As one of just two MLB clubs owned by a publicly traded company, the Braves are the rare team whose books are regularly opened to the public. That leads to some yearly insight into the team’s revenues and operating budget. This morning, Liberty Media announced its 2021 earnings, reporting $568MM in total Braves revenue, $104MM in OIBDA (operating income before debt and amortization) and a $20MM operating income (Twitter links via Eric Fisher of SportBusiness Group and Jeff Passan of ESPN, the latter of whom has screenshots of the report).
Those numbers are specific to the Braves, not Liberty Media as a whole, and they represent (as one would expect) marked increases over the previous year’s revenues, when the MLB season was played without fans and shortened to 60 games in length. In 2020, Liberty reported a total of $178MM in revenue and operating losses both in OIBDA (-$53MM) and operating income (-$128MM).
It’s worth pointing out, too, that the Braves and other MLB teams opened the season without home stadiums at full capacity — although the Braves were the first team to shift to full capacity near the end of April. Still, their season began with Truist Park at 33% capacity for their initial seven-game homestand and moved to 50% capacity for their second homestand — another seven-game set later in the month. Atlanta averaged 13,006 fans per game during that first homestand (per the attendance figures available at Baseball-Reference) and 19,224 fans per day in that second homestand (which included a seven-inning doubleheader). Over the remainder of the season, the Braves averaged 32,181 fans per game, according to those same attendance figures.
Of course, while the Braves, like every other team, surely lost some early-season gate revenue due to capacity restrictions of varying levels, the Braves also reeled in more postseason revenue than any other organization in the sport. Truist Park hosted eight playoff contests as the Braves eventually took home a World Series championship. Liberty Media lists 79 regular-season home games (accounting for a pair of doubleheaders) and eight postseason home games, with a reported $6MM in “baseball revenue” (not “profit”) per home game.
Future regular-season earnings for the Braves seem quite likely to rise — not only because they’ll very likely be able to open the 2022 season at full capacity but also because the team’s 2021 success has paved the way for a considerable hike in ticket sales. Liberty Media president Greg Maffei said today that the Braves’ 2022 season ticket sales are already the highest they’ve been since 2000 (Twitter link via Jeff Schultz of The Athletic). David O’Brien of The Athletic adds that premium seating at Truist Park has already been sold out.
The earnings report from Liberty Media comes at a time when eyes are more fixated on the financial component of the game than ever before. Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association are deadlocked in labor strife that, at its core, boils down to how the two parties ought to divide the billions of dollars generated by the league on a yearly basis. Commissioner Rob Manfred has already taken a great deal of flak for his claims that the “return on those investments (into owning a baseball team) is below what you’d expect to get in the stock market,” and his critics have already meted out a fresh set of barbs on social media today in the wake of Liberty’s books being opened.
Braves fans, in particular, are taking note of the team’s financials, as an understandably vocal majority has grown frustrated with the lack of a new contract for franchise cornerstone Freddie Freeman. Today’s report will do little to deter fans’ belief that the team can “afford” to re-sign Freeman, but that does not mean that ownership and/or general manager Alex Anthopoulos will make it happen at all costs. It’s never really been a question of whether the Braves have the pure funds to outbid the field, after all, but rather one of whether ownership is comfortable making a commitment of that magnitude and perhaps whether the front office deems it to be prudent.
With regard to the labor discord, both the league and the union will interpret the figures differently for the purposes of negotiations. Ownership will presumably point to the $20MM operating income. The union will likely more heavily weight the OIBDA and note that these figures do not include (as pointed out by Ben Nicholson-Smith, on Twitter) tax benefits/write-offs, baseball-adjacent revenues from The Battery (the mixed-use development surrounding Truist Park) or the general appreciation in franchise value. The Battery, according to Liberty’s figures, generated an additional $42MM in revenue and added another $7MM onto the Braves’ OIBDA (for a total of $111MM). At the end of the day, while it’s new information for fans and the MLBPA, the league has surely been aware of these figures and their timeline for release and already has a sense of the role the specifics will play in negotiations.
*makes a disgusting amount of money*
*can’t afford to resign the face of their franchise*
great job!
