The Price of Team Spirit

Can corporations buy your love by rooting for Boston's not-so-underdogs?

By Chris Faraone

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Remember the good ole days when clueless co-eds in pastel B hats were the most infuriating side effects of Red Sox mania? When Sox profiteering was annoying but ignorable, and before it seemed like every other national and local business attached itself to Boston baseball? Of course, it's even lovelier to reminisce about times when illustrated billboards and the Citgo sign were the extent of corporate distractions around Fenway; but when you consider the bourgeois theme park awaiting Sox fans on opening day 2008, it's also painful to look back five years.

You don't have to own the Red Sox to pimp them out these days. Sure, principal club owner John Henry puts his boys on the strip to hock merchandise and tickets, but he also invites sponsors to join in and pitch everything from coffee (Dunkin' Donuts), pizza (Papa Gino's), subs (D'Angelo's) and water (Poland Spring) to airlines (Delta), cameras (Nikon), cars (Volvo) and windshields (Giant Glass). Add in vigilante sponsors that skirt trademark laws and piggyback the team without paying, and it seems like climbing on the gravy train is as easy as doing one of three things: joining John Henry, cheating John Henry or being John Henry.

Pay the Man

More and more businesses have ridden the Red Sox jockstrap since the team's 2004 World Series win. Companies pay a huge chunk of (undisclosed) change to get exclusive rights to a category, which gives them the title of "Official __ of the Boston Red Sox," and the right to use the team's trademark logo in advertisements. The proof is plastered all around the ballpark; in the past few years the team's Fenway Sports Group marketing division has lassoed sponsors for every product imaginable. W.B. Mason is the "Official Office Supplier of the Boston Red Sox," Benjamin Moore boasts the title of "Official Paint of the Boston Red Sox," and—prepare yourself—F.W. Webb Co. is the "Official Plumber of the Boston Red Sox"!

"If you want to see a giant metaphor for this, just look at the signage in Fenway Park," Boston Globe sports writer Joseph Kahn tells the Dig. "When you think about what the Green Monster used to look like, it's easy to see that we've become a bumper sticker."

Red Sox Executive Vice-President and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Sam Kennedy was lured from the Padres in 2002 for this very purpose. When Henry and his partners bought the team that year from the Yawkey Foundation charitable trust, the Red Sox had about 30 corporate sponsors; now they've got nearly 100. In addition to filling coffers, sponsorships allow the Sox to gain exposure without bleeding money. "The Red Sox's annual advertising budget is easy to track," Kennedy bragged to Direct magazine in 2005. "It's $0."

Marketing possibilities are endless for a winning club with Red Sox caliber renown, and the team's March trip to Tokyo for two exhibition games and a series against Oakland proved to be a branding vehicle unlike any ever seen in major league history. Multimedia conglomerate Ricoh headlined the "Major League Baseball's Ricoh Japan Opening Series 2008," State Street Corp. signed on as the premier sponsor of all New England Sports Network coverage (80 percent of NESN is owned by Red Sox parent company New England Sports Ventures), and Hopkinton data storage firm EMC Corp. slapped its name on heretofore virgin real estate: players' uniforms.

"This is a historic moment for the Red Sox," Kennedy spun in a NESN interview. "We've never had a corporate sponsor on our uniform before. Major League Baseball actually brokered the deal with EMC to sponsor the games over there in Japan and part of the sponsorship deal was to have visibility on the uniform, which they've done before. It's common practice in Japan, but it's certainly unique for Major League Baseball and fans in the United States to see that."

It's not, however, unique for fans to see businesses shamelessly parade team spirit. They can witness that everywhere from Herald ads to television spots for Jordan's Furniture, the "Official Furniture Store of the Boston Red Sox." In June 2007, Jordan's founder, Eliot Tatelman, promised customers who made purchases between March 7 and April 16 free couches, beds and chairs if the Sox went all the way. In the end more than 24,000 customers won rebates, while Tatelman covered his bet with an insurance policy of undisclosed proportions.

