In his first comments of the 2026 season, Red Sox owner John Henry weighed in on the "sell the team" chants at Fenway Park and the Red Sox' slow start.
There have been few teams more disappointing in the first month of the season than the Boston Red Sox, who enter Monday night's series opener against the Detroit Tigers at 13-21 and in last place in the American League East. Boston is one of two teams to have already made a managerial change, despite making that change, principal owner John Henry was not made available for questions. On Monday afternoon, Henry broke his silence in an email interview conducted by Sports Business Journal.
Henry, who used to conduct annual media availability sessions ahead of Red Sox spring training in Fort Myers, has not spoken to the media since Boston dealt former MVP Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers in February of 2020, over six years ago.
According to Joon Lee, Henry became disillusioned with speaking with the media after a 2016 scrum in Fort Myers, where Henry admitted that the team may be overly reliant on their analytical models. "When the news conference ended, Henry returned to the team’s executive suite in Fort Myers, Florida. 'I put my foot in my mouth again,' he told a room of executives, according to a source who was present. “I need to stop doing press conferences.” Lee wrote.
Henry has been very present around the 2026 Red Sox team, seen in Cincinnati for Opening Day and around Fenway Park, including the first home stand of the season, where NESN cameras captured his reaction to fans chanting "sell the team." He was even featured in a social media post signing autographs outside Fenway Park. As most owners would be, he was present in Baltimore when the Red Sox made the shocking decision to fire manager Alex Cora. Despite being present when Team President Sam Kennedy and Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow met with the media, Henry did not appear for questioning, with Kennedy saying, "Craig and I have a job to do, and this is our job."
While he has not been available for in-person questions, Henry has conducted several email interviews with different outlets. The latest of which comes on Monday afternoon, in the Sports Business Journal, where he addressed chants calling for him to sell the team.
"Fans get frustrated,” Henry told SBJ's Bill King, “The Sox looked terrible for (their) first 25 games. I remember a plane flying overhead when we (Liverpool) were beating Manchester United 7-0 that read ‘FSG OUT!’ It doesn’t mean you ignore them, it means you work harder – you don’t settle for mediocrity. You have to win," he continued.
Despite fans' increased calls for a change in ownership, it appears Henry has no desire to sell the team, telling the Financial Times in a 2024 email interview, "We are committed to the city, the region. So the Sox are not going to come up for sale."
If the team is not going to be posted for sale, Henry will have to heed his own advice, work harder, and not settle for mediocrity, as four World Series titles, the most recent of which is nearly a decade old, only buys you so much goodwill in a city with expectations like Boston.
The Red Sox will open a three-game series in Detroit with the Tigers on Monday night. First pitch from Comerica Park set for 6:10 p.m. ET.
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