Peter Gammons Interview

Excellent interview with Peter Gammons by the Fire Brand of the American League. Two things I want to comment on:

They look at Teixeira at age 28 and see a star who can produce for an easy eight years, then figure out what to do with everyone else. I don't think they're in the mode of refusing to be outbid; they never work that way. But with the age of Ortiz and Lowell, to put Teixeira in with Youkilis and Pedroia in their primes would give them offensive predictability.

Spot on. See if you can get Teixeira first and then figure out everything else from there. The days of "Vince Coleman? Where would we play him?" are over.

This ownership looked around and saw there's no land for a new park, and they've done a brilliant job marketing Fenway and the Red Sox brand. There is a limited ceiling to revenues, but I can't believe they will not remain in the top 3-5 in revenues even with the $2500-a-seat tickets at the new Yankee Stadium. How about those tradeoffs to give Mayor Bloomberg his luxury box.

The scarcity of seats at Fenway is a huge plus for the Red Sox ownership in terms of NESN revenue. The local TV revenue they don't have to share with other teams. This makes them very profitable. The Red Sox have the best of all worlds here. They get to play the keepers of the public's trust by not just keeping Fenway but making it even nicer - a Disneyland-like destination for baseball fans and they also get fans to make NESN part of the basic cable package at every cable operator so every cable viewer in New England basically has to pay for it.