Our 2024 Red Sox fan poll gives some concrete evidence to the growing frustration Red Sox supporters have been expressing over the past few years.
We conducted fan surveys with about 1,000 respondents in 2020 and 2022. This time, about 3,400 of you responded, and it should come as no surprise that you had strong ideas about who owned the franchise and where it should go.
Even though there was still lingering resentment over the Mookie Betts deal from two years earlier, most fans who responded to our most recent fan survey were optimistic about the team’s direction and leadership after the 2021 postseason run.
Now? Not so much.
“The Red Sox are a big market team with big market ticket prices. The Red Sox are behaving like a small market team with small market aspirations. It’s pathetic,” one respondent noted.
More than one comment called for Fenway Sports Group (FSG) to sell the team and words used to describe the mood surrounding the team included: depressed, directionless, worried, embarrassing, unclear and pissed, just to name a few. It should be noted a few commenters were “cautiously optimistic”, but they were few and far between as evidenced in the numbers below.
We conducted this survey before the news on Friday that Theo Epstein was joining FSG as a part owner and senior advisor, otherwise I would have included a question about how his arrival does or doesn’t alter your outlook for the future of the team.
Let’s dig into some of the results here and thanks again to all of you who participated to help us get a pulse on how the fan base currently feels about the team. We received more than 2,600 comments from the 3,400 respondents so we’ll sprinkle some of those throughout. Now, onto the results…
A staggering 74% of you don’t think the Red Sox are going in the right way. It’s not surprising—three last-place results in four years and CEO Sam Kennedy’s comment that payroll will probably be lower in 2024—but it’s still an astonishing result from a sizable sample size.
The team is obviously not going to win it all next season, but a few additions might make this a really watchable and fun squad to watch, and all signs point to this simply not happening. One user said, “Frustration — I completely understand Breslow coming in and not immediately spending.”
“Just in total disbelief that ownership cares so little,” another person said.
Finding a medium position, several commentators wrote, “hopeful in the long term, disappointed in.
