The Red Sox' decision to add 124 new seats between and beyond each dugout at Fenway Park will "satisfy demand for premium seating" and provide "significant new revenue to the team," according to Michael Silverman of the BOSTON HERALD. The dugouts "will expand as well," and both additions "move toward the field, meaning Fenway Park’s already diminutive foul territory will shrink even more." The change "logically would create a slight increase in uncatchable foul balls, which would mean longer at-bats, more pitches thrown and longer games." Fenway’s seating capacity "will increase to 38,073." Red Sox President Sam Kennedy said, "It makes sense to add more seats. The No. 1 question we get from folks looking for Red Sox tickets and season tickets is, ‘Can we get new seats?’ And we tell them, ‘Well, we may have other locations for you,’ but the No. 1 request is for the first couple of rows between the bases." Kennedy said that the Red Sox "did not conduct any internal studies to see if the changes would affect a game." Kennedy: "We ran it by baseball operations, and we ran it by Major League Baseball. Our folks are all, as far as I know, fine with it. It’s a relatively small amount of space." Silverman noted patrons with seats in the current first two rows between the dugouts "will retain their claim to premium Dugout Box seats in the two new rows." Seventy-eight such seats "will be added between the dugouts at a price of $225 each per game." Fourteen new first-row Dugout Box seats "will be added adjacent to the visitors’ dugout on the third base side and 32 more seats will be added on the right field side of the Red Sox dugout." Those seats "will generate" another $1.4M per season for the team (BOSTON HERALD, 12/18).