They also lost a disgusting amount of money the season before. $31 million per year for 5 years is more than reasonable to sign just 1 player.
The Freeman contract isn’t about whether or not the Braves can “afford to resign” Freeman. It’s about whether or not paying a first baseman over $33 million a year through his age 38 season is a good idea. Just because they have the money doesn’t mean they should spend it unwisely. That money could be better spent on cheaper, younger players. Just look at all the bad first base contracts. Mo Vaughn, Prince Fielder, Joe Mauer, Adrian Gonzalez, Ryan Howard, Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Chris Davis, etc. Spending that kind of money on an aging first baseman rarely ever works out. It may never have. The Braves goal is to use their money as efficiently as possible so they have the best chance of winning another World Series every year. Paying $200 million to an aging first baseman just because he is “the face of the franchise” is more likely to hurt their ability to win a World Series than it is to help. The team could end up being pretty bad in several years if they are paying over $33 million to a 38-year old hole in the lineup that can only play first base. From what I can tell, the Braves aren’t averse to spending. They are just averse to spending a lot of money on risky contracts that have a decent likelihood of going underwater. There is a difference between being cheap and being smart.
Revenue and profit aren’t the same thing. You fail to think about the costs associated with building the battery and the stadium on top of payroll for players, and stadium staff. They will be paying I’m off loans for that stadium for the next 15 years.
Most of the Braves battery and stadium were publicly funded and the battery has all but paid itself off according to previous reports.
Gee, lets use the financial statement of the WS winner and extrapolate that out like the Braves will be WS winners every year, and then apply it to all the non winning teams as well. Every team should be able to add a $300MM contract every year based on that.
The Padres showed that very team can.
Taxpayers got bilked for the Braves new ballpark. – bloomberg.com/features/2016-atlanta-braves-stadium…
And you seem to forget the myriad tax write offs and perpetual sharp appreciation of franchise values.
Freddie to the METS!
Even Freddie wouldn’t be able to keep the Mets from being a joke.
48-team MLB makes an anti Met statement on every post; what a life?
The Mets were literally just brought up the new comment above mine…
That should say “in the comment above mine.” Autocorrect is being weird.
Sox. Book it. JD at DH.
@pinkerton They will. No one can sign Freddie until the lockout is over.
But but but ticket prices don’t matter…. Cmon guys you can do it!!!! Freddie will be a career Brave as soon as the elite rich stop this fighting over what to them is chump change. Take the raises and play ball.
Let’s just assume the $104 mill. “OIBDA” is similar to the more conventional “Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization” or EBITDA. If the Braves are worth $1.5 bill. to $2.0 bill., they would be valued at 14-19x EBITDA. That is about where my growth-stock portfolio trades, and I would be disappointed to pay that kind of price only to get 5% revenue growth like MLB does. This is not a particularly lucrative business to be in; it is a billionaire’s plaything.
(Sorry to bore you all…I am a securities analyst by day, at least when I’m not distracted by MLBTR!)
Doesn’t that valuation include assets that generate revenue outside of the OIBDA here? For instance do TV contracts factor in?
This includes both “baseball revenue” and ”development revenue” which is defined in their latest report as follows: “Baseball revenue is comprised of (i) ballpark operations (ticket sales, concessions, corporate sales, retail, suites, premium seat fees and postseason), (ii) local broadcast rights and (iii) shared Major League Baseball revenue streams, including national broadcast rights and licensing. Development revenue is derived from the Battery Atlanta mixed-use facilities and primarily includes rental income”
A huge refreshment from the usual “ your a stupid moron” posts we generally see here.
OK, but part of the return of a MLB franchise is the shared league revenues and the MLBAM revenues, Seems like the Braves are a significant producer of cash flow as well, so I think if you want to analyze it this way you’d have to include a significant dividend component. MLB is more of a developed income producing entity than a growth stock.
My first thought was “does OIBDA = EBITDA?” Thanks for that.
For a company like Liberty Media, who has no interest in owning a “billionaires plaything,” the true value is derived in the low risk (at least when there isn’t an epidemic), and appreciation of the asset as much as it does the annual profit.
