Sox score on season tickets

Fans bought a total of 266 season tickets Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, compared with just 14 over a typical three-day period in mid-November, Lucchino said. "There has never been a higher rpm level on the ticket front," he said. Lucchino attributed the rise largely to the arrival of Schilling, an Arizona Diamondbacks player signed to pitch for the Red Sox over the next three seasons in a $37.5 million deal completed last weekend. Even the "rumor period" before the signing generated sales of 43 additional season tickets, Lucchino said.

The team's increased draw is likely to attract corporate sponsors beyond the current 60, permit the team's cable-television property, New England Sports Network, to raise its ad rates, and involve more charities in promotional events.

"You cannot attribute this exclusively to Curt Schilling, though he's a major factor," Lucchino said. "There's a lot of other stuff, the charms and successes of the club last year, and the selection of a new manager. Schilling is just the latest and most significant of the impacts."

Lucchino spoke by telephone just before the arrival of Terry Francona, the manager chosen to succeed Grady Little, who left after the Red Sox' loss to the New York Yankees ended the team's bid to play in its first World Series since 1986.

Lucchino and other Red Sox executives were coy about most financial specifics, and wouldn't discuss the team's total revenue except to say that a 2001 revenue figure of $152 million reported by Major League Baseball was "not far off." But they disclosed enough to paint a picture of a club both capitalizing and cashing in on the year's unusually good record. At the end of October the Red Sox raised ticket prices an average of 5 percent, which is likely to make the club's seats the costliest in all of baseball for a sixth straight year.Dr. Charles Steinberg, Red Sox executive vice president for public affairs, called the brisk ticket sales "validation" of the price increase, but added that they pay for star-player salaries.

Prices for the full-year tickets range from $1,458 to $5,670, though the more expensive ones are sold out.

The Red Sox count season ticket sales by "full-season equivalents," including those for all 81 home games at Fenway Park and groups of partial-season tickets, such as packages of 10- and 50-game tickets. The advance sales are a main ingredient of the team's revenue, accounting for just under half of Fenway's 35,772 seats and generating earnings even if games are rained out or fans lose interest in a bad year. The team sells around 1,000 new season tickets annually, but Lucchino said "we'll blow past that this year."

Mike Dee, executive vice president for business affairs, said at the current pace the club expects to sell 25 percent more tickets by Opening Day, April 1, than it did by April 1, 2003, when sales stood at 1.9 million. In all, 2.7 million tickets were sold in 2003.

Dee said no major sponsors have dropped their contracts with the team, another sign of local interest. "The doctor hasn't lost any patients yet," he said.

Ross Kerber can be reached at kerber@globe.com.