Red Sox ticket prices climbing higher under new pricing system

Sam Galanis
Contributing Writer

Photo courtesy of that one time I
got home plate grandstand tickets
for $69 each during Opening Week.
Those were the days.
If you’ve ever shelled out $100 or more for a single bleacher seat at a Red Sox-Yankees game, then you know the struggle that is finding reasonably-priced Sox tickets. Unfortunately, that struggle is only going to get worse.

According to the Boston Herald via a Red Sox press release, “the Red Sox have unveiled a new ‘variable pricing’ structure that means more expensive tickets for 16 high-demand games and lower prices for the 16 lower-demand games. Overall, ticket prices will rise an average of 4.8 percent.”

The 49 games in between those distinctions will range greatly in price because as the Herald put it, there are “five different tiers and 133 different non-premium ticket prices doled out according to seat location, not to mention discounts for season-ticket holders who pay early.”

In the press release, Red Sox President and CEO Larry Lucchino offered some explanation for the hike in prices.

“Numerous factors influence our annual ticket pricing decisions,” said Lucchino. “We strive to maintain affordability and ticket accessibility while still generating the revenues necessary to fuel our baseball operations, to fund continuing improvements to the ballpark, and to make enhancements to the fan experience – the three main areas in which we reinvest our revenue. New revenue is what affords us the ability to maintain consistently one of the highest payrolls in Major League Baseball – giving our baseball operations department the capacity to put together a contending, winning team and a strong player development system – and allows for the long term preservation, protection, and improvement of Fenway Park.”

So basically, if you want your beloved Red Sox to compete, you have to pay exorbitant amounts of money for tickets. Still, it probably won’t stop Fenway from continuously selling out games.




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