This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given the organization’s recent on-field success and intense ballpark development efforts, but the Braves have announced a new club record in 2019 revenue. As Erick Jackson of the Atlanta Business Chronicle writes, the team’s total revenue rose to $476MM last year — up from $442MM in 2018.
Why are we only covering this sort of information from the Braves? The Atlanta organization is the only team in baseball that is required legally to release its financials, by virtue of the fact that it’s owned by the publicly traded Liberty Media corporation.
The numbers reflect an eight percent rise in baseball-related revenue, with the team’s development-side earnings holding steady at $38MM. Increases at the gate and in television revenue were cited by the organization as driving the gains.
As the Braves attempt to defend their two-straight NL East titles in 2020, they’ll do so with a payroll increase on the books. The club did finish the 2019 season with just over $136MM in salary obligations, representing the third-straight increase in end-of-season spending, but had done so after opening with only a ~$115MM payroll. As things stand for 2020, there’s about $147.5MM on the books for the season to come. (All of these numbers reflect the cash accounting set forth by Cot’s on Contracts.)
Those increases in MLB roster spending will obviously impact the bottom line. Indeed, the club had already reported significant increases in its operating expenses in 2019. But as Jackson notes, that’s due to the ongoing efforts in and around the ballpark — the intention of which, clearly, is to support long-term revenue growth.
And they lead all their fans to believe they were gonna resign Donaldson when it was never a consideration for them. Filthy rich and lying to their consumers. Corp America for ya !
They resigned him. I think fans believed they were going to re-sign him too. Those ones were wrong.
I applaud AA not going over three years for JD.
You should boycott Corporate America, starting with your internet access.
we’ll do it just as soon as every whiny christian in america drops theirs (since computers, internet, and electricty isn’t found anywhere in the bible, and those types want to live like their fairy tale book says).
Just like lefties.. Swap out argument where one side wasn’t complaining.. Left has gone off their rockers last decade plus, ever since the “enlightened one” started babbling about supposed ills of the country.
@mfm420:
I don’t know why you had to bring religion into it. This is a baseball site. And you don’t seem to be a very tolerant person.
Coexist.
@mfm420Jesus loves you.
you mean those socialists who get the big free government money to build ball parks so they can profit…
The whole point of owning a business is to make profit. Without corporate America you wouldn’t have the device you’re reading this on.
The record earnings comes along with record payroll. They are spending about 30% of their revenue in player salaries. I’m willing to bet at least half of the league spends a smaller percentage of revenues on players.
That’s done wonders for our prison and healthcare systems.
Usually a american sport Team spend 50-60% in revenue
Source?
If you believe Forbes.
2019 NYY Revenue – $668M
2019 NYY Payroll (Cots) – $226M
That’s 34%
Yanks would love to put a $334M Team at The ground but is too punitive system to a practice like that
@sidbream1991 You’d be very mistaken
reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/a3e759/the_percent_…
The point isn’t corporate America — it is what it has become. Corporations used to have roles intended to benefit the public as a whole. Does anyone think that is the case anymore? CEO pay has grown 1,000% in the last 40 years and they now make 278 times the average worker. And these corporations show little allegiance to their fan base or the community they are a part of (or do so for PR reasons). I could go on and on. Yes, the purpose of owning a business is to make a profit. But at what cost? How much is enough?
Let me guess, you have an amazon prime account, a Costco membership, regularly fuel up at corporate gas stations, and shop at corporate grocery stores though even though you’re a keyboard warrior against them? Oh and probably pay for tickets and cable packages to watch your favorite corporate teams. GTFO with your liberal ass points my man.
and let me guess, you (like so many cons) still give disney, amazon, target, etc.. all your money despite hating them for liking lgbtq people.
hypocrites gonna hypocrite
@Tipsy:
“How much is enough?”
As much as they want. It’s their business and it’s no one else’s place to tell them how to run it.
Wrong. Most teams spend closer to 50% of gross revenue on MLB payroll. Some even more like the Nationals at nearly 60%. Only a few have ever been under 40% by the end of a season.
They also have 1-ply in the restrooms, launder jock-straps ONLY if it doesn’t pass the sniff-test, reseal water bottles and soda is $1 in the clubhouse.
@Koamalu – you have no idea if that is true or not because ownership doesn’t open the books up for people to see and potentially scrutinize.
