The Annual Survey of NE Sports Fans is Out. And Now Would be a Good Time for John Henry to Panic

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The ninth annual New England Sports Survey, a poll conducted by Massachusetts firm Channel Media & Market Research, is out. And if you're the owner of the Red Sox, there is not a shred of good news to be had anywhere in it. It's the kind of terrible data that has traditionally sent Sox management running to make reckless, panicky moves like throwing a ton of money at Carl Crawford or Pablo Sandoval in a desperate attempt to change public opinion and keep from lapsing into total irrelevancy. 

But before we get into the results, here's how Channel describes the methodology:

THE FOCUS OF THIS STUDY WAS TO DETERMINE RESPONDENTS’ OPINIONS ABOUT ISSUES RELATED TO THE BOSTON RED SOX, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS, BOSTON BRUINS, BOSTON CELTICS AND NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION. 

CHANNEL MEDIA & MARKET RESEARCH WANTED TO EXAMINE WHAT TEAMS AND PLAYERS FANS ADMIRE, HOW THEY RATE EACH ORGANIZATION, WHAT THEY BELIEVE COULD BE IMPROVED, WHICH SPORTS RADIO AND TV PERSONALITIES AND SHOWS ARE THEIR FAVORITES AND TO POLL THE FANS ON IMPORTANT ISSUES RELATED TO THESE TEAMS. ALMOST 16,000 (15,898 ACTUAL) PEOPLE PARTICIPATED IN THIS RESEARCH AND THIS IS AGAIN ONE OF THE MOST EXTENSIVE SPORTS SURVEYS EVER DONE IN THE NEW ENGLAND REGION. THIS REPORT CONTAINS THE RESULTS OF THE QUESTIONS EACH SURVEY PARTICIPANT ANSWERED AND PROVIDES A UNIQUE LOOK INTO WHAT THE FANS OF NEW ENGLAND REALLY THINK ABOUT THE TEAMS THEY FOLLOW. 

And only people who live in one of the six New England states and over the age of 18 participated.

The first question is the obvious one you would ask in any marketing study. Which is your brand?

OK. Not great for John Henry. Especially after his team won their fourth championship in 14 years just over 24 months ago. And getting less than 25% of the vote in which is essentially a four-team popularity contest isn't the best, but it's pretty much reflective of how the respective sports rank. The NFL is king in the 2020s. And there's no shame in finishing second. 

That's where the decent news pretty much ends. For instance, how is the organization being run in the eyes of Henry's target audience? He doesn't want to know.

Um, when you're tied with the Revolution, a team that is the favorite team of 1/11th as many people as your team, when the vast majority of New Englanders couldn't even tell you when their season begins or ends, that's a full blown, 5-alarm crisis. 

How about ownership itself? How've they done over the past year?

It can't make you feel good to get half the support of the Revs owner. Especially when the Revs owner is on the list twice. Let's rank the guys those owners have hired to run the organization. 

OK, the biggest surprise here is that the GM of the Patriots would be third behind two guys who combined have hoisted 33.3% of the banners he has. But when you're still fresh of losing the best athlete in the history of the city to free agency, there's going to be some PR fallout. The more telling datum is that the man whom John Henry tasked with dismantling the 2018 champions is pulling the same polling numbers as the Libertarian Party candidate. And don't cry for Belichick because:

And because Brady leaving was not appreciably more unpopular than the Mookie Betts trade:

More than anything, John Henry needs to start panicking and panicking hard because his management is trending down in a tailspin it might take a decade of winning to pull out of. 

Those are the kinds of results that cause ecall elections. If Henry was pulling these kinds of grades with his Liverpool team, the public would call for a vote of No Confidence and send them to whatever lesser league the big clubs get sent to when they break bad. I only wish we could do that here. But hopefully this survey and the utter contempt the good people of New England have for the way he's mismanaged this once proud cultural institution will make him want to leave on his own. The public has spoken.