{"id":122865,"date":"2026-05-27T22:52:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T02:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=122865"},"modified":"2026-05-28T00:25:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T04:25:48","slug":"red-sox-ownership-winning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/05\/27\/red-sox-ownership-winning\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Red Sox Ownership No Longer Seems to Care About Winning"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recent years, it has become clear to many fans that the Boston Red Sox ownership no longer seems to care about a winning product. It has been eight years since the Red Sox won the American League East, finishing in last place three of the last seven years. The 2026 Red Sox currently sit in last place once again and are among the worst teams in baseball, yet it doesn’t seem to worry John Henry and the rest of Fenway Sports\u00a0Group. Red Sox fans have been calling for the team to spend more money<\/a> for several years, but will they ever go back to spending to win, or do they not care about that anymore?<\/p>\n

Red Sox Ownership No Longer Seems to Care About Winning<\/h2>\n

\"Red<\/p>\n

The Red Sox are a Tourist Trap, not a Baseball Team<\/h3>\n

Ticket prices do not match the poor performance on the field. The Boston Red Sox ownership has continued to raise ticket prices, consistently placing the team at the top of the league in average ticket price. Despite the poor product and high prices, Fenway Park consistently ranks among baseball’s best in attendance. Over the last five full seasons, excluding the 2021 season with COVID-19, the Red Sox have averaged 2,729,833 fans per season. Out of those five seasons, the Red Sox finished last place in the American League East three times and made the playoffs as a wild card team once after a third-place finish.<\/p>\n

To put this into perspective, the Red Sox’s last five first-place finishes, which include three World Series championships, had an average yearly attendance of 2,914,555 fans per year, not far in front of the last five seasons. The five most recent last-place finishes for Boston averaged a yearly attendance of 2,835,401. This shows that even though Red Sox ownership can put a poor product on the field, they will still draw close to the same attendance as when they were winning championships.<\/p>\n

Revenue vs Spending<\/h3>\n

In 2025, the Red Sox finished among the league leaders in total revenue<\/a>, generating $574M. In 2026, the Red <\/a>Sox’s total payroll is $196M. This is $11M less than their 2025 payroll of $207M, which followed a season in which they had total revenue of $500M. Despite the $74M difference in revenue, the Red Sox spent $11M less on payroll.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox have ranked in the top 10 in payroll just twice in the last seven years, showing that they are operating as a mid-market\u00a0team<\/a> despite being near the top of the league in revenue. The last time the Red Sox were first in payroll was in 2018, with the team finishing with 108 wins on its way to a World Series title.<\/p>\n

Taking Advantage of Fans<\/h3>\n

Recently, the Red Sox had a scheduled midday game against the Tampa Bay Rays. Despite rain being forecast from early morning through the night, and the Triple-A WooSox postponing their game, the Red Sox had the Fenway faithful show up to pay for parking and buy concessions and merchandise before postponing the game just 10 minutes prior to the scheduled first pitch.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, the game was postponed to a later date in July despite the Red Sox taking on the Rays the very next day. Those same fans who showed up and spent their hard-earned money on parking, food, and drinks will now have to do it all again at a later date to the benefit of the pockets of John Henry and Fenway Sports Group.<\/p>\n

Why Do Fans Still Flood into Fenway Park?<\/h3>\n

The Red Sox once again rank among the top 10 in\u00a0average team attendance<\/a> in 2026. Currently nine games under .500, it is hard to imagine anyone wanting to watch this team play baseball. That is where nostalgia comes in. Fenway Park is the oldest ball field in all of baseball. First opening in 1912 and still holding up against modern-day stadiums, Fenway Park draws fans every home game, no matter how the team is doing, to take pictures, sing Sweet Caroline, and get up close to the beloved Green Monster.<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credits: Chris Tilley-Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent years, it has become clear to many fans that the Boston Red Sox ownership no longer seems to care about a winning product. It has been eight years since the Red Sox won the American League East, finishing in last place three of the last seven years. The 2026 Red Sox currently sit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5856,"featured_media":122914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1071],"tags":[3303],"class_list":["post-122865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-redsox","category-mlb","tag-john-henry"],"modified_by":"Augustus Oswald, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5856"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122865"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122945,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122865\/revisions\/122945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}