Actually a lot of the technology that we are using comes from government funded research not corporate America.
Nonsense. Sports teams are billionaire’s play toys. They’re not regular businesses that live or die on profit margin. To get into the club to even own one of these teams you have to show how obscenely rich you are. media deals, licensing arrangements and gate revenue make certain that every team in this league is pulling in plenty enough money to spend well over $150 million in salary. Especially when the added payroll increases excitement and that excitement leads to additional revenue boosts. Stop with the repeating of poor me billionaire talking points. They use those to codify people not going after them when they decide to cheap out and just try to collect money from the loyalty of fans they don’t appreciate. It much like most of the ways the media they own do, are there to pacify the throngs and keep the torches and pitchforks away. Instead they have people attacking the players as greedy rather than them when they get dramatically larger takes than the players, hence why none of them feel truly compelled to open the books up for the public to see.
Even the smaller market teams are doing way better than they let on. Smaller TV contracts or not, they all get a piece of the national TV pie, They all get huge amounts in licensing revenue. If they bother to try to compete, they also get the benefits of boosts to those first two things (for regional TV, in upcoming contract negotiations) as well as ticket sale increases. It’s a fairly simple economy. Spend more, get people excited that you’re trying to win, reap the benefits.
Some of the owners would rather just sit on their hands and steal revenue sharing money without putting a dime back into their team.
“Spend more” gets you all those benefits? Tell that to Jacoby Ellsbury and co.
Casual fans think they should of given him 5-6 years.
As it turns out from a business perspective it would be a pretty risky move to give a 34 year old a 5-6 year deal since mlb deals are guaranteed.
But explaining that to most fans about age, production from offense and defense, etc would go over most their heads cause they aren’t getting what they want to happen…..i.e. braves resigning their favorite player.
No one would’ve had to give him 5-6 years. He essentially inked a 4 yr deal, with a 5th yr option for relative peanuts. All things equal, he would’ve returned to Atlanta.
Ozuna is capable of replacing Donaldson’s offensive numbers. Braves are gonna be fine. They have some very good players who are probably going to get even better. Braves should still be the favorites to win the NL East. They probably have one of the best bullpens in MLB now.
LMFAO. “Ozuna is capable of replacing Donaldson’s offensive numbers” Thanks for a great laugh.
Donaldson – 127 OPS+ last season. 135 OPS+ career avg
Ozuna – 107 OPS+ last season. .112 OPS+ career avg
Donaldson has been 20% better than Ozuna on offense.
Why would you try to say something so completely out of touch with reality?
“Ozuna is capable” is a valid opinion, probably a bit optimistic, but not as ridiculous as you make it sound.
The whole point of owning a business is to generate profit. Corporate America is responsible for your quality of life, including whatever device you’re reading this on.
The record earnings have been accompanied by record payroll. The Braves are spending 30% of revenue on players. I’m willing to bet at least half the league spends less.
@sidbream1991 You’d be very mistaken
reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/a3e759/the_percent_…
Let’s go with some updated numbers. According to Forbes, MLB brought in $10.7 billion in revenue in 2019. Divided by 30 teams, that’s an average of $357 million. According to Spotrac, the average 2020 payroll is $130 million. $130/$357 = 0.36 or 36%.
Forbes says the total revenue came from industry sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The number seems reasonable to me given the average revenue. The average payroll reported by Spotrac seems reasonable as well given the numbers they published for each team.
oh good grief. they signed just about every other FA on the market and may have dodged a bullet if JD declines. no pleasing some fans…
Please go back and read what AA had to say about Donaldson. Dude is pitch-perfect in expressing the desire, while keeping fans aware of the very real aspect of reality (i.e. that it might not happen). He stated SO MANY times that they were going to make their best pitch to him, but wouldn’t go past their comfort level. And considering how well Donaldson’s agent worked free agency to get more dollars than initially expected – that’s not a shock to anyone that follows the business of baseball.
How much do teams spend on minor leagues, travel, spring training, staff, advertisement and a hundred other things?
I don’t know how much it cost to operate a team, but Disney was a public company, they won a World Series with the Angels, they had to sell the team because it wasn’t profitable and they lost over 100 million dollars.
I don’t think these teams make nearly the money people think they make.
They didn’t have to sell the Angel’s in 2003. They were taking advantage of the Angel’s being worth more than they paid for them being they were the World Champs.
