Q&A:
What does the Comcast-Braves partnership mean? For the Braves, it gives the team an anchor tenant in its nine-story office tower that will overlook SunTrust Park. Comcast will provide fans and patrons with lightning-quick internet service at the stadium and mixed-use development. For Comcast, it will allow the company to brand the signature building in the mixed-use development.
How much will Comcast pay? Financial terms of the sponsorship were not disclosed, but company officials said it would spend "tens of millions of dollars" installing the necessary infrastructure.
How much fiber optic cable will be used? About 50 miles, throughout the development.
What else does the Comcast sponsorship buy? The company's Xfinity brand name will be on a high-tech lounge down the right field line.
Will the deal create jobs? Yes, about 1,000 employees will work in the office tower and most of those jobs will be new.
What will the technology allow fans to do? Even in a sold-out stadium, there will be enough connectivity to allow 40,000 fans to watch video, upload photos to social media, or cruise the web simultaneously.
Is the office tower fully occupied? Yes, the Braves say there will be no other tenants. "We're out of room" in the building, said Braves CEO Terry McGuirk.
Will the Braves build another office building? There are no current plans for that, but McGuirk said he would not rule it out.
Mixed-Use Development:
Here’s a look at the rest of the proposed development:
The Braves will privately fund a $452 million mixed-use development that surrounds its new baseball stadium and be tailored to enhance the fan experience and host a mix of retail, restaurants, residential and a hotel for year-round entertainment. The initial phase of the project will be about 1 million square feet.
The Atlanta Braves took a major step toward fleshing out their new stadium project Tuesday by announcing an agreement with Comcast to move the cable giant’s regional headquarters — and about 1,000 jobs — to an office building overlooking the ballpark.
In addition to delivering a crucial anchor tenant for the mixed-use development that will be built next to SunTrust Park, the deal calls for Comcast to provide cutting-edge Internet connectivity and other technology throughout the stadium and the complex of shops, restaurants, apartments and hotel.
Comcast will occupy the entire nine-story office building, topping it with the company’s name.
The company will extend its presence into the Cobb County stadium, which is slated to open in 2017, as a major Braves sponsor. Comcast’s Xfinity brand name will be attached to a high-tech lounge for fans.
Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts, whose presence for Tuesday’s announcement signaled the significance of the deal to the company, said the Braves project will feature “literally the most technologically sophisticated infrastructure ever put into a project of this size anywhere in the world.”
He added, “There’s nothing like this.”
In a press conference that included talk of gigabits and terabits, Roberts attempted to put the connectivity ambitions into understandable terms: “All 40,000 people could be sitting at the game, want to pull up a 1995 World Series highlight, and every single person on their own … could watch that game (on their mobile devices) in a matter of seconds.”
Financial terms of the agreement were not released, but a Comcast divisional president, Bill Connors, said the company’s investment in the project would be in the tens of million of dollars and ultimately could top $100 million.
Comcast could qualify for millions of dollars in state tax credits for the creation of new, highly paid jobs. “The majority” of the employees in the 200,000-plus square foot office building will be new hires by the company, Roberts said.
Information on potential tax breaks was not immediately available from state officials. Gov. Nathan Deal, who attended the press conference, said he didn’t have the details.
“It’s in no small part due to corporations like the Braves and Comcast that our state can continue to brag about being the No. 1 state in the nation in which to do business,” Deal said.
Comcast currently has more than 4,000 employees in Georgia and expects to have 5,000 when the new office building opens.
The company plans to establish an innovation lab in the building to develop new communications technologies, similar to existing labs in Silicon Valley and Philadelphia, Roberts said.
Braves chairman and CEO Terry McGuirk called the deal a “major milestone” in the stadium project, which he said is “on budget and on schedule.”
“We will create a fan experience unlike any other,” McGuirk said, “(and) a residential, shopping, dining and office experience that will wow the senses.”
While the Braves haven’t announced any deals with retail, restaurant or hotel companies, Comcast’s agreement to take all the space in the office building provides a cornerstone for the mixed-use development and is expected to attract other deals.
But other key concerns remain largely unanswered two years before the stadium’s scheduled opening, particularly regarding traffic and parking around the ballpark.
McGuirk said construction will begin “almost immediately” on the office tower, which he said will open along with the stadium in April 2017. McGuirk said current plans for the mixed-use development don’t include more office space, but he wouldn’t rule out adding other buildings in the future.
“For the present, we hit a home run with Comcast,” McGuirk said.
Connors said Comcast will lease the office space from the Braves.
Derek Schiller, the Braves’ executive vice president of sales and marketing, said landing an anchor tenant is a huge step for the $452 million mixed-use development that is being built in conjunction with the $622 million stadium.
“No American pro sports team has attempted such an ambitious development at the same time it is building a new ballpark,” Schiller said.
Throughout the development, Comcast plans to install 50 miles of fiber optic cable, employ two data centers and 10,000 fiber connections, and back up the whole system with two 400 megawatt generators.
Comcast’s deal is a salvo of its own against Google, which recently announced metro Atlanta as one of its next markets for fiber optic cable and Internet services.
Braves president John Schuerholz, who has 50 years of experience as a baseball executive, marveled at the high-tech plans for the stadium.
“Our facility will be a top-of-the-mountain facility where people can do all they want to do on the Internet while watching a baseball game,” Schuerholz said. “I don’t know that I could do that — I like to (just) watch a baseball game — but young people can do multi-tasking better.”
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