John Henry says he won’t sell Red Sox, suggests fans hold unrealistic expectations

John Henry says he has no plans to sell the Red Sox, and he also pushed back against the uproar that followed team chairman Tom Werner’s “full throttle” comments this past winter, saying the response overshadowed the whole offseason and was driven by the “false belief that many fans and media have that you should mortgage the future each year for the present.”

The Red Sox principal owner made the comments in a recent interview with the Financial Times, which published a lengthy profile on Henry and his journey as a sports owner Friday morning. Henry met on several occasions with Financial Times reporter Sara Germano at Fenway Park and at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers and answered questions by email. The profile touches on his tenure with the Red Sox, his subsequent acquisition of Liverpool FC and most recently his involvement in investing in professional golf’s PGA Tour.

“My wife and I live and work in Boston. We are committed to the city, the region,” Henry said in response to a direct question about whether or not he’d consider selling the team. “So the Sox are not going to come up for sale. We generally don’t sell assets.”

Navigating fan expectations was a frequent topic in the story, and within the piece Henry directly challenges the notion held by many fans — both of the Red Sox and of Fenway Sports Group’s other clubs — that he’s too focused on other properties and is no longer fully invested in their success.

Henry disputed the idea there was a risk attached in stretching his attention span across so many complex businesses. “There would be a risk,” he wrote, “if FSG was not so deep and strong in personnel.” He also took issue with the obsession over his and Werner’s remarks about “expensive” ballplayers and going “full throttle”. The latter had “overshadowed every other word, paragraph and interview of the winter because it reaches so deeply into the false belief that many fans and media have that you should mortgage the future each year for the present.” Creating a sustainable future for the Red Sox was, he argued, more important than any given year’s payroll. “You have to base acquisitions and dispositions on the future, not the past,” he said. “That is unpopular generally.”

Henry commented on fan expectations at another point as well, acknowledging that fans typically aren’t satisfied for long after winning a championship.

During Henry’s tenure, the Red Sox have won four World Series, the most of any baseball team this century. Liverpool also ended its dry spell of 30 years without a league title. Yet fans always want more, and Henry knows the numbers are stacked against him. “Because fans expect championships almost annually,” he wrote to me, “they easily become frustrated and are not going to buy into what the odds actually are: one in 20 or one in 30.”

The piece describes Henry as a man who is always seeking out new challenges — or “quests” — and how that drive led to his recent dalliance with professional golf. Henry was reportedly the one who initially came up with the idea of investing in the PGA Tour and floated it to his counterparts at an MLB owners’ meeting last June. That meeting laid the groundwork for the eventual launch of the Strategic Sports Group, a consortium of American business owners who have pooled their resources to make a $3 billion investment in the PGA Tour. Boston Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck, New York Mets owner Steve Cohen and Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank are among the other investors who have come aboard.

It also delves into Henry’s background as a commodities trader and how he made his fortune in large part by divorcing human emotion from market moves. That approach has helped foster historic success at his clubs and made him a widely admired figure within the business community, but it has also made him difficult for fans to connect with.

“That’s part of John Henry’s problem these days,” said John Harrington, chair of the Yawkey Foundation and former custodian of the Yawkey Trust, in the piece. “He’s been in town for 22 years, and he’s still a stranger.”

Henry has contributed to that perception by largely retreating from the public spotlight. The last time the Red Sox principal owner spoke in a press conference setting was more than four years ago after the club traded Mookie Betts in February 2020, and since then he’s limited his remarks to email interviews and less formal appearances, including at the Red Sox Winter Weekend fan fest.

The piece concludes with Henry explaining why he chooses to remain silent.

“I don’t think people in my position can win publicly — your words are often used against you — so the less I say I generally think the better,” Henry said.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/92RVknQ