They have have other people to pay besides the players. Plus other expenses outside of payroll. It doesn’t mean all that extra money could have been put into more payroll. We don’t even know how much extra there was.
“Filthy rich and lying to their consumers.” So Filthy rich that the Braves Group had a $25 million loss in 2018 and based on the operating loss of $44 million that was reported, likely double that in 2019.
That is a pretty uninformed thing to say. The Braves didn’t lose any money. They made it hand over fist.
MLB dictates that no more than 25% of revenue can be in debt service (what they owe for their ballpark) and operating expenses.
The most any team spent on baseball operations (everything from baseball academies to amateur signings to minor league salaries and expenses, to coaches and trainers, to scouts, to all FO personnel salaries, to all equipment that is used in baseball operations) was $100 million in 2018. That team was not the Braves. In fact, they were not in the top 5 in Baseball Operations expenses,
The Braves could spend $238 million on MLB and 40 man roster payroll, player benefits, and related CBT expenses and still break even or make a small profit.
That’s just not true. The Braves did everything possible to sign Josh, but with his injury history and age the Braves were very smart in not offering him the years he wanted. Personally I wouldn’t have offered more than 2 years. You dont risk 100+ million on an aging player with a history of being injured. Can’t tell you how many guys put up huge numbers in contact yearss, getting a huge contract then not live up to what he was paid. I’m not confident in Camargo nor Riley and think we end up having to trade for a good 3rd baseman. But no way Josh is worth what the Twins gave him and I’m betting he misses atleast 25+ games this season and more.
Show me where Alex Anthopoulus said, “We are going to re-sign Josh Donaldson.”
He wasn’t worth what he got period…
Look at the bright side.
At least they’re not like Attanasio and claiming they lost money last year.
What does Attanasio have to do with this? As the owner of the SMALLEST market team in all of MLB with the highest payroll in team history, he may very well have lost money last year. Quite honestly, Attanasio is one of the few “good guys” among the owners. Weird name to pick out of the hat. Try using Tom Ricketts as an example if you want to make that point
Beautiful ball park. San Francisco has a better setting, but the Braves have the better park.
We are spoiled in the NL West. The Giants and Padres have great waterfront stadiums. SF is obviously more near to the water than SD. People who haven’t been to Dodger Stadium overlook it. If they were there to see the sun set over the San Gabriel Mointains and Chavez Ravine, they’d know why we fans love the stadium so much. Coors isn’t all that bad (I’ve only seen it from the outside), but on TV the field itself looks nice. Unfortunately we also have the Diamondbacks and their Costco-like stadium. (Get it together, guys).
Hey now, Dbacks have the churro dog. Their stadium does suck tho.
I’ve been to Petco and never saw the water. It’s because you face directly away from it and if you do look behind, all you see are railroad tracks and a Hilton blocking the view.
Here’s hoping the A’s can get their stadium built, it looks like it could be pretty great
This team is really really good, I had them better than the Dodgers before they got Mookie, but now it’s the Dodger’s LEAGUE to lose. BTW the Braves bullpen will be scarily dominate behind the Braves eh rotation, I just hope that they don’t get overworked.
If you taken accounting course, you should know revenue means jack. Need to look at income statement, roi, roe and financial statements
revenue is still an important tool. it forms the foundation of most of those numbers. maybe not as usefull alone, but still well useful.
Revenue is like RBIs. It doesn’t tell the whole story, but it’s hard to win without.
Very true, but they have a significant advantage of being a small-market team, with a lot of revenue. If they aren’t one of the most financially sound organizations, they need a a new financial division.
the Braves are not a “small-market team”
They aren’t small- market? I didn’t think that they were big-market, ie, Yankees & Red Sox. If I’m wrong, my sincerest apologies.
How about medium market? Small would be Cincinatti or Cleveland.
Okay, fair enough. My intention was to point out they’re not a big-market team. I looked at it from a binary perspective when that’s not necessarily accurate.
Marlins payroll in 2020 is $46M so far – ATL is $100M higher (franchise record) with PHI/WSH/NYM all higher than that. ATL is mid-market, but definitely not small market.
You are correct in your thoughts, AND the braves were spending on their new park which would significantly decrease Net Income and ROI yet they still went and increased payroll by $12MM to improve their team. Kudos to them.
Operating income through Q3 was at 6 million, and with a revenue of 34 million in Q4, profits as a whole aren’t likely to be substantial, at all.
