I am certainly appreciative of what ownership did from the time they took over up through the last couple of years. I never really thought I would see a Sox championship in my lifetime and I saw 4. That is pretty cool. That would not have happened without current ownership and whatever it was they did/did not do during that time. That said... it's clear to me that their focus has shifted. They went from "let's put the best product possible on the field - whether through trades, investing in the farm, FA, whatever - and make money doing it" to "well, let's put out a product that *might* make the WC if everything breaks right, sell the fans on next year and continue to make money doing it". I highly suspect that other business ventures, particularly an NBA team in Vegas and Liverpool, took their interest away from the Sox and they became perfectly content to let the Sox print money for them. The calculated, probably correctly, that fans will still show up for a mediocre product and the "Fenway Experience" and any lost revenue would be covered by cost savings on the team.
Not that I am mad at this. It's their prerogative. I can be happy for what they did, but also walk away when I have perceived that their objectives have changed. I know everyone hates re-litigating it, but shipping Mookie to LA to not look like assholes when they ultimately refused to pay Mookie the next season in FA (and stapling Price to him for good measure) was a clear sign to me that ownership reached a point where economics mattered more than the team. Which, again, their choice, that's fine. But I am not enough of a baseball fan to follow ownership no matter what, and especially when they indicate where their priorities lie and those priorities are different from my own. Nothing since the Mookie trade has shown me they have any desire to do anything other than get money from this team, and that includes signing Devers and 2021, an outlier season where almost everything broke right.
So to answer the question - do I think they should sell? Yes. It's been fun, thanks for the memories, but they're interested in seeing other people, maybe I am too. What makes this question borderline impossible though is you don't know who the next owners are - for the people who want to sell, it's some rich local fan who wants to see the Sox win more than anything and has money to burn. For the ones who don't the next owners could be the next Loria or John Fisher. But at this point I am willing to take my chances.
Not that I am mad at this. It's their prerogative. I can be happy for what they did, but also walk away when I have perceived that their objectives have changed. I know everyone hates re-litigating it, but shipping Mookie to LA to not look like assholes when they ultimately refused to pay Mookie the next season in FA (and stapling Price to him for good measure) was a clear sign to me that ownership reached a point where economics mattered more than the team. Which, again, their choice, that's fine. But I am not enough of a baseball fan to follow ownership no matter what, and especially when they indicate where their priorities lie and those priorities are different from my own. Nothing since the Mookie trade has shown me they have any desire to do anything other than get money from this team, and that includes signing Devers and 2021, an outlier season where almost everything broke right.
So to answer the question - do I think they should sell? Yes. It's been fun, thanks for the memories, but they're interested in seeing other people, maybe I am too. What makes this question borderline impossible though is you don't know who the next owners are - for the people who want to sell, it's some rich local fan who wants to see the Sox win more than anything and has money to burn. For the ones who don't the next owners could be the next Loria or John Fisher. But at this point I am willing to take my chances.