in line to get day-of tickets (even when they are playing my team, the lowly A's), scalp and have $60-80 on hand, or give up and go to a bar, where hopefully you can avoid drunken townies.
... or get dibs on your company's box seats.

Say what you will about Oakland Coliseum, at least any Joe Shmoe can buy a ticket.

Unknown said...

I love Fenway and the crazy ticket shenanigans are worth having such a fantastic ballpark. The Sox wouldn't be the Sox without it.

Mark said...

Fenway -- and I'm saying this as a longtime Sox fan and Boston-area resident who's been there innumerable times -- is a dump. Whic should not be inferred as my wanting my taxes to go towards a replacement.

And that previous, unlamented ownership group did have plans to replace Fenway -- with an exact duplicate. One of many reasons why they're so unlamented.

rufuswashere said...

I have been to many many games at Fenway, and it's a wonderful place to see a game. BUT -- and this is important -- do not get snookered into buying seats deep down the right field line. Horrible sight lines, far from the action, incredibly uncomfortable, and of course very very expensive now. I'm always amazed that people say "there's no bad seat at Fenway" when clearly there are lots of them in right field.

Anonymous said...

Well since they can't raise supply, the obvious conclusion is that Red Sox tickets are too cheap. Raise 'em 50%, no one will complain or anything, right?

Unknown said...

If they were an electronics company, they'd be Nintendo.

Alex Brissette said...

Why do they have more seats for night games?

Jason said...

Alex - they don't sell the bleachers in CF that form the "hitter's backdrop" during day games. In fact, when a night game has to be rescheduled as a day game due to a rain out, they pass out dark green t-shirts to the people in those seats.