Operating loss of $44 million for the year.
They’re a medium-to-big market team with small market ownership.
Take one less accounting course and add in an English course.
Yet, they are fielding a bad team.
Not so sure they are fielding a bad team… they seem pretty darn good to me, but I’m just one opinion.
Dude, seriously? The NL East Champs fortifies the bullpen (probably the best in the NL) and only lost JD but replaced him with Ozuna. Riley and Camargo will contribute at a high rate.
This guy thinks that an aging pitcher who hasn’t been dominant in 3 or so years is the key to getting over the hump. His thoughts and ideas on the Braves are terrible. It’s as if he does not watch the games.
A bad team? Why does everyone have to overstate? Why can’t we just have intelligent comments that are close to reality? If you’re going to make a point try making one that’s arguable. If you’d said the FO and ownership hadn’t pushed hard enough to better their odds of winning a WS that’s a fair opinion even if not everyone agrees. But saying their a bad team isn’t a take worth debating because it’s just not based on anything factual. “Bad” may be a loose term but shouldn’t be attributed to the Braves by anyone
Also to be truthful most fans are hypocrites with short memories. Complain when their teams don’t take risks in free agency(most notable additions are high risk)but when they do and it ends up holding down the team they do a 180 and complain a year or two later how reckless they were. I’m a Cards fan and it can be frustrating I get it but I’ve seen it work and I’ve decided to live with it and enjoy being relevant every year and having a punchers chance at a WS. Every handful of years things align a little better and you have a better shot. You’re seeing a number of teams including the Braves(in my opinion)starting to take this approach. The more revenue brought in the more a team like the Dodgers, RS, Yankees, etc can take but even they have shown some restraint over these last 3-5 years. Even the Yankees let off the gas a few years to build what they have and be in a position to make an enormous risk in signing Cole. The Braves have done really well on top of that by locking up some key young players to extensions.
He’s mad the Braves didn’t sign Madbum.
Guys, I don’t think he reads replies anymore. He just wants to come on here and post his undefendable views such as his unrealistic views of Bumgarner.
And yet you field bad comments as usual.
What were the expenses? Is this total net revenue or just revenue?
I wonder if reading the article would answer these for you?
The article doesnt answer that Dave-
There are many expenses, but it sounds like the extra expenses are really future investments to the surrounding area that they will probably pass off as expenses to blind eyes
From the looks of it All is well for the Braves financially in all aspects
The article actually DOES answer that. The expenses went up $75 million from $265 million to $340 million. So while revenue increased by $34 million, the expenses increased by more than double that.
If you consider them expenses at all that is…
More likely they should be considered very safe/ smart investments….theres a big difference imo…..these “expenses” will probably bring back ten-fold the amount of money that went out
That’s crazy talk.
It is just gross revenue,. Typically MLB Payroll can account for half of revenue for all but the top 3 teams in revenue and the team will still be profitable.
MLB dictates that only a certain percentage of revenue can be operating expenses (cost of maintaining the ballpark and other team facilities, the cost other than players and other baseball related team personnel of putting on a game, and other miscellaneous costs) and debt service, so no team can spend more than 25% of revenue on those two items.
Typically everything in the baseball operations side of the business from academies in the DR, amateur signing bonuses, minor league salary and other expenses like meals and medical, coaches and trainers through all levels, all FO personnel, all support personnel, and travel make up a maximum of $100 million for any team.
Hope that answers your question, .
Brand new beautiful stadium – Check
Sign your 2 young stars to great deals- check
Record Revenue – Check
Contention window- Double check
Call us when you land safe Josh….thanks for the profits!
Well put
LM does not make profit from the braves.
I guess one of the most expensive average ticket price in baseball doesnt hurt either.
Where are you getting that from? Because at $56, they’re not even in the top 10.
statista.com/statistics/193673/average-ticket-pric…
I don’t know if we need strike 4 since we have dynamite drop to spew his constant racism poison.
Great!
So now everyone knows how successful tanking is so more teams will do it.
Smh.
The 340M cost of “baseball operations” is of course pure malarkey (apologies to Joe Biden). Not long ago, Andrew Zimmbalist, an award winning economist from Amherst College, documented that the MOST it costs to pay for baseball-only related expenses is about 100M. That pays for your entire development system (scouts and coaching staff, signing bonuses, Player Development Contracts, etc.), travel and lodging, all FO expenses, etc. Of course it varies a BIT team to team; cleaning services cost more in NY than in KC. As do game expenses.
