It was a great year for the Atlanta Braves on the field and that led to some big gains money-wise off the field for the organization.
As the owners and players fight over how much money they’re going to make, the Atlanta Braves and Liberty Media showed what’s possible.
The Braves are one of two teams that are publicly owned and therefore their numbers are public. And as owners try to tell the players and the public how baseball isn’t profitable, the numbers released on Friday don’t help their argument.
Do not believe the lie that baseball teams are not extremely profitable ventures. They are. And the financials of the Atlanta Braves, as @EricFisherSBG noted, illustrate that. A $104 million profit in 2021. A $6 million-per-game revenue stream. As a business, baseball is superb. pic.twitter.com/OXlMCdOKNn
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) February 25, 2022
Now granted, not every team shared the same success as the Braves in 2021. They were one of the first teams to fully open up the stadium, they drew the second-most fans in all of baseball with over 2.3 million (nearly 30,000 a game), and they won the World Series.
Still, the numbers show that owning a baseball team is highly profitable, to the tune of $104 million in 2021 for Liberty Media.
On top of that, Liberty Media reported they’re already on pace to sell the most tickets before a season in the team’s history.
Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei said on a conference call today that the Braves have sold their most season tickets since 2000. Braves CEO Derek Schiller previously told the AJC that the team has sold its "most overall tickets in well over 20 years."
— Tim Tucker (@JTimTucker) February 25, 2022
Why Aren’t Braves Making it Rain
When your team just announced they made bank — and that doesn’t even include money generated from The Battery — and they’re set to make more in 2022 with ticket sales bigger than ever, why aren’t they letting the cash rain?
Why are the Braves penny-pinching their franchise player in Freddie Freeman?
Those are great questions and ones I don’t have the answers to.
I will say, Alex Anthopoulos has been very wary of not getting stuck with any bad contracts and has been unwilling to go more than four years on any free agent.
It’s a wise philosophy as more often than not those contracts turn into disasters.
But it’s still time to see the Braves payroll closer to $200 million than $150 million. You can’t hide those numbers. This team is built to win now and in the future, it’s time to make it rain.