Seven was the luckiest of numbers for the Atlanta Braves in the third quarter of 2024, as the club capped the seventh straight season in which it advanced to the playoffs with 7% increases in both baseball revenue and total revenue.
In the three-month period ended Sept. 30, Atlanta Braves Holdings boosted baseball revenue to $273.3 million, good for a gain of nearly $17 million versus the year-ago period, while the club’s overall revenue improved $18.9 million to $290.7 million. Those lifts were largely facilitated by increased sponsorship revenues as well as a scheduling quirk that saw the Braves play four more home games during the quarter than was the case during the analogous stretch in 2023.
On the broadcasting front, the Braves generated just shy of $71 million in TV revenue, up 2% compared to $69.3 million. Along with the Miami Marlins, Atlanta is one of just two MLB franchises that have re-upped with Diamond Sports Group’s newly rebranded FanDuel Sports Network RSNs for the 2025 season.
The outside counsel representing MLB in Diamond’s ongoing bankruptcy case has indicated that the league plans to object to Diamond’s resumption of its local TV deal with the Braves. Per court documents filed Tuesday, the deadline for MLB to issue a formal objection to the Braves’ pact is Thursday at 5 p.m. ET, or one week before the company’s scheduled confirmation hearing.
Naturally, the uncertainty surrounding Atlanta’s in-market TV plans is not lost on the front office. “While the pending bankruptcy proceeding of Diamond Sports Group, LLC has not previously had a material unfavorable impact on the company’s revenue, and the company has received scheduled payments to date, we cannot currently predict whether such bankruptcy proceeding is reasonably likely to have a material unfavorable impact on our revenue in the future,” Braves president and CEO Derek Schiller said earlier today at the top of the team’s call with investors.
Schiller went on to say that the club would continue to closely monitor the Diamond situation, with an eye toward keeping its options open, come what may. “We’re not just waiting for bankruptcy to be defining what might happen, but also studying what are the potential opportunities for us,” Schiller said. “We’re going to be prepared for any eventual outcome. No matter what happens, we think we’re in a very enviable position.”
Noting that the Braves benefit from one of the largest regional television footprints in sports—per internal estimates, some 35 million people reside within the club’s defined territory—Schiller said he believes Atlanta is set to “capitalize even further on that territory should those rights come back to us.”
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Baseball operating costs soared 14% on the period to $225.9 million, an increase that coincided with a $30.2 million seasonal payroll increase. On the heels of a record showing a year ago, attendance slipped 5.6% to 3.01 million fans, which marked an overall decline of 179,740 trips through the turnstiles at Truist Park. As was the case last season, the Braves finished fifth among all MLB clubs in home ticket sales, trailing only the Dodgers, Yankees, Phillies and Padres.
Toward the end of Wednesday’s call, chairman Terry McGuirk expressed frustration that legal sports gambling remains off the books in the Braves’ home state. “We continue to put it out there that we would support legalized sports betting,” McGuirk said. “We think it’s good for the game. It’s something that, with regulation, helps with all types of controls to make sure it’s done in the right way as opposed to in the back corners and out of the light.”
In a nod to the state of Missouri, where voters on Tuesday narrowly approved an amendment to legalize wagering on sports, McGuirk went on to add that he’d like to see Peach State pols get back on the legislative horse. (An effort to pass a gambling bill into law failed to earn a two-thirds majority earlier this spring.) “We’ve seen that sports betting is getting legalized throughout the country … so our hope is that the politicians here in Georgia will legalize that and do that, and we’re working closely to see that that happens.”
Neither executive was asked about a potential sale of the Braves, a topic of ongoing speculation that Liberty Media chairman John Malone did his level best to shoot down in a May interview with Sportico. Malone’s denials were unequivocal. “The Braves aren’t for sale, and the corporation that owns the Braves is not for sale,” said Malone, who’s been a key driver of the club’s success since 1987.
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