Faced with widespread ticket availability for the first time in the John Henry-Tom Werner ownership era, the Boston Red Sox are developing a prominent marketing effort around selling tickets to young people.
The club plans to build upon a trial program introduced for the 2014 season in which several hundred $9 standing-room tickets at Fenway Park were available exclusively to high school and college students, who bought them through a Web portal and showed their student IDs at the ballpark. The effort, tapping into Boston’s status as a major college town, will include additional seating inventory in 2015.
The club didn’t offer numbers on how many student tickets it sold in 2014, but said sales varied based on opponent, day of the week and other factors.
Also in development is a marked expansion of the Red Sox Kid Nation, a fan club sponsored by dairy brand Hood. The Kid Nation program, numbering about 12,000 members, includes standard elements such as merchandise and newsletters. The Red Sox are looking to include free tickets in the program and completely restructure how it is marketed as a means to encourage greater sampling of Fenway Park by young fans.
The efforts in Boston arrive as all of baseball grapples with how to engage and develop younger fans, and the issue has become a mandate for Commissioner-elect Rob Manfred.
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The club rolled out student tickets this year.
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The Red Sox increased attendance 4 percent in 2014 to 2.96 million. But the club’s MLB-record, 794-game sellout streak ended in 2013 and following a second last-place finish in two years this past season, Red Sox ticket demand remains soft relative to past years.
“There is a huge silver lining to our no longer being sold out all the time. We have available inventory, and now have an opportunity to really experiment with some things to get new people into the park,” said Sam Kennedy, Red Sox chief operating officer. “This is a big issue around the league, and we really want to walk the walk in how we reach out to kids.
“We’re bouncing around a lot of things, particularly around Kid Nation, in terms of creating various tiers of membership and getting more people to sample the game experience here. And we know we can and should be doing a lot more than 12,000 members of Kid Nation.”
Kennedy is a key member of the Commissioner’s Ticket Review Committee, a panel formed four years ago by MLB Commissioner Bud Selig to drive innovation in baseball ticketing and led by league Chief Marketing Officer Jacqueline Parkes.
That panel, which met last week in Kansas City as part of quarterly MLB owners meetings, is also conducting extensive research regarding additional youth outreach. The group is expected to help initiate some new sales and marketing efforts around the league early next year when Manfred officially assumes his new role.
Several other MLB clubs have similar programs, such as the Cincinnati Reds’ popular Reds Heads kids club, that will likely receive additional attention for the 2015 season.
The Red Sox are also working extensively with digital consultancy Sapient Corp. on game-experience initiatives that will have a heavy focus on youths. Next year marks the first full MLB season for the two sides to activate against it.
“There is still a huge untapped opportunity around social media in baseball that still hasn’t been fully exploited,” said Bill Kanarick, Sapient chief marketing officer. “Our goal is to help the Red Sox create a more curated, individualized experience for the fan that speaks more specifically to what they want.”