In his follow-up "Monster Sweep 2008" campaign, Tatelman keeps last year's offer with one major adjustment: The Sox must win the World Series in four straight games (as they did in 2004 and 2007). Much like in 2007, Tatelman refuses to divulge how much he paid for loss coverage or the name of his insurer, but did concede "the insurance company didn't talk to me for a while." That's funny, because it's widely speculated that the insurer is Berkshire Hathaway Homestate, a subdivision of the Warren Buffet-owned Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which owns Jordan's Furniture.

Scam the Man

Not every company that rides the Red Sox feeds the meter; instead they forge superficial bonds with consumers though advertisements. Bernie & Phyl's—a Jordan's competitor with no official Sox relationship—already launched its "Why Gamble?" promotion, in which customers are encouraged to play it safe with significant discounts instead of risking paying full price at Jordan's should the Sox fail to make another flawless postseason run.

Though Bernie & Phyl's is the first big unofficial sponsor to surface this year (maybe the rest are waiting for the team to start winning), last year, many uninvited gloaters cruised on the bandwagon, including Sam Adams, which was careful enough to "Raise One for the Home Team" instead of using specific names; Charles Ro Lionel Train Supply Co., which was giving away free Red Sox baseballs; and MetroWest Subaru, which attached itself to both Fenway and cancer relief by offering free Red Sox Jimmy Fund license plates.

"It's good old fashioned boosterism," Kahn says. "If you look back to the mid-'80s when everyone in Boston was wallowing in our own second-ratedness, it's easier to understand."

Whether innocent enthusiasm or surreptitious fraudulence, the law is simple: Only official sponsors can use the Red Sox logo in their ads. That's why companies such as Macy's—the "Official Department Store of the Boston Red Sox"—hemorrhaged multiple logo-ridden buys in the home stretch of last season while imposters used variants of the legally prudent "Go Sox." What's a bit more complicated, however, is the logic that allows nonofficial sponsors to self-promote without paying.

"As long as there is no violation of trademark usage, it is legal," Harvard business professor Rohit Deshpande says. "If there is an intent to deceive then there would seem to be a clear ethical violation ... [but] if the fans don't care and are happier as a consequence, it's probably net a good thing. It would seem that the parties most concerned about this are not the fans, who probably enjoy seeing the home team fortunes paraded, but the official organizations."

Be the Man

One might say that John Henry and his colleagues have a "Small Park Complex," as Fenway's reputation for having the lowest capacity in Major League Baseball has been touted for years to justify routinely luring more sponsors and implementing unprecedented ticket hikes. Even though the capacity has jumped to 39,928 (adding over 2,000 seats in the last two years), Red Sox management remains unwavering in its annual increases.

This season average Red Sox ticket prices jumped 10.1 percent, with the cheapest available admission at $12 and box seats fetching $125. Fenway has the highest average ticket price at $48.80 (nearly double the league average of $25.40). In reporting on the latest surge, the Boston Globe (which is owned by The New York Times Co., which owns a 17 percent stake in New England Sports Ventures, and hence, the Red Sox) blamed ticket prices on the Yankees.

"With the second-highest payroll in baseball, behind that of the Yankees, the Sox need to find a way to pay for marquee players," Globe staffer Amalie Benjamin wrote between quotes from fans who endorsed spiking tickets costs. "Beyond that is the challenge of competing with the new Yankee Stadium ... that will bring even more revenue to the Yankees. If the Yankees follow past practice, that money will go to premium free agents and their own stars, which the Sox would also like to continue to do."

With fans and media gleefully looking the other way, Red Sox management doesn't even have to hide its greed—even when adding a new 400-plus seat section called the "Coca-Cola Corner," as Fenway did this season. In a recent press release regarding ticket prices, Red Sox President Larry Lucchino went so far as to say: "Our corporate partnerships have helped substantially, but we must also continue to look further for creative business alternatives to generate revenue ...We still must compete with those with much deeper pockets."

According to Forbes' annual Business of Baseball report, last year the Sox took in $234 million in revenue compared with the Yankees' $302 million. And as long as Henry can convince fans that their team is vulnerable unless tickets skyrocket and additional sponsors come on board, diehards are sure to overlook how everyone from Budweiser to local pizzerias with cheap magnetic game schedules are garishly pandering to their primitive instincts and turning Fenway into a NASCAR track.