How NESV turned around the Boston Red Sox

In many respects, the Boston Red Sox have  things in common with Liverpool Football Club. They are an historic team with a long heritage stretching back a century, with a stadium Fenway Park which is just as rich in history as Anfield. In the US, their fan base is called the “Red Sox Nation” describing the team’s support throughout the US, not just Massachusetts, similar to Liverpool’s support throughout the world. Before John W Henry and New England Sports Ventures took over in 2002, the team had seen better days, and had already gone through a period where its ownership was under the trustees of the Yawkey family. The family had owned the team for 70 years but Tom Yawkey died in 1976 while his wife took control of the team until 1992. For 10 more years the Yawkey trust owned the team until NESV bought the Red Sox out in 2002.

By this time, the Red Sox had not won a World Series in 84 years. The “Curse of the Bambino” had meant they had not won the title since the departure of Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1918. The progress of the team in the previous decade prior to Henry taking over was not helped by General Manager David Duqette who allowed Roger Clemens to leave as a free agent in 1996 describing him as being in the “twilight of his career.” Clemens continued playing for another ten years and even played for rivals New York Yankees during that time. Duqette had also had complications in getting a new Ballpark to replace what he described as the “economically obsolete” Fenway. One of NESV first actions when they took over was to sack Duqette within 24 hours and a week later the manager Joe Kerrigan was also replaced by Grady Little. New CEO and President Larry Lucchino denoted Red Sox’s rivals the New York Yankees as the “evil empire” and the new ownership began to endear themselves to the very faithful and passionate Red Sox support.

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