What if Baseball's Not in Trouble?
That would be a good thing
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Fear and secrecy. Those are two of the defining characteristics around the business of baseball lately — the business, not the game. (We like to keep those separate.)
There is fear, and it is honestly founded. The regional sports networks that have long carried MLB teams’ broadcasts in their geographical areas — and filled their coffers with fat stacks of cash — are imploding one after the other, the victims of cord-cutting consumers and some of their own harebrained decisions. Think Bally Sports (now FanDuel Sports Network), NBC Sports regional, etc.
Baseball doesn’t yet have its alternatives sussed out for these fading enterprises, and for now that means the potential erosion of local revenue streams. Throw in ESPN’s decision to quit the league rather than continue to pay $550 million a year for the rights to Sunday Night Baseball, the wild-card round and the Home Run Derby, and you’ve got a legitimate basis to be concerned that your favorite team might just run out of money.
We don’t know much more than that, though, because of the secrecy. MLB franchises are largely privately held, and they share astonishingly little about their finances until it’s time to try to win a P.R. battle with the players union — and even then, you have to discount 50% of anything they claim, because it is so obviously tied to a bargaining position. Otherwise and usually, you get bupkis in the way of reliable intel.
So — fear and secrecy.
And then along come the Atlanta Braves.
Who tell all.
And you know what? It’s actually pretty encouraging.
When I said that MLB teams are “largely” private, I meant everybody in the league except Atlanta. The Braves are owned by Liberty Media, but they exist as a separate and publicly traded company. As such, Braves Holdings, as the company is known, is required to report earnings to shareholders.
It did so earlier this week, and The Athletic’s Evan Drellich reported in detail what was said. (Here’s a link to Evan’s story, although it’s paywalled.) And I’m not kidding when I say it was good news.
In short, the Braves are just fine. Their broadcasting revenue went up in 2024 versus the year before, despite the chaos in the industry. Their baseball revenue in general went up, and so did their mixed-use development revenue (the stuff they’ve built on the land they own around Truist Park, their home field). Overall, they reported a $40 million profit on $663 million in revenue, both increases from the year before.
Further, Braves chairman Terry McGuirk told investors on the earnings call, the end of the ESPN relationship isn’t that big a deal in the scope of things. “The ESPN-MLB breakup is getting really outsized public scrutiny,” McGuirk said, according to The Athletic. “I really think that from the Atlanta Braves’ standpoint, this is a non-event. It will have no effect whatsoever on our economics.”
The Braves had a top-10 payroll last season at about $276 million. This season, they’re starting at around $235 million, but McGuirk made it sound like that will grow. He said the Braves went into the competitive balance tax in each of the last two years and could well do so again this season despite getting swept by the Padres in the 2024 wild card round for their trouble.
Why would they do this? Because they want to continue trying to win.
And because, let’s face it, it all pencils out.
Here’s the encouraging part:
…Wait. I’ll let the head of the players union say it for me.
“So a team outside a top-five media market without a massive local TV deal can run a $280 million payroll, lose in the wild-card round, and still make a $40 million profit?” asked Tony Clark, leader of the Major League Baseball Players Association . “And that doesn’t account for other revenue — never mind that their overall franchise value has gone up over $900 million in just three years.”
That last part is true, at least according to Forbes, which valued the Braves at $1.9 billion in 2021 and $2.8 billion last year. And although Tony Clark said these things the way he did was because he, too, is gearing up for the next labor negotiation, the rest of us can still feel uplifted by what this suggests for the sport.
Yes, the medium- and long-term broadcasting rights situation is fluid. Yes, the industry has to figure out how to protect local telecasts so that you’ll always be able to watch your team in your market. But MLB is clearly still healthy, if not outright thriving.
The Atlanta Braves spend a lot on payroll, don’t have a huge local TV deal, don’t own the world’s coolest ballpark, and still make money year over year — which, by the way, isn’t even the point of owning a major sports franchise. (You usually make your killing when you sell, not while you’re actively owning.)
That is a picture of a growing tree, not a dying one. That’s terribly good news for everybody, but especially the fans who want to know their teams can try to compete. Good on the Braves for making the news public, even if it’s only because they had to.
As someone in my own career space once said, in a heated moment of contract negotiations, “Take the money away and we’ll all go do something else.”
Good to know MLB remains in good financial shape…despite all the posturing, and the fact that the numbers are totally unrelatable to the average person…baseball is still fun (and God only knows we need that).