January 3, 2022
As the hardreading staff was perusing the local dailies today, we came across this full-page Boston Herald ad for a new marijuana store just down the block from the Lyric Little Bandbox.
We especially liked the jaunty tone of its pitch to become text buddies with the cannabis retailer: “Get updates on exciting products, brands, events, and more sent directly to your phone. Or maybe we’ll just check in, see how you’re doing. Who knows? New relationships are exciting.”
According to this piece by Forbes senior contributor Javier Hasse, MedMen needs all the new relationships it can get.
Publicly traded cannabis company MedMen has had a turbulent year, having had to deal with management shakeups, the ousting of its co-founders and lawsuits. And, although the stock is still up about 16% year-to-date, it has fallen considerably from the $1.29 per share value it reached in February – it’s now under $0.20.
Under the circumstances, we figured there would be a similar Grand Opening ad in the Boston Globe. But . . . nothing. Which is strange given that the stately local broadsheet actually has a Bong Bureau, ably manned by cannabis reporter Dan Adams, who also writes the This Week in Weed newsletter.
Memo to MedMen: Don’t bogart that ad, my friend – pass it over to the Globe.
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Uncategorized | Tagged: Bong Bureau, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Dan Adams, Fenway Park, Forbes, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, Javier Hasse, John Updike, Lyric Little Bandbox, MedMen, This Week in Weed | 
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Posted by Campaign Outsider
April 6, 2019
From our Boston GlobeSox desk
A sharp-eyed Two-Daily Town reader posted this on Facebook last night.
Wow, the Boston Globe has a story about a Red Sox commercial partner — a casino, no less — entering into a deal to put an ad on the left field wall (I refuse to call the edifice by its brand name.) And it comes with a picture of the new logo. Imagine that. How ever did the team owners convince the region’s dominant media outlet to run a piece on what is essentially a marketing deal that enriches the owners but means nothing to fans. Boy, that’s some pull, huh? ( The Globe, by the way, most recently ran an editorial opposing expanding casino gambling, a move that would hamper the Sox newest partner. Hmm, wonder if [the] hard reading staff at “It’s Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town” took notice.)
Sure enough, this piece was sitting up like tee-ball on the Globe’s website.
Red Sox and MGM Resorts officials reveal additions at Fenway Park
The Green Monster has a new logo, just in time for the Red Sox home opener.
A large advertisement featuring MGM Resorts’ roaring lion trademark was unveiled at Fenway Park Friday, courtesy of a new partnership between the team and the casino giant.
“This is hallowed ground,” said Jim Murren, chief executive officer of MGM Resorts International. “The fact that Fenway Sports is willing to work with us is humbling.”
Yeesh.
The story also flacks “an array of new concession snacks, renovations to the press box and player clubhouses, and augmented-reality capabilities for the MLB Ballpark app, which will allow fans to roam the stadium with their phones, scan certain objects, and see them come to life.”
Two things to note:
1) Nowhere in that piece – or in the print version – is it disclosed that the Boston Globe is owned by Red Sox owner John Henry.
2) The piece was written by a Globe correspondent – not a staffer – who is presumably blameless in this matter and so will go unnamed.
But the correspondent’s editors – they’ve got some ‘splaining to do, no?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston GlobeSox, Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park, Fenway Sports, Jim Murren, John Henry, MGM Resorts, MLB Ballpark | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
July 13, 2018
From our Local Dailies DisADvantage desk
Who knew? It turns out the Olde Towne Team has an Official Red Wine, as readers of today’s Boston Globe discovered in this full-page ad.
The pitch:
Chateau Auguste certainly seems to be a hit with oenophiles: A quick check of the Googletron reveals that the 2017 Rosé featured in the ad rates from 3.4 to 4.5 stars; the 2015 Bordeaux in the background gets 4 stars. We’ll see how it plays at Fenway, though.
Two other things:
1) The ad got us to wondering who else might be an official sponsor of the Sox. We know – from all those delivery trucks – that W.B. Mason is the Official Office Products Supplier of the Boston Red Sox (and also sponsors the Philadelphia Phillies, New York Yankees, New York Mets, Cleveland Indians, Pittsburgh Pirates, Washington Nationals, and the Tampa Bay Rays, along with the NHL’s Boston Bruins).
But we had no idea that Cincinnati-based Cintas is the Official Restroom Sponsor of Fenway Park. That’s good to know. (There’s a bunch of others here.)
2) The Chateau Auguste ad did not run in the Boston Herald. That makes it the thirsty local tabloid times two.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Red Sox, Chateau Auguste, Cintas, Fenway Park, Googletron, Local Dailies DisADvantage, official red wine, official restroom sponsor, thirsty local tabloid, W.B. Mason | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
December 18, 2017
As the hardreading safe has noted many times, the Boston Herald is routinely overlooked as an advertising vehicle by local institutions ranging from General Electric to Verizon to AJC Boston to CVS.
