Boston baseball fans have spent years watching the Red Sox ship out beloved stars like they were clearing expired milk off supermarket shelves. Now, one Senate candidate has learned the hard way that taking a swing at ownership on the team’s own network is apparently a bridge too far.
Democratic Senate hopeful Graham Platner had his campaign commercial booted off New England Sports Network after the ad torched Fenway Sports Group — the same corporate empire that owns both the Red Sox and NESN. Awkward.
The 15-second spot leaned hard into fan frustration over the team’s direction, accusing private equity interests of hollowing out institutions Americans actually care about — from housing to hospitals to hometown baseball clubs.
“Private equity has destroyed our favorite baseball team, stripping them for parts,” Platner says in the ad. “Private equity is buying up our homes, our sports, and our lives. I will reverse the private equity curse. I’m Graham Platner and I approved this message because I miss Mookie Betts.”
And honestly? In Boston, “I miss Mookie Betts” may be the closest thing to a bipartisan platform anyone’s heard in years.
According to reports, the ad aired during Saturday’s Red Sox broadcast before mysteriously disappearing halfway through the game. Platner quickly jumped online to accuse the network of pulling the plug after the criticism landed too close to the luxury suites. The New York Times reports NESN later confirmed it removed the commercial over what it described as “credible concerns” involving unauthorized intellectual property.
Or, somebody in corporate apparently didn’t appreciate seeing the Red Sox font used to roast Red Sox ownership.
NESN claimed the ad violated advertising standards and included improper use of third-party intellectual property, though the network declined to specify exactly what crossed the line. The campaign’s use of lettering closely resembling the iconic Red Sox branding likely triggered the complaint.
Still, the whole episode handed Platner something money can’t buy: free publicity and a perfect populist talking point. Nothing screams “outsider candidate” quite like getting bounced off the hometown sports network for criticizing billionaire ownership.
To be fair, Red Sox principal owner John Henry isn’t exactly presiding over baseball’s version of the Cleveland Browns. Since buying the club in 2001, the Sox have captured four World Series championships — more than any Major League Baseball team over that stretch.
But in Boston, championships from a decade ago only buy so much patience.
Fans are still furious over the 2020 trade that shipped superstar Mookie Betts to Los Angeles, a move many saw as ownership pinching pennies instead of paying generational talent. The anger only intensified after the team later dealt slugger Rafael Devers and repeatedly avoided major free-agent spending sprees while division rivals loaded up.
Now the Sox sit buried in last place in the AL East, and the front office’s reputation with fans is somewhere between “deeply unpopular” and “hide John Henry from the North End parade crowd.”
Platner’s ad may have vanished from the airwaves, but the frustration behind it hasn’t.