But it’s legit to claim “baseball expenses” include ballpark investments (obviously of meaning in the Braves’ situation), debt service (financing; they’re likely still paying off the purchase AND the real estate) and things of that nature. So that number may not be that far out of whack. But I’d also note that every team lies about revenues, so the truth of the matter is hard to ascertain. And all that real estate “expense” is really investment, so that has to be considered.
Given the market size, and that they probably have pay into Revenue Sharing rather than receive any, it seems to me they operate pretty fairly. Could they go a little higher? Ya, like most teams they could. But Atlanta ain’t exactly Boston or San Francisco. Those teams not only have little debt (unless they create some), own their own venues, and control just about every facet of the “fan experience”, the base market is better.
And really (Bernie Bro that I am, since Amy is toast) Liberty has a right to make a profit.
” All of that real estate ‘expense”is really investment” = Thank you Bob Tillman.
These are the cash cows nowadays that dont take an offseason or get inj……
Mini strip malls, over priced apartments/condos, swank places to eat
Atl is Flush right now, the scattered 15 extra mill to Donny over 4 years should have been pennies to them imo. This article further strengthens my thoughts on that
Not shocking news to me. I’d bet a lot of teams are making record money. It’s a winning franchise in good position to keep it going for quite a few years, inflation, new tv deals, stadium with higher price corporate seating, etc… I expect most teams in a similar position to be making record money. That’s why we’re seeing record contracts
Don’t the Blue Jays also have to release their financials? They are owned by RODGERS, a public company.
Canadian, not US
You’re right. I confused it with Rogers Corporation which trades on the NYSE. Rogers Communications is on the Canadian market.
Surely Canadian corporations have to report earnings publicly too.
Anyways Rodgers is partially listed on the NYSE under RCI as well as TSX, which is their Class B shares. Their Class A shares are nearly all owned by the Roger family.
$476 million in revenue means they can easily afford to spend $230 million on MLB payroll. 1/2 of revenue for MLB payroll is the criteria that is typically used.
The Braves are being exceedingly cheap. .
Sir, you are correct that the Braves are cheap and my reason for stating such is based on conversations with current internal personnel.
I still think they’re a good organization in spite of this.
I definitely wouldn’t say the Braves are cheap. The 1 yr contracts they gave to Donaldson last year, Ozuna and Hamels this year plus signing the best Closer/Reliever in this years free agent pool says differently. I’m not sure the exact word to use but cheap isn’t one of them..Now they don’t really give longer contracts to many players, especially OF and Pitcher’s that haven’t been part of the organization. Probably doing that so they don’t block the prospects, who are close to being MLB ready. I don’t believe Camargo or Riley will be the answer this season and end up having to trade for a 3B guy. Hopefully Bryant or Nolan A..Probably will be other names popping up at some point who are on the trade block.
You’re dumb. Are the Yankees cheap? They have probable double the revenue and only spend about what you said the braves should be spending.
The interesting thing about these figures is they supply a window into the revenues for all the teams. Factor out revenues derived from media and ticket sales and plug in those numbers for other teams and it will provide some idea of what they are pulling in.
What this tells me is the team owners have a sweet deal. Except for this one team, revenues and profits are secret, but they publish the salaries of all the players. This causes many fans to resent what the players are paid but never to wonder how much the owners make.
And in 25 years, somewhere in the greater Atlanta area will be giving them another handout
This just shows that the Braves can absolutely go up to the luxury tax threshold if they need to, so they can upgrade the roster. They can either get a big name at the deadline or they can sign someone during the off-season. I fully expect them to give Freddie a 3-5 year extension in a year or 2 in the ballpark of $20-$25 million AAV. No way should Acuna ever even test the free agent market. The braves have enough money to sign all their young stars. I expect Soroka to get all his arb. Years bought out as well as a couple free agent years. I’m expect to see a 6 year contract to soroka with a couple team options for pushing the total close to the $90-$100 million mark depending on how long they sign him for.
It doesn’t mean that at all
Anyone know the Jays revenues? Thx.
The Braves’ revenue went up about $34M and their opening-day payroll went up about $32M. It certainly looks like they are operating under a budget, and all of their increased revenue went straight into payroll. I could be wrong.