But . . .
The new ad campaign for Red Sox ticket sales is totally bi-paper-san.
From Saturday’s Boston Globe.
From Saturday’s Herald.
Some context here, from Ricky Doyle’s NESN profile of Rafael Devers in August:
“In my neighborhood, when I played vitilla (baseball with bottle caps), there was always this guy who would say, ‘Look at this one with that fresh face,’ and from then on I was ‘Carita.’ ”
Carita. Or Baby Face. Hmm… we’ll see if it sticks.
Clearly, it did.
Back to the Sox ads. Both local dailies ran this one yesterday.
No explanation need for that, right?
But maybe an explanation for the ad campaign itself is in order.
Red Sox ticket sales were off last year (2,917,678) from 2016 (2,955,434) according to Baseball Reference.
Regardless, here’s what ticket buyers can expect for next year, via Nik DeCosta-Klipa at Boston.com.
The team announced Wednesday that [2018] (ticket prices at Fenway Park will increase by an average of 2.5 percent. Similar to last year, this means ticket prices are going up $1 to $5 for many of the seats closer to the field, as well as the bleachers.
Red Sox to fans: Read it and keep (paying more).
Let’s see how many of them vamos next season.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: AJC Boston, Baseball Reference, bi-paper-san, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Red Sox, boston.com, Carita, Craig Kimbrel, CVS, Fenway Park, General Electric, Marty Walsh, NESN, Nik DeCosta-Klipa, Rafael Devers, Ricky Doyle, Verizon | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
April 3, 2017
The hardreading staff isn’t wired enough to be at the New! Improved! Fenway Park this afternoon for the Red Sox home opener against the Pittsburgh Pirates (huh?), but we did take the time to check out the Boston dailies for all the hopeful/gleeful advertisements that normally accompany the start of a new season.
And there were . . . none.
Nothing in the Boston Globe, nothing (big surprise) in the Boston Herald.
Even odder, the Globe’s 18-page Baseball 2017 preview yesterday had no pom-pom ads, just this:
Seriously? Two half-page car ads?
What’s wrong with this town?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Fenway Park, Gintautas Dumcius, Home Opener, MassLive, Pittsburgh Pirates, Red Sox, The Trade Machine | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
December 11, 2015
From our One Towne, Two Different Worlds desk
As the hardreading staff has (we trust) dutifully noted, the local dailies rarely see eye-to-eye on any particular story.
Yesterday was no exception.
But it was particularly illuminating. And it all revolved around fan safety at Fenway Park, where most fans go to 1) see a Red Sox victory, and 2) avoid any major head injuries.
Boston Globe Page One:
SAFE AT HOME
Sox to heed MLB’s recommendation for additional protective netting
NASHVILLE — Major League Baseball on Wednesday took steps to protect those fans who want to sit close to the action, recommending that all teams extend protective netting between the dugouts for any field-level seats within 70 feet of home plate.
The Red Sox immediately announced they would comply and are making plans to extend the netting behind home plate to the dugouts. Team president Sam Kennedy said the Sox are evaluating what the size and type of the netting will be.
The Globe piece also included this helpful graphic about fans injured in Major League ballparks each year:
To illustrate one example, the stately local broadsheet mentioned this in paragraph 11:
On July 10, a woman sitting [near the edge of the backstop screen] was hit in the forehead by a foul ball. Stephanie Wapenski, 36, of Branford, Conn., required more than 40 stitches.
Crosstown at the Boston Herald, Stephanie Wapenski was no footnote – she was the hitchy local tabloid’s Cover Girl.
From the estimable Peter Gelzinis:
Field of Dreams: Fan Nets Fairy Tale Fenway Ending
Even if the Red Sox didn’t plan to extend the protective netting along the first- and third-base lines, Stephanie Wapenski had no intention of staying away from the ballpark she loves. And now, in a fairy-tale ending to her hard luck story, she’s going back for love.
Wapenski was six rows up from the third-base line, watching the Sox play the Yankees last July. She recalled telling her fiance, Matt Fraenza, “We’re going to catch a ball tonight.”
What this Connecticut woman wound up catching on that night was a 100 mph line-drive foul from Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius that ricocheted off her forehead and landed in short left field.
But then . . .
“When the Red Sox asked what they could do for us,” Stephanie recalled, “we mentioned that we weren’t interested in pursuing any legal action. We told them we were rabid baseball fans who would love to be married at Fenway.”
The Red Sox didn’t need to be asked twice. They waived the $10,000 fee other couples, who have not been beaned by a line drive, must pay to be married on the field.
Excellent!
And an excellent example of the gap between the rational local broadsheet and the emotional local tabloid.
So we say . . . long live Two-Daily Towns!
