Atlanta Braves BamTech Windfall More of a Dust Devil
By Fred Owens
Who Gets The Money?
At Liberty Media’s stockholder’s meeting this week one of the stockholders ask how much money they (the Braves) would get? Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffe said no official word had been provided but, “. . . … it’s a billion dollars going in and maybe roughly half of that may be distributed (to the 30 MLB teams). So it’s not a huge amount of money when you divide it by 30 teams.”
I guess that depends on what you consider a huge amount of money but a little math based on the $500M assumptions makes the number $16,666,666.67 or enough to pay this year’s salary + bonuses for Freddie Freeman, Julio Teheran and Arodys Vizcaino or one year’s AAV for Ryan Zimmerman.
Another Stockholder Meeting Note
Only one other question connected to the Braves was raised and it is only connected indirectly. Maffe was asked about the construction of the new ballpark and entertainment district and whether the Braves have space for future development around The Battery Atlanta.
"“We’re a little behind budget, something we’ve known for a while largely because of the act of taking out the earth. . . It had more rocks. . .More blasting (was required) than expected, than I was expecting, so that was expensive — $30 million, that number, but not crazy . . . We have some other land opportunities out there, but we are building out The Battery, which is really quite impressive. . . (The Battery Atlanta project is) really very impressive what’s going to be there, and I think it’ll take a while to absorb that. But we do have some optionality down the road.”"
That’s A Wrap
Construction is on time and close enough to budget not to be a concern. I mean what’s $30M among friends right?
Next: Ask Ben Anything... no really ask him. . .about minor league ball
The Braves will get some pocket change from the sale eventually but not enough to make a difference.
The real benefit when they start getting their share or the ancillary businesses at The Battery Atlanta. When and how much that will be there’s no way of knowing but it is coming.