Locally, the Braves’ attendance and TV ratings are down. Nationally, the team’s stock remains high.
The Braves, who called themselves “America’s Team” in the heyday of their telecasts on Ted Turner’s superstation, are the third most popular team in Major League Baseball four years after TBS quit televising their games across the country, according to a nationwide Harris Poll released this week.
The New York Yankees are the most popular team and the Boston Red Sox No. 2, according to the annual poll. The Braves topped the poll for seven consecutive years in the 1990s. Since 2003, they have ranked second or third each year.
Although Braves games no longer are regularly televised outside the Southeast, old attachments resonate in the popularity poll.
“For a lot of years, we were the only baseball team a lot of homes were able to watch,” Braves executive vice president of sales and marketing Derek Schiller said. “Then if you couple that with our success that began in 1991, those two things have worked together quite nicely to give us a very consistent and large national fan base.”
The poll’s latest affirmation of the Braves’ national stature came at the All-Star break of a season in which the team’s home attendance and local TV ratings are down:
The Braves, who resume the season Friday night against the Washington Nationals at Turner Field, rank 15th among the 30 MLB teams with an average attendance of 28,124 through 44 home dates — a decline of 6.2 percent from an average of 29,995 through 40 home dates at last year’s All-Star break. Overall MLB attendance is roughly even with last season at this point.
The Braves’ local TV ratings are down from this point last season and rank around the middle of the pack among MLB teams, according to figures compiled by Sports Business Journal. Braves telecasts on Fox Sports South have posted an average Nielsen rating of 3.7, and the games on SportSouth have posted a 2.77 rating — down 8 percent and 25 percent, respectively, from this point last season, according to Sports Business Journal. The ratings translate to average audiences in the Atlanta TV market of 89,000 homes on Fox Sports South and 67,000 homes on SportSouth.
In the national Harris poll — which asked 2,163 adults, “What is your favorite Major League Baseball team?” — more respondents said the Braves than any team except the AL East rivals Yankees and Red Sox. The Chicago Cubs were voted the fourth favorite team.
The Braves’ national popularity is the after-effect of three decades in which most of their games were televised nationally on TBS (formerly WTCG).
The Braves began calling themselves “America’s Team” shortly after Turner had the novel notion in 1977 of showing his downtrodden team’s games on cable systems nationwide. Broadcaster Ernie Johnson Sr. is believed to have been the first to call the Braves “America’s Team” when he noticed a large contingent of Braves fans at a road game. Turner heard the moniker on the air, liked it and began promoting it.
The ride lasted for three decades before TBS pulled the plug on the Braves after the 2007 season, mainly because the viewership had been eroded by the proliferation of baseball on cable TV. Once the only game in much of America, the Braves had become just another team on television.
Still, the Braves’ enduring national popularity does not surprise Schiller.
“Outside of those teams located right on the border of a state,” he said, “we consistently have one of [MLB’s] highest numbers of ticket sales to out-of-state fans. ... In the summer months, we are a baseball destination vacation for fans.”
While the vast majority of the Braves’ out-of-state ticket sales are to people who live in other Southeastern states, Schiller said ballpark surveys show that fans come to Turner Field from 48 to 50 states in a typical season.
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