Why does Fenway Park have a sell-out capacity of 38,805 people, but routinely the listed attendance is just?

Question

under 37,000, but they list it as a sell-out, and have said Fenway has sold out like for 5 straight years or something. For instance, the game last night against the D-Rays was a sell-out, but the listed attendance was 36,907. What about these other 1,800 or so seats? How come I don't see the attendance in the box score for Fenway at over 38,000?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenway_Park

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/boxscore;_ylt=AjqjktVyZBZgC7JR34qHfxW4u7YF?gid=270910102

Nope, you people are all wrong so far. I know the right answer. I'm just looking for you to tell me the right answer. Everyone is wrong so far.

Nope, nobody is correct yet, keep trying

Answer 1

I think the actual seating capacity (the number used to determine if a game is a sellout) is more like 36-37 thousand. 38,805 is the most people they can legally have inside the park (including people with standing room only tickets and park employees) due to fire regulations. They were able to increase that figure by a thousand or so with some improvements that were made to the sprinkler system over the off season.

Answer 2

ummm good question the capacity of the red sox before 2007 was 36,300 (just a ball park not exact number)! Anyways in 2007 the sox capacity went up to about 38,800 (another ballpark figure) ANyway only 700 tickets were added to the orginal capacity so thats why at 36907 its considered a sell out because not the entire capacity of tickets were on sale! Also in 08 they will release i think more tickets available so that in 08 and 09 you will see that sell outs will be almost at the capacity the park can hold!! i dont even know if that makes sense to you but bottom line is they dont sell as many tickets to the public that can actually fit in the park!!

Answer 3

It has something with the way they report the attendance. For years, the AL and the NL used to report different numbers, but I believe that it is universal now, which is the amount of tickets sold for the game. Therefore, if a company or group has bought 50 tickets to a game, but only 25 show up, the amount counted is 50. Also, if season tickets are not used for a game, those tickets are already sold, so they are counted as well.

Answer 4

From the Red Sox website

The current capacity of Fenway Park is 36,108 for night games and 35,692 for day games.

Announced Attendance is "Tickets Distributed" so donated tickets and such are in the number even if they are not used.

Answer 5

Now it finally comes out, all those seats left empty at Red Sox games were originally purchased by Roger Clemens when he had High hopes of Theo Epstein (Red Sox GM) backing up the brinks truck to his crappy little ranch in Texas. Since the truck never came he was left with a bunch of tickets which explains why all those seats are empty.

Answer 6

I heard that they were going to increase the capacity for this season to over 37,000. Perhaps those seats have already been added, but aren't being used yet for some reason - handicap accessibility, or something along that line. Just a guess.

Answer 7

Most teams will consider it a sell-out if only a handful of scattered single tickets are available. If the attendance is above the park capacity, that means they sold a lot of standing-room only tickets.

Answer 8

The tickets are sold, but not everyone who has a ticket attends the game.
See all those empty seats behind home plate..... the millionaire season ticket holders didn't bother to come to the game today.....

Answer 9

It's a sellout because all tickets for the game are sold out...the reason the attendance doesn't match is because not everyone who bought a ticket went to the game.

Answer 10

sold out = tickets sold. some people buy the tickets and don't show up. that would still be considered sold out.

fenway is an awesome place, i suggest visiting it sometime soon.

P.S.- if you ever watch a sox game it looks pretty much sold out..