Sox sellout streak forecast to finish
The Boston Red Sox open their 2013 baseball season eager to forget the past two and preparing for the end of their record home sellout streak.
The 793-game streak at Fenway Park, which has a capacity of about 37,500, began on May 15, 2003, making it the longest in Major League Baseball history. The Cleveland Indians held the secondbest mark of 455 straight from 1995-2001.
Coming off a 69-93 season – their worst since 1965 – and two years after blowing a nine-game wildcard lead in September 2011, the Red Sox last week announced plans to offer two-for-one hot dogs and discounted beer for adults and free food for children under 15 throughout April, when cold New England weather keeps fans away.
They have known since the beginning of the year that the sellout streak probably would end early this season, according to Sam Kennedy, the team’s chief operating officer.
‘‘While you never know, the streak of sellouts will likely come to an end,’’ he said in a telephone interview. ‘‘It will rest in peace.’’
After opening the regular season on Monday with a threegame series at the New York Yankees, Boston visits the Toronto Blue Jays before hosting the Baltimore Orioles in their April 8 home opener.
‘‘We’ll see how it goes for the first 17 games and then maybe continue for the rest of the year if it goes well,’’ Kennedy said of the concessions offer. ‘‘We’ve had a very difficult offseason given the fact that we had a horrendous 2012 and an epic collapse in 2011, so this April promotion was designed as a gesture of thanks as opposed to an enticement to win the fans back.’’
The team has surpassed three million in attendance in each of the last five seasons. An indication of the club’s difficulty selling tickets can be seen on the secondary market: average prices for 2013 are down almost $40 from last year, ticket-aggregator TiqIQ indicates.
Resale ticket prices for the Red Sox opener have become less expensive in each of the past three seasons, and the trend continues this year.
The average ticket purchased on the secondary market cost $172 in 2010, $155 in 2011, $110 in 2012 and $74 this year as of March 27, according to TiqIQ.
Fans will ‘‘wait for the secondary market to correct itself and they’ll buy tickets depending on how the team does,’’ said Chris Matcovich, a TiqIQ spokesman.
While on-field performance and weather heavily influence attendance, other pressures include a slowly recovering economy and competition for fans’ money from other successful New England sports teams, Kennedy said.
The Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 and 2007, helping to sell tickets. The 2004 championship was the team’s first since 1918 and ended what some fans called the ‘‘Curse of the Bambino’’, a title drought that was punishment for selling Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees before the 1920 season.