The Fenway Purist: Changes at Fenway Park 2023 to 2025

This year, 2025

First, a few changes on the FenwayPurist site. The grandstand seating charts are all “New and Improved!” with seats shown graphically. Clicking on the thumbnail takes you to a higher resolution image. If you are looking to buy Grandstand seats, either on the Red Sox website or in the secondary market (SeatGeek or StubHub, for example), these charts can help you avoid marginal or even terrible seats and find good or even excellent seats. Each section has a link at the right of the FenwayPurist home page under "Seating Analysis".

A sample of the new charts. Section 16.

Also improved is the article “The Ramps of Fenway”, with behind-the-scenes photos of two out-of-service former ramps.

There were several major changes to Fenway Park before the 2025 season.

——-> This section will be updated soon to show the new things! <———

Fenway Park in 2024

A few changes were made before the 2024 season. Do you remember Gate K, for Kids, next to Gate B? That was rather confusing, and never caught on, so the Gate K sign has been removed.

Gate K is no longer.

Outside the park, near the gates, there are roll-out Fan Information booths where friendly staff answer questions. Adding these was a commendable improvement as there are always first-time visitors who don’t know their way around.

One of the many friendly staff members at the park.

Last year’s on-grass advertising for “Aspiration”, which began in 2022, has been changed to BuildSubmarines.com. This is not, as might seem at first, an employment agency for sandwich shops. This is about serious submarines, nuclear-power serious; it’s about the BlueForge Alliance’s search for 10,000 manufacturing workers needed to build the U.S. Navy’s submarine arsenal. BFA formed a partnership with Major and Minor League Baseball in March 2024.

...nothing to do with Subway or Jersey Mike's.

The State Street Pavilion Club is now the Aura Club. Aura is a company devoted to online safety, offering AI-powered protection for individuals and families. There are lots of new signs reflecting this change, even including a sign over the garage door in the centerfield triangle. In the club restaurant, the buffet was reorganized, with an additional food station offering build-your-own “walking tacos” and Fenway Franks.

One of the decorations in the new Aura Club.

The outdoor concession area behind section 15 is now called the Snapple First Base Deck.

Fenway Park in 2023

A very significant change was the replacement of the John Hancock sign, atop the main videoboard, with a sign for MassMutual. The MassMutual logo is five dots, and on the scoreboard those dots indicate balls and strikes by turning green and red.

Last seen September 2023.

The logo is signalling two balls and two strikes.

Another big change was the replacement of all the lights on the light towers with LED fixtures. Not only do they use less electricity to operate, but they are computer controlled, so they can flash sequentially, dim and brighten, and do a number of fancy effects. This installation was anticipated in my post on “Stadium Creep”, and reflects one additional way in which Fenway is losing an element of purity as has happened continually over the years. The park is following the trends seen in other parks, where various gimmicks keep getting added to sensationalize the fans’ experience.

The light "bulbs" are fewer and larger than before.

Yet another change was the adoption of pitch clocks by MLB. Two were installed in the outfield structures just right and left of center, one in center at a corner of the main videoboard, and two down on the low walls on either side of home plate.

On the light tower on the Monster.

A new concession stand, “Avocados From Mexico”, was added. Curiously, they don’t sell avocados, but presumably there is some guacamole in the Walking Taco, Nacho Bowl, or Super Grande Nacho. And a Gluten-Friendly Ballpark Classics stand was added inside Gate A, selling franks, hamburgers, veggie dogs, salads, and more.