Sam Adams will replace Budweiser as the official beer of the Boston Red Sox starting next month. The eight-year deal with the Boston Beer Company includes visible signage throughout the ballpark, two dedicated bars and perhaps the freshest beer in a Major League ballpark. Fenway, home of the Red Sox, is the less than 4 miles from the brewery.
“We got our start right here in Boston, and for the past three decades we’ve worked our butts off to stay independent and brew great beer,” said Sam Adams’ founder and brewer Jim Koch, who pounded Boston’s pavements around back in the ‘80s to introduce bartenders to his brews.
“As the official beer of the Red Sox, we get to celebrate our New England roots with millions of other fans as soon as the season kicks off,” Koch said. in a press release, calling the deal, “my personal impossible dream come true.”
“Both the Red Sox and Sam Adams are rooted in Boston tradition and history, and Jim Koch and the entire team are as passionate about beer as we are about baseball,” Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy said in a statement.
Sam Adams is the first American craft brewer to enter into a partnership with a Major League Baseball franchise, for this length of time and at this level, the two companies said.
In the last two years, Bud Light sales have declined 5.4% through the end of September, according to The Nielsen Company. According to Benj Steinman, publisher and editor of Beer Marketer’s Insights, the industry’s volume is down 1.8% for the first 9-months of this year and has been down for the past decade.
Published: December 13, 2017
