Business, like baseball, is a numbers game. So if you want to see the Braves’ move the way they see it, numbers are key.
Let’s start with the fact that in business terms, the Braves have been doing quite well at Turner Field. Attendance this year grew by an average of almost 1,600 fans per game, and annual attendance was higher than at any point since 2007, the year the team was purchased by Liberty Media.
As estimated by Forbes magazine, the value of the Braves franchise has also jumped from $405 million in 2006 to $629 million today. That’s a 55 percent increase. The Dow Jones Industrial Average may have set a record high this week, but since 2006 it has grown by a mere 30 percent.
That’s why, back in May, Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei told Wall Street analysts that the Braves have been a “better investment than we might have originally anticipated.” Outperforming the Dow almost 2 to 1 ain’t bad. Add in the fact that next year, the Braves and the rest of baseball will begin collecting twice as much money from new national TV contracts with Fox, ESPN and TBS, and the picture becomes even brighter.
So why is the Braves ownership so dissatisfied? Because they think they can do a whole lot better. Since 2006, the value of the Minnesota Twins franchise has increased by 167 percent, or three times as fast as that of the Braves. Since 2006, the value of the Miami Marlins has jumped by 130 percent. And that’s almost solely because they now play in new stadiums heavily subsidized by taxpayers.
So when the Braves look at Cobb County, they see an opportunity to at least double the value of their $629 million franchise, and do so with a very hefty taxpayer subsidy. When Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said last week that he could not have made a competitive offer to keep the Braves at the Ted, he was right.
Optimists that we are, baseball fans like to hope that with new stadiums and soaring revenues, grateful team owners would at least return the favor by expanding payrolls and field better teams. But no, it rarely works that way.
Again, look at the Braves. The value of the franchise has soared and operating revenues have jumped by $53 million a year since 2006, Forbes reports. Yet despite that prosperity, the Braves’ 2013 payroll was lower than it was seven years ago. Corporations aren’t people, and Liberty Media has no emotional investment in the Braves.
Likewise, Minnesota and Miami are making a LOT more money, but they’re not putting a dime of it on the field. The Twins finished 27 games off their division lead this season, while the Marlins finished 34 games back. The Twins aren’t spending any more on players than they were before their new stadium, and the Marlins have actually slashed payroll substantially.
I’ve been a big baseball fan ever since I can remember; I’m fully invested in the game’s romance, beauty and lore. And of course the baseball industry, the football industry and basketball industry have every right to monetize the passion that their products excite in their fans.
But at a time when we’re firing teachers and slashing food stamps and refusing to invest in basic transportation infrastructure, there’s something wrong about using that same excitement to transfer taxpayer dollars into the pockets of billionaires. I don’t blame the Braves and Falcons and other teams for doing it — again, to them it’s just business. I blame the rest of us for letting our skewed sense of priorities be manipulated to our own detriment.
Like Dan Uggla, we see that 0-2 slider coming low and away, and we flail at it every time.
