The Red Sox, pre-Brady, were far and away the #1 sports draw in the city. Now, the Sox are barely registering in comparison, and it's due, in good part, to the owner deciding that he was going to run his big market team as it if were small market, and also in part to that same owner going completely cheap on the regional network (NESN), and just about everything else except his pet Fenway project that's designed to make him even wealthier.
The Red Sox, pre-Brady, were far and away the #1 sports draw in the city. Now, the Sox are barely registering in comparison, and it's due, in good part, to the owner deciding that he was going to run his big market team as it if were small market, and also in part to that same owner going completely cheap on the regional network (NESN), and just about everything else except his pet Fenway project that's designed to make him even wealthier.
Winning in 2001, after the 9/11 thing, really gave the Patriots a boost. Then, after the pressure of "This is finally the fucking year!" was off for the Red Sox, the relationship of the fans to the Sox changed, and it became a more normal for the fans (i.e. you need to earn my attention and money) approach rather than "I want to see it before I die". And John Henry never adapted to that, IMO.
Legendary Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela has died, the team announced Tuesday. He was 63. Valenzuela will be honored when the 2024 World Series begins at Dodger Stadium on Friday.
"Fernando Valenzuela was one of the most impactful players of his generation," commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. "... We will honor Fernando's memory during the 2024 World Series at Dodger Stadium. On behalf of Major League Baseball, I extend my deepest condolences to Fernando's family, the Dodgers, his friends across the game, and all the loyal baseball fans of Mexico."...
In the 21 years since the publication of Moneyball, MLB owners and their useful idiots in the media have spent a lot of time and energy trying to convince you of one thing above all else: that spending money on baseball players is a bad thing. If watching the Red Sox slide down the payroll rankings isn’t enough to convince you of how ardently FSG believe this (and if John Henry’s own words aren’t enough), here’s a new metric to consider.
“The Scrooge Index” ranks teams based on the percentage of total revenue they spend on player payroll. The Mets, who spent an estimated 102% of their total revenue on payroll (meaning, if these numbers are to be believed, they are slightly in the red) ranked number one on the index, with the Dodgers, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, and Royals rounding out the top five behind them.
The Red Sox, however, are all the way down at number 25, having allocated just 40% of the team’s total revenue to payroll. The only four teams spending less than the Sox in a relative sense are the notoriously cheap Rays and A’s, and the Tigers and Reds, who play in the 12th and 31st largest markets in America, respectively, compared to the Sox, who play in the 7th...
They charged me a lot of money for tickets a couple of months ago, too. Just to see them choke against Houston. I wish I didn’t have to financially contribute to that but I was with my wife and extended family and they wanted to see a Sox game. They take in a lot of dough to have the 5th cheapest payroll in the MLB.