Or at least what’s left of them.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Al Jazeera America, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Crawfordsville, Fenway Park, hitchy local tabloid, Matt Fraenza, One Town Two Different Worlds, Peter Gelzinis, Red Sox, Stephanie Wapenski, Trenton, Wilkes-Barre | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
April 8, 2015
Boston GlobeSox owner John Henry gets batted around in the Boston Herald’s Inside Track today, thanks to this Eric Wilbur piece on boston.com.
Boston is Still a Red Sox Town Even if Tom Brady is King
Who rules Boston: the Red Sox or Patriots?
Ultimately, there is no clear front-runner in the debate over whether Boston has ultimately become a football town, or if it maintains its long-time status as a bastion of baseball devotees.
The correct answer is both. It’s a Red Sox town. And it’s a Patriots town.
And boston.com is a Henry town, although the piece never mentions that. Which led Track Gal Gayle Fee to mention this:
SURPRISE! GLOBE SITE CITES SOX #1
Stop the presses: “Boston is Still a Red Sox Town Even If Tom Brady Is King.”
That’s according to Boston.
com, the digital arm of the Boston Globe. But nowhere in the commentary by sports blogger Eric Wilbur does he mention that the Red Sox, the Globe and Boston.com are all owned by the same man — John Henry!
Which makes Wilbur’s conclusion — that without Brady, the Patriots would be chopped liver, fanwise — somewhat suspect, don’t cha think???
Full disclosure: The hardreading staff believes that any publication owned by Henry should disclose the connection every time it reports on the Boston Red Sox or the Liverpool Football Club or Roush Fenway Racing or Fenway Park or anything Henry has purchased since we started this post. Some people we greatly respect believe we’re over-fastidious in this matter (hi, Dan!), but we’ve learned to live with that.
Then again, some have learned to live without.
Boston.com editor Tim Molloy, who has been on the job just under a month, said he has not even met John Henry, let alone been told what to write by the Sox boss. And Molloy said he saw no problem in Wilbur’s not disclosing the boss’s mutual ownership in the piece.
“I think that’s pretty well known,” he told the Track. “It’s not anything we disguise or try to keep secret. And I’ve had absolutely no contact with Mr. Henry in terms of anything editorial.”
That last, of course, is entirely beside the point. Regardless, Molloy told the Track that “if Henry’s ownership of the paper, the website and the team were disclosed in Wilbur’s piece, it should be disclosed ‘every time we write about the Red Sox.'”
Exactly.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston GlobeSox, Boston Herald, boston.com, Eric Wilbur, Fenway Park, Gayle Fee, Inside Track, John Henry, Liverpool Football Club, Patriots, Red Sox, Roush Fenway Racing, Tin Molloy, Tom Brady | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
September 29, 2014
The hardreading staff was cruising through the Boston Globe Sports section this morning and amid the final final farewells to the irreplaceable Number Two, Derek Jeter, Number Two (but not at Fenway Park), we came across this full-page ad.
Our first thought: Yeah, thanks suckers.
Our second thought: Wonder if Boston GlobeSox owner John Henry ran the same ad in crosstown rival Boston Herald.
Oh yes he did.
Good for him, eh?
Only question left: Will the fans be back?
Oh yes they will. Dan Shaughnessy notwithstanding.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Bob Sheppard, Boston GlobeSox, Boston Herald, Boston Red Sox, Dan Shaughnessy, Derek Jeter, Fenway Park, John Henry | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
August 11, 2014
As the hardreading staff noted a couple of weeks ago, Boston GlobeSox owner John Henry is having a fling with his crosstown rival in a series of email exchanges with Herald sports scribe Michael Silverman.
First he used the frisky local tabloid to dopeslap his star sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy over his dismissal of Red Sox Nation’s unswerving devotion to the Olde Towne Team.
Yesterday, Henry opened the kimono a bit more in Silverman’s Baseball Notes column. About meddling with the Globe’s sports coverage, Henry said this:
“I don’t get involved at all with baseball coverage,” Henry said. “That would be completely inappropriate. I did get involved in pushing for Score, which was a standalone NFL section we created, and they did a terrific job on that. I’d like to see more coverage of the 
Revolution because I think they are becoming a more important part of the community. Soccer is becoming more important as evidenced by the reception Liverpool [the soccer club Henry owns] received here (at Fenway) this year. But I haven’t said anything to our editor or sports editor . . .
“I have not initiated a single discussion on the Sox, Liverpool or baseball. There are other areas I attend to; it’s a complicated, diverse business that is radically changing. It’s an important asset of the community.”
Translation: I don’t want to control sports coverage – I want to control sports coverage advertising.
