(NECN: Peter Howe, Boston) – If Boston Red Sox fans wanted the team to sweep the World Series in four games, hotels, restaurants and bars of Greater Boston are hoping for a seventh-game Sox victory – as each World Series is estimated to pump $9 million into the area economy, two-thirds of that net, new spending by out-of-state visitors.
At resellers Ace Ticket in Kenmore Square, founder and CEO Jim Holzman said on Monday afternoon for game six Wednesday night, “Right now we have about 250 seats. We’re still aggressively out there buying seats. Seats are running anywhere from $650 up to about $4,000.” Holzman added that Ace is also seeing brisk business in tickets for a game seven, should it happen – if you have the money to cover a preauthorized charge, it’s a no-risk purchase because if there’s no game seven, you won’t get charged anything.
Not that any city would really need more than a World Series at home, but, amazingly, this is a week you can see, at home, all five local franchises in the five biggest national leagues in five days: the Red Sox Wednesday and maybe Thursday, the Boston Bruins on Thursday hosting the Anaheim Ducks; the Boston Celtics Friday night in their home season opener against the Milwaukee Bucks; the New England Revolution in Foxborough Saturday hosting Sporting Kansas City for their first MSL playoffs appearance since 2009; and the New England Patriots hosting the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday afternoon.
“Everyone’s kind of in a good place right now,” said Peter Colton, owner of sports bar The Fours on Canal Street, who especially loves having a Boston Celtics season opener in this mix. “It’s great,” Colton said. “There’s a lot of unknowns there, and people are kind of excited — new coach, young team.”
Two Patriots fans visiting from far south and far north, Daniel Jones of Birmingham, Alabama, and Rodney Stafford of St. John’s, Newfoundland, said they are feeling something special. “It seems like there’s a lot of energy in the city, big-time,” Stafford said. Jones, who was heading back south Monday night after seeing the Patriots game at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough and the Sox-Cardinals game at a sports bar Sunday night, said, “I want to write a letter to [Patriots owner] Mr. [Bob] Kraft saying thank you for what a great town, a great city, this is for sports.”
It’s all good for business, too. The Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau pegs World Series spending at $9 million per game, with $5.7 million to $6.3 million of that net, new spending brought into the area by out-of-state visitors. Bureau CEO Patrick B. Moscaritolo estimates each Patriots game brings in about $2.4 million of spending, mostly from New Englanders, and each Celtics and Bruins game about $700,000 to $800,000, almost all of that from local people shifting their leisure and entertainment spending from some other part of the metropolitan area to the North Station/Causeway Street area.
When it comes to World Series tickets, if you think hot stocks can be volatile, they are nothing compared to the price of game tickets on the resale market. In a matter of minutes Sunday night, Holzman said, tickets for game 5 in St. Louis Monday night plunged in price after it became clear that would not be the deciding game of the series for either team. Likewise, as high as game seven ticket prices are, if the Sox were to come back to Boston with a three-games-to-two lead Wednesday, and begin faltering towards the end of game 6, prices for game 7 tickets could suddenly soar. “People start anticipating, ‘Wow, this could be the game they go for the World Series trophy, right there at Fenway Park … It could go $700, $800, $900” for ordinary average bleacher and grandstand seats. “We don’t really know where it’s going to end. It will be insane.”
“This’ll be the first time, I think, that Boston’s had a chance to win the series, possibly, here in Boston in a long time,” Jones, the visiting Alabaman, said in observing why people might be willing to pay big time for see it happen.
Indeed, you can look this up: the last time the Red Sox won a World Series at home in Fenway Park was on September 11, 1918, 95 years ago, against the Chicago Cubs. Amazingly, there were just 15,238 people in attendance – and you can be sure they weren’t paying $900, or $5,000, for tickets.
With videographer Todd Labrecque and video editor Lauren Kleciak
Tags: world series, Boston, New England Patriots, Boston Red Sox, Boston Bruins, New England Revolution, Boston Celtics, Peter Howe, Boston sports, Ace Ticket, World Series 2013