“People will be talking about it years from now. It’ll be the second question you ask.
“Did you go to the World Cup?
“Were you at Fenway?”
Colin Silver was part of a horde of Scotland fans at Fenway Park on Sunday, 14 June to watch the Boston Red Sox play the Texas Rangers at baseball.
The World Cup experience for those who cashed in assets and favours, and who could have flown to the east coast on optimism and Tennent’s alone, contained multitudes. There was something magical, though, about the night after Scotland’s first World Cup victory in 36 years.
Here’s the story of how Scotland came to take over a low-stakes, mid-season Major League Baseball game between two failing teams – and why everyone involved is still talking about it now.
PART ONE: THE LUCK OF THE DRAW
The 17 June edition of the Boston Globe, published a week after that fine city’s run as a World Cup venue concluded with France’s quarter-final win over Morocco, featured an analysis of the financial and societal impact of the tournament in New England. Its headline: Saved by the Scots – Inside the Turmoil and Triumph of Boston’s Big World Cup Gamble. The Too Long, Didn’t Read version? FIFA took the money out of the tournament, but they couldn’t take the Tartan Army out of New England.
The Boston Red Sox had been talking about how they could piggyback on the World Cup since November, 2025. When the draw was made on 5 December, they zeroed in on one date in particular: the visit of Texas, the day after Scotland’s opener. Boston had lucked out by landing the Tartan Army and the Red Sox were determined to make Fenway a part of their travel itinerary.
Travis Pollio is senior director for ticket strategy and promotions for the Red Sox. For MLB clubs, that is important stuff. Across the marathon, six-month, 162-game regular season (before the play-offs and the World Series) each MLB team has to come up with different ways to bring people to the stadium, even when the team is losing. Dollar Dog Night (hot dogs for a buck); Bobblehead Giveaways (collectible figures of popular players); Bark at the Park (dogs welcome); Kids Run the Bases (children allowed onto the park after the game); theme nights (Star Wars, Harry Potter, Stranger Things…). Often, teams will make unique products that are included free with a certain number of tickets: baseball caps, t-shirts, replica jerseys.
“We saw the synergy with the game on 14 June straight away and started looking at designs for a jersey we could include with the ticket,” Pollio tells Nutmeg. The result was the mash-up shirt included with the first 4,000 tickets sold for the “Scottish Celebration” promotion: kind-of-tartan, with the Red Sox name and badge, plus a Saltire.
Everything was set.
This is a preview of Neil White’s full article, published in Issue 41 of Nutmeg.
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