Silverman’s Globe-go-nuts grafs:
Boston remains a two-newspaper town, a vanishing species around the country. The healthy competition between the Globe and the Herald, including but not limited to local and regional news and sports, is a boon for readers. That the Globe now uses its excess printing capacity to print the Herald highlights the changing economic realities of the two newspapers. Each strives to give its readers the best coverage possible, from the Red Sox to Beacon Hill. When it comes to sports coverage, Henry sees ESPN as the Globe’s chief competition — but with a caveat.
“In sports, the Globe competes on the Web with everyone,” Henry said. “You are one click away from the best in the world in every area. ESPN is what we are up against in sports. But you also have the damn Herald.”
You’re welcome.
Hey, Globeniks: Flirty local tabloid on Line 1.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Ben Cherington, Boston Globe, Boston GlobeSox, Boston Herald, Dan Shaughnessy, ESPN, Fenway Park, flirty local tabloid, frisky local tabloid, John Henry, Larry Lucchino, Liverpool, Michael Silverman, Red Sox, Revolution, Tom Werner | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
July 27, 2014
The Boston Herald’s Michael Silverman got an email interview with Boston GlobeSox owner John Henry, which, of course, was Page One news for the feisty local tabloid.
The email exchange between Silverman and Henry was pretty much what you’d expect.
Henry takes stock of perplexing Sox
The Red Sox are genuinely perplexed.
Barely more than two weeks ago, principal owner John Henry was told by his general manager that the Red Sox “are probably the 
best team in the division. We just aren’t playing like it.”
The reasons behind the team’s incredibly underwhelming and disappointing caliber of play for most of the first four months of the season are not clear to Henry and the front office. With the trade deadline looming Thursday, Henry and his baseball operations people have been trying to get a better handle on what’s gone wrong and discover if there’s time left to fix it.
It’s not exactly riveting stuff – when Silverman asks if the Sox are sellers or buyers, Henry replies, “We’ll see what happens (this) week.”
Ya think?
But there is one juicy item in the piece: A not-so-veiled reference to this from Boston Globe scribe (and Henry employee) Dan Shaughnessy last Sunday (reproduced in full for, well, full effect).
When did Boston go so soft on the Red Sox?
At this hour, your Boston Red Sox enjoy a friendlier environment than almost any of the 30 teams in baseball. The Sox have a chance to finish in last place for the second time in three years, win a playoff game in only one of six seasons, and still be perceived by their fans as “perennial contenders.’’ The Sox can play nine games under .500 for the first 95 games and still have a Nation of believers thinking they can win the division, or compete for the phony second wild card. Sox owners can pare payroll ($72.5 million scheduled to come off the books for next year), stay well below the coveted luxury tax threshold, and listen to regional applause while fans pay the highest ticket prices in baseball. The Sox can get folks to buy into the notion that it’s foolish to compete in the open market for the services of their best pitcher. Sox tickets and merchandise are hotter than they were at this time last summer and Pat Moscaritolo, president of a Boston tourist group, says, “For the past 10 years that I’ve been tracking visitor spending and the economic impact of the Red Sox, it’s almost unaffected by the team’s performance.’’
The Sox were positively surging with five wins in six games against terrible/mediocre teams (aggregate 21 games under .500) as they prepped for the Royals Saturday night. The KC-Boston matchup is a good one, since it sometimes sounds like the Sox want to be a middle-market team. Like the Royals of recent decades (29 years since making the playoffs), the Sox now sell the fans on “watching the kids.” Don’t people realize that EVERY team has a farm system stocked with young players who’d love to play in front of sellout crowds in the moribund final months of a season? It amazes me how soft this baseball market has become. In 1978 fans and media crushed the Sox for a 99-win season that concluded with eight consecutive pressure-packed victories. The Boston manager was unmercifully booed on Opening Day the following year. Now everything is awesome because the Boston ballpark is a tourist destination and fans fall in love with the hype of every young player coming through the system. Swell. When did we become St. Louis?
Ouch. The only thing Shaughnessy left out? That the principal owner of the GlobeSox etc. etc.
Regardless, how much fun is it that Henry employed his own crosstown rival to dope-slap his wayward minion, saying this:
“Fans continue to sell out Fenway. They’ve suffered through some really bad games this year, but they continue to show up and the mood at the park among the fans is very positive when I walk through the stands. Before Tom [Werner], Larry [Lucchino] and I arrived I believe fans had less patience.
“A loud curmudgeon I know accuses them of being soft, bad fans — but anyone paying attention knows the mood has changed at Fenway over the years. People expect good things from the Sox and really love being at Fenway. This team accomplished something very special last year therefore the fans aren’t about to not give them the benefit of the doubt.”
Love that double negative. Wonder what Mr. Shaughnessy thinks.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Ben Cherington, Boston Globe, Boston GlobeSox, Boston Herald, Dan Shaughnessy, Fenway Park, John Henry, Larry Lucchino, Michael Silverman, Red Sox, Tom Werner | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 