How Red Sox owners got it right
At Fenway Park, championships are built on a solid foundation of popcorn and beer.
There are dozens of other reasons for the success of the Boston Red Sox over the past decade – consistently high payrolls, solid scouting and clutch plays have all helped the team post the second highest winning percentage in baseball over the past decade. But if there’s one lesson to be learned from the team’s success since it was acquired by billionaire John Henry in 2001, it is that you can’t get the big things right until you nail down the small details that go on around the game’s edges.
“Any major sports franchise in a major market can do this,” says Sam Kennedy, the team’s senior vice-president and the mind behind many of its unconventional marketing initiatives that has transformed a small baseball ownership group into one of the largest sports companies on the planet. “But you need to get your core business right first – you need to be selling out every night, you need to get your sponsorship lined up and your concessions firing on all cylinders. Then you can really talk about winning.”