Monster increase puts emphasis on green
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Competition for some of the hottest tickets in town begins at 9 a.m. today when the Red Sox open the registration process for a chance to buy seats atop the Green Monster. The tickets, which cost $50 last year when the seats were installed, will go for as much as $110 under a new variable pricing plan.
After research and anecdotal evidence indicated such enormous interest in the seats that the Sox could have pushed the costs sky-high, the team settled on a two-tier system. The top-tier tickets -- for Opening Day, all games against the Yankees, and interleague games against the Dodgers and Phillies -- will cost $110 for front-row seats, $90 for seats in the second and third rows, and $30 for standing room. Tickets for the remaining 64 games will cost $90 for front-row seats, $70 for seats in the second and third rows, and $25 for standing room. The Sox charged $20 last year for all standing room.
"The demand speaks for itself in terms of the fever for those seats," said Mike Dee, the team's chief operating officer. "But this is one of those instances when it wasn't all about the money. We want to give a broader universe of our fans an opportunity to buy the tickets at affordable prices."
Fans can register at no cost at www.redsox.com for an opportunity to be randomly drawn for an invitation to buy up to four tickets to a single game. The registration period runs until Monday at 11 p.m. Individuals who are selected will be notified next Wednesday and may buy tickets March 27. The Sox plan to vigorously enforce the four-ticket limit, as they did by purging about 20,000 of the 80,000 registrations for the new seats on the right-field roof to eliminate individuals trying to register multiple times.
About 80 percent of the available tickets for the 270 Monster seats will be sold through the online system. The rest will go on sale March 27 at 3 p.m., by telephone: 877-REDSOX9. The four-ticket limit also applies to telephone sales. Tickets will not be available at the box office, as the Sox try to limit access to scalpers.
Even though the $90 and $110 seats will be the priciest at Fenway available to the general public, the Sox anticipate more than 100,000 registrations for the Monster tickets. If interest in the roof seats in right field is any indication, the odds of landing Monster seats will be long. Dee said only about 5 percent of the individuals who registered online for the roof seats were selected to buy tickets.
Last year, the Sox sold about half the Monster seats to groups. This year, all the tickets will go to single-game buyers.
After setting a club attendance record (2,724,162) last year, the Sox already have sold more than 2.3 million tickets for this season and have capped season ticket sales, leaving more than 900 prospective buyers on a new waiting list.
