The Providence Journal, April 4, 2018
The 2018 Red Sox are an embarrassment of riches. They have the highest payroll in all of baseball, $232 million, they generate almost $500 million in annual revenue, and they are worth about $3 billion. No surprise then, that on the field the team is an embarrassment of redundancies, nowhere more glaring than the pitching staff, which once again features four left-handed starting pitchers.
General Manager Dave Dombrowski spent another offseason spending like a sailor, and unfortunately thinking like one too. He signed yet another redundant star player, right fielder J.D. Martinez, to an enormous contract, $25 million per year, but there’s not even an everyday position for Martinez in the lineup! Mookie Betts plays in right field, and Hanley Ramirez, at $20 million per year is the designated hitter.
This follows last year’s star acquisition, Chris Sale, a left-handed power pitcher redundant to the previous year’s $217 million signing of a left-handed power pitcher, David Price.
They are built for regular season ratings, not the October playoffs, where they will surely get plastered by the right-handed power hitting lineups of the Houston Astros and New York Yankees.
The Red Sox are desperate for attention, and unfairly so. Despite two recent first place finishes and three World Series titles, which broke an 86-year curse, the Sox are struggling for relevance among spoiled Boston sports fans who seem more interested in the winning ways and drama of the Patriots, Celtics and Bruins.
As they say, these are first-world problems. Nonetheless, the Red Sox fired their manager last year, John Farrell, and hired Alex Cora to make their 2018 brand of baseball more fun! They have also embarked on a public relations campaign that hints at a new and more serious threat that may also be coming to Boston soon. Amazon Prime TV, and it’s HQ #2.
The 2018 Red Sox marketing campaign is out and features their new players, but the advertising is trying to convince viewers that the Red Sox can compete with Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu TV shows, not the New York Yankees!
The promotional spots seen frequently on NESN sell viewers on the attributes of the Red Sox as a television series. On every night. Filled with drama. Filled with laughter. Good guys. Bad guys. Characters. One hundred sixty-two episodes. There’s something for everyone. “Feed Your Need” is the promo line used to ward off the daunting competition the Red Sox face from too many other TV shows.
Baseball is a big commitment, with games that last three hours almost every night, for seven months, including the playoffs. It requires attention and devotion that people don’t have in the Age of Smartphones. Every year it gets tougher to draw an audience from a general population afflicted with so much ADHD.
But what more can the Red Sox do? They had the best record in the Grapefruit League, they spend like sailors, and they are even willing to change the street name of their home address, from Yawkey Way to Jersey Street, to allay the concerns of just a few of their fans.
If Amazon chooses Boston for its second headquarters, the city will be flooded with 50,000 of its redundancy-seeking engineers. Would they one day have Dave Dombrowski and Fenway Park in their sights?
The Red Sox improbably gather almost 35,000 people per game, for 81 home games, despite being the most expensive ballpark in baseball. It costs a family of four on average almost $400 for one night of the baseball experience. Yet a family of four can subscribe to Netflix for $13.99 a month, and Amazon TV is free with Prime. That’s tough to compete with.
Fans of Red Sox TV programming, though — unlike those of shows on Amazon and Netflix — can come to Fenway Park, where the series is shot and produced, and see Boston’s star players in person, possibly getting their autograph. You can’t say that about “The Crown.”
Chip Benson, an occasional contributor, has a home in East Matunuck.
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