Fenway Park on Saturday will host its first football game in nearly a half-century when Notre Dame takes on Boston College, and Red Sox President Sam Kennedy is eagerly awaiting this “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” Kennedy: “We’re consistently looking for different ways to open up the doors to a different demographic of people to take advantage of the fact that this ownership group has invested $300 million to preserve and protect Fenway. We’ve got a great facility in a world-class city in an urban environment, and it’s a place where people get excited about going for baseball, but also for these new and different events.” He said with hurling on Sunday, high school football games the day before and day of Thanksgiving, ski and snowboarding competitions in February and even a possible Celtics game down the road, “We’re very busy, but we’re very excited.” Here, Kennedy shares with THE DAILY his thoughts on bringing the Shamrock Series to Yawkey Way.
Q: In what ways will the configuration of the setup impact the atmosphere of the game?
Kennedy: We’ve only got 37,673 seats, plus another roughly 1,000 standing-room tickets, so by definition it will be very intimate, and it should be just an electric atmosphere. I don’t think there’s a bad seat in the house. You’re going to have the two teams standing on the outfield side, so they won’t really be blocking the views of the attendees. I think the Monster seats will be special. All of the seats are so close to the field. You’ve got the one end zone going toward home plate on the third-base dugout side, and the other end zone out by the bullpen.
Q: Wrigley Field ran into some issues with a tight configuration of its field during the Northwestern-Illinois football game in ‘10. What if anything were you able to learn from that incident?
Kennedy: Given that we made the deal with Notre Dame in '13, we’ve had a long runway to prepare, to compare notes with Wrigley and the Cubs. Look, they didn’t do anything wrong. The dimensions are what the dimensions are. I’m sure once we get into the operations of the game, given we’ve not done this since ‘68, we’re going to learn lessons as well. We’re confident in our ability to execute, but I’m sure we’ll encounter unforeseen issues along the way, and hopefully we’ll be able to deal with whatever we encounter.
Q: How does this game help expand the brand of the Red Sox and Fenway?
Kennedy: The revenue is extremely important to us, but an opportunity to open up into a different demographic of people who may not be Red Sox or baseball fans but appreciate blue-chip events like a Notre Dame-BC football game is a great opportunity to highlight the ballpark itself to attendees. And then from a media perspective, you’ve got an opportunity to show Fenway Park on a national and even an international stage. NBC Sports is going to be broadcasting live from Fenway for not only the Notre Dame-BC game but also for the Big Air event in February, which we’ve sold 25,000 tickets for. We will be streaming the hurling online over to Ireland as well. We think we’ve got one of the most iconic sports venues in the world, and this is an opportunity to highlight Fenway around the globe in a new and different light that showcases its versatility.
Q: What’s been the feedback locally?
Kennedy: It’s been well-received. It’s unique in the sense that it’s a Notre Dame “home game.” Give them a lot of credit for creating the Shamrock Series and taking that game on the road each and every year. There’s a huge network of Notre Dame alums and Boston College alums in New England, so tickets are at a premium. There really hasn’t been an opportunity to acquire tickets to the game given the popularity of Notre Dame.
Q: Will anyone noteworthy be coming through the EMC Club?
Kennedy: (MLB Network’s) Peter Gammons and (former MLBer) Torii Hunter are going to be hanging out together and watching the game. Torii Hunter’s son plays wide receiver for Notre Dame.
