After years of bitter rivalry, will the Red Sox finally lose their heated arms race with the hated Yankees?

Thanks to their giant new Bronx stadium, the Yankees appear poised to pull even farther ahead in the serious revenue race between the two arch rivals.

After a bumpy opening in the depths of the worst recession in generations, the new Yankee Stadium is already proving to be a money maker, say industry executives with knowledge of the franchise’s finances.

Meanwhile, John Henry’s Red Sox ownership group, as it heads into a grim winter after the humiliating sweep by the Angels, appears to have finally run out of ways to wring more dollars out of the antique Fenway Park.

Hence the recent departure of Janet Marie Smith, the architect who oversaw the transformation of the 1912 ballpark into one of sports’ most classically stunning – and lucrative – venues.

But life is all about where you are headed, not where you’ve been. And when it comes to the potential for bringing in new revenue, the Yankees now seem to have gained a crucial edge.

For the Sox, the choices, if they want to keep up, include large-scale – and potentially controversial – new development around Fenway Park.

“They have had an edge on the Sox, and this probably enhances it a little bit,” said Andrew Zimbalist, the Smith College economist and sports business expert.

The Yankees’ new $1.5 billion luxury seating palace has absorbed its share of ridicule since opening this spring.

With its gold-plated front-row seats and focus on catering to the richest of baseball fans, the stadium at times has appeared out of synch with the new and more frugal economic age it was born into.

In a signal the Yankees’ front office may have overshot the market on some of its ticket prices, the team slashed the cost of many of its seats.

The obnoxious “Legends Suite” took the biggest hit, with the team shaving the cost of a seat from $2,500 a game down to $1,500.

That said, the Yankees managed to fill more than 80 percent of the seats this season in their new, 52,000-seat-plus stadium.

After debt service costs of roughly $50 million and other expenses, the new stadium still made money for the Yanks – and lots of it, industry executives say.

The team, in a bond prospectus put out during the financing of the stadium, projected $253 million in ticket-and-suite revenues. (Not counting tens of millions more in additional sponsorship dollars and concessions revenue.) That number, based on 79 percent capacity, was a big increase over the roughly $160 million generated by the old stadium, Fortune reports.

That, of course, is in the midst of the worst downturn in decades, one that has hit New York’s high-rollers on Wall Street particularly hard.

As the economy rebounds, there will be lots of room for growth.

Earlier and more optimistic projections before last fall’s near financial meltdown had some, like Crain’s New York Business, predicting new ticket and suite revenue soaring past the $300 million mark.

“The Yankees are in the biggest market in the country with the most significant sports brand on the planet,” said Marc Ganis, head of Chicago-based SportsCorp. and a sports business expert. “If you invest in both capacity and in human resources, you will do well.”

That number, in turn, should be sobering to the Red Sox.

The Sox under Henry and his all-pro chief executive, Larry Lucchino, have significantly expanded the franchise’s revenue based over the past seven years.

Years of fixing up Fenway have boosted the capacity of what is still baseball’s smallest ballpark to just under 40,000. The addition of ever-more-expensive suites and seats, in turn, has likely yielded tens of millions in new revenue.

But the Sox still lag – total team revenues are roughly equal to the $253 million the Yankees are taking in from ticket and suite sales alone at their new baseball showcase.

And here’s more bad news for the Olde Towne Team: Fenway, when it comes to new sources of untapped revenue, is just about maxed out.

When the Sox and Smith parted ways this summer, team officials pointed to the completion of the years-long Fenway revamp she had overseen.

There are simply no more hidden nooks and crannies in baseball’s oldest and smallest ballpark to cram in additional high-priced seats.

Lucchino, in a recent interview, downplayed the business/ballpark competition between the league’s two arch rivals. He called Fenway and the Yankees’ new lair “two different flavors of ice cream.”

And, of course, team business executives are busy using the ballpark to bring in all sorts of non-baseball revenue, from concerts to an NHL game.

Still, when it comes to finding major new revenue sources, the Sox are not totally without options.

As they look to keep within striking distance of the Yankees financially, the Sox could borrow a page from the Patriots and develop the real estate around their ballpark.

Certainly, there’s development potential – and lots of it – in all those parking lots and run-down commercial buildings the team has amassed.

Think Red Sox Place, with an urban chic and glamour missing from the Patriots’ suburban retail spread.

But getting there is no touchdown drive.