The Green Monster Goes It Alone
By MARK YOST
Boston
Baseball fans will be tuning in for Tuesday's All Star Game, but as taxpayers they should be fuming. Nearly every one of the teams represented has gone to its local government and asked for hundreds of millions of dollars to build a gleaming new stadium.
One of the few exceptions: the Boston Red Sox, who have taken Fenway Park, which turns 100 in 2012, and transformed it into one of the most fan-friendly ballparks in the country. Moreover, they've mostly done it within the historic confines of the original ballpark, kept ticket prices affordable and haven't taken a dime of taxpayer money. The net result is that the Red Sox still play in the smallest ballpark in baseball, have capped season-ticket sales at 20,000 seats out of about 40,000, and yet, according to Forbes magazine, remain the team with the third-highest revenue in all of baseball.
What the Red Sox have done with Fenway Park should be a lesson for every sports franchise and municipality in the country. The argument from pro sports teams is always the same: We need a new billion-dollar stadium (paid for with your tax dollars) to remain "economically competitive." The Red Sox have not only turned that argument on its head, but shown how truly disingenuous it is.
The credit for what I'd call the Tax-Free Miracle of Yawkey Way goes to the Red Sox ownership group, which bought the team in 2002 and pledged to stay in Fenway. "We knew the perils of asking for public money," Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino said. Namely, that fans get annoyed when teams ask taxpayers to build a stadium, and then raise ticket and concession prices on the very people who paid for it.
The key to transforming Fenway, a hemmed-in urban ballpark last renovated in 1934, was to build out as well as up. "What we perceived to be constraints were more elastic than we thought," Mr. Lucchino said.
The result is wider concourses, more concession stands, more club and patio seating, picnic areas and an atmosphere on the streets around Fenway unlike any in baseball. All without alienating the average fan.
The renovations began in 2002-03, when dugout seats were added to both the first and third base lines and seats were built atop the famed Green Monster in left field. The Red Sox could have asked almost anything for the Green Monster seats, but instead they kept them remarkably democratic. There are no season tickets. Instead, tickets are awarded through an annual random drawing?and cost about $100, making them one of the best bargains in baseball.
The Red Sox also took an area behind right field where the dumpsters used to be and added what they call "the Big Concourse." It doubled the size of the walkways, and now features picnic tables and concession stands instead of garbage.
"The right-field bleachers used to be notorious for rowdy behavior," said John Giluia, executive vice president for business affairs. "But we've found that open concourses equal better behavior."
In 2004, the Red Sox added the Budweiser Right Field Roof Deck, an upper-deck patio area that features small cocktail tables for four that cost $460. Standing-room tickets for the deck are $30.
In 2006 the team created the State Street Pavilion, a $170-per-person upper-deck club level that has a buffet with lobster rolls, crab cakes and a raw bar. A year later, the team renovated the EMC Club, its $320-a-seat sit-down restaurant (food not included).
In 2008 the club added a left-field upper-deck pavilion and a year later another right-field terrace box.
All of this has increased seating to slightly more than 36,000 today from about 34,000 in 2001 (and attendance to 39,900 from 37,400, if you include standing-room tickets, the Red Sox said). Revenue has grown to $266 million today from about $180 million in 2002. The team's market value has also risen, to $870 million from $617 million in 2005. All without building a new stadium or asking for a dime of taxpayer money.
So far, the Red Sox have spent "north of two hundred million" on the renovations, Mr. Lucchino said. The team has one more year of renovations to complete before Fenway's 100th anniversary. More important, designers and engineers have told the Red Sox that with proper maintenance the stadium can last 30 or 40 more years.
So the next time a sports franchise goes begging for taxpayer funding for a new stadium, politicians should have the guts to tell them: "Pay for it yourself." The Red Sox did, and increased their revenue and market value along the way.
Mr. Yost is a writer in Chicago.
