Boston’s Fenway Park turns 100 on April 20 and the Red Sox marketing machine is cranking out a season’s worth of promos, events, a coffee table book--and even a symphony recording. Are the Red Sox in danger of over-romanticizing (and over-commercializing) America's most classic ballpark?
Step through the brick arches at Fenway Park and you turn back the clock to an era when men wore fedoras and watched a young, pudgy-faced Babe Ruth hit epic home runs for the Boston Red Sox.
For generations of baseball fans, Fenway has been baseball Mecca. You don’t just watch a baseball game there, you experience it, with sights, sounds and smells unlike any other sporting venue. (If you sit behind home plate you’re close enough to hear the whizzzz of a fastball on its way to the catcher’s mitt.)
Fenway Park turns 100 on April 20, and if you haven’t heard about it yet, you will. Sports Illustrated and USA Today have published special editions. PBS is airing a National Geographic-produced documentary. A Green Monster-green coffee table book just hit the shelves. An official website chronicles Fenway’s history. And that’s just the start.
The Red Sox marketing machine is cranking out a season’s worth of promos, events, and extravaganzas as part of the “Fenway Park 100” campaign. We’re tempted to say it’s a campaign as finely orchestrated as any symphony, but they have that one covered, too: Conductor John Williams and the Boston Pops have recorded “Fanfare to Fenway,” a musical tribute. Heavy on the trumpets.
“Our goal is to differentiate the ballpark from all others in sports. We believe Fenway...is an iconic facility that transcends sports,” Red Sox senior vice president of Marketing and Brand Development Adam Grossman said during a talk to the Ad Club of Boston on March 27.
The Balancing Act
Grossman, a Cleveland native who started as a Red Sox intern 10 years ago, has adopted the immutable Boston stance that Fenway is a sports cathedral. Quite literally--the...
[Source: Fast Company]
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