Posted on 05/04/2012 7:49:15 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Tickets given away help keep team's record alive
At 9:35 p.m. Wednesday, in the seventh inning of a game against the Oakland A’s, the Red Sox cut off ticket sales at Fenway Park with an estimated 300 seats unsold, according to a Globe gate-by-gate review and interviews with team executives.
At 10:19 p.m., the Sox announced the game was sold out. Seconds later, they said they had extended their sellout streak to 723 games, the longest in the history of Major League Baseball.
But had Fenway Park really sold out all 37,495 seats?
The answer, it seems, depends on how you define “sellout.’’
In a sequence of events that raised questions about the authenticity of the prized streak, the Sox stopped selling tickets for the game first at the ticket office on Yawkey Way when the game began, then at Gate E an hour later, and finally at Gate A deep into the game, with a sales clerk telling a Globe correspondent at each closing that tickets remained available.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a sellout as “something for which all tickets are sold.’’
The Sox embrace an alternate definition that permits them to declare a game sold out even if hundreds of tickets go unsold but others are distributed for free.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I can remember before the sellout streak you'd hear Joe "CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!" Castiglione say "good seats are still available if you're in the neighborhood"
(Go YANKEES)
for later
I recently found out that they hold around 500 tickets so you can just go the day of the game and when the b.o. opens you can get tickets right then and there.
Does their guy moonlight at the Department of Labor cranking out the unemployment number? I suppose the case could be made for exempting the obstructed view seats from the sellout count, considering their sale to count towards SRO as opposed to sellout.
Yes and I guess they’re advertising SRO—yes, that’s standing room only—tickets for games. Trying to squeeze as much money as possible...but if these non-sellouts are really true, one actually could get a seat after all if they tried, and don’t bother with the SRO. (Am guessing SRO tickets cost a little less?) I haven’t been to
Fenway since 98. One of these days...
In 94 the year of the strike I went to a Fri night game vs. Cle. which wound up getting called off after 2.5 hours of rain, not a pitch was thrown at all. I talked to some people from Cle. who came to see their Tribe play at Fenway. “We can’t get into Jacobs Field. Sold out.” The Tribe was hot that year—then came the strike. Because of the strike I just wound up getting a refund for my ticket.
I’m guessing “sellout” is an evolving paradigm.
One of the comments from the article:
>>The con is on. Sellout streak implies that the demand is greater than the supply, which in turn gives the illusion that the product is in fact better than it is, which makes ignorant people desire that product more.
It will be fun watching them try to keep up this charade as the empty seats expand throughout the season. I would have more sympathy for them if I truly believed that they did anything that was in the best interest of the fans. But I believe their own interests and benefits come first.
I don’t care about the ballpark renovations and the bloated payrolls. None of it means anything when we have to pay the highest ticket prices in the league to sit in the most uncomfortable ballpark to watch the most boring and ludicrous baseball team that 175M can buy.
Yes, SRO tix are around $20 I think. You just get one of those and find a vacant seat somewhere. There’s always plenty.
Ha...and as I like to point out:
—The Sports Hub: For 35 yr old men still living in their
mom’s basement.
—WEEI: For 50 yr old men still living in their mom’s
basement.
(The Whiner Line on the Big Show is kinda funny though—
rip off of the Chump Line)
Was thinking that too—and here I am telling a friend from Akron who likes to come to Boston once or twice a year “you could try to get Red Sox tix but I hear they’re sold out way in advance”. But as more and more empty seats showed up
on TV, it became apparent it’s a sham.
Last game I went to Fenway was in 98. I forget the ticket prices but roof box seats may have been $30-35 at the time
(I was in reserved grandstand, maybe $20? but had attended some games in the roof boxes)
(Plus: you get your own concession stand and bathroom up top; Minus: Can get chilly). This was before the Monster seats and right field upper box.
Which one—The Sports Hub or WEEI? It sounds like Sports Hub—I guess one of their hosts keeps saying “...sucks” etc. ad infinitum.
Sports Hub (CBS) debuted in Aug of 2009 (Pats, Bruins). WEEI (Sox, C’s) could have also done an FM simulcast at the time but waited.
After Sports Hub challenged them in the ratings, they finally went to FM (93.7) last Sept., just in time for the big collapse. At least I can hear all 4 major sports teams at work now (FM signal better...Howie wants to go to FM too
if it all possible)
b. o.??? box office?
Yes, sir!
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