Correct?
You are comparing apples to oranges. I should think as a securities analyst you’d be familiar with the tradeoff between risk and reward, and the vast differences between an investment in securities and a business. The steadily appreciating value of these franchises should also tell us clearly that they are not playthings, but relatively low-risk investments.
They are low risk investments but these aren’t gaudy profit margins and that’s really the point. Billionaires like to be apart of exclusive clubs and by the setup of professional leagues—that’s an exclusive club. These aren’t insane returns that the owners couldn’t find in other investments.
At the price point teams are selling for today.
Obviously anyone who was in the game before the exponential valuation explosion got themselves a real gem.
Billionaires like to make money, and they know how to make money. I would have thought that was self-evident. They understand the value of these franchises as places to make money even if some fans don’t get it. Baseball isn’t a game to them, it’s a business, and that’s how the franchises are valued. They are not hobbies. Full stop. And that’s my point.
I do not disagree. But to some this is also a hobby. No doubt that there is other values gained beyond solely dollars and cents.
BlueSkies, the risk in owning a business is far higher than in owning a stock. Typically there is a considerable discount applied to EBITDA multiples of private businesses compared to publicly-traded ones. I didn’t wade that deep into the weeds.
Owning a baseball team might seem low risk only because there seems to be an endless supply of new billionaires and a limited supply of MLB teams for them to compete over.
2021 earnings, reporting $568MM in total Braves revenue and a $20MM operating income. This on an entity worth 1.875 billion U.S. dollars.
That’s a terrible return — barely 1%.
Make more money with T-bills!
You’re spot on Simon. I’m shocked that their operating income was only $20M. Max S will make more in a year than the team that won the World Series (I’m factoring in his taxes, trainers, etc… which is why I’m not saying twice as much). Crazy when you think about it.
Cursed Rangers: but they still turned a $104M profit! In a Covid-seat-limited season! That’s only going up! And up, and up.
Simon, the problem you conveniently ignore is the incredible increases in income, revenue streams, & profit v the exponential growth in value of the franchise. So your 1%, used to be 10%, and 20%, etc. but franchise valuation has grown exponentially which has forced profit margins down by percentage. My point is that you’re misleading in your citation by using only this year and saying it’s a bad investment. You have to look at the growth over time, like any investment, which includes the growth of the franchise.
There’s something askew about the figures listed in the narrative.
I don’t think anyone forgets how much teams sell for. But for some people, that’s all they remember.
There is a balance.
Yes, but not really ignored, the value in owning a MLB team is the appreciation.
But don’t you still want to have a reasonable return on the value of your investment?
Isn’t the question really, will these “values” keep going up? And if the payroll had been $20MM or so higher last year (Braves had a fairly low payroll), they would have had an operating loss. So what do you give the players for raises? Shares? IOUs? LOL.
Just because your house goes up in value doesn’t mean the wife can go on a spending spree at Nordstrom. Like with your house, all that is relevant is what it is worth compared to other similar houses on your block. Operating income as a percent of total revenue and investment is all the players should look at. Nothing else matters.
The WS champs are barely above water and cannot afford to keep their best player. That tells you all you need to know.
Yes and no. Mostly no. OBIDA excludes capital investment expenses so it is the better measure of the company’s cash flow from operations. When a company make capital investments they are creating assets not expenses. They are also not recurring. This is why OBIDA means something and cash flow not so much. FWIW it’s also not really completely honest to point to a team’s capital value, as the union might like to do, for more or less the reason you state. Bottom line (literally) the world series champs are well above water.
Simon: Yes and I agree with you. But, simply using a percentage of the total (exponentially growing) valuation doesn’t mean it’s bad. Rather, a better, more accurate, and truthful measure is the profit.
My point is, if you’re making $100-200M profit on your business, to say it’s not a good investment because your business grew in value explosively to $2.5B is probably not being completely genuine.
From Sportico: “Liberty bought the Braves from Time Warner for roughly $400 million in 2007. The Braves are now worth $2.3 billion, according to Sportico’s latest valuations.”
Looks like a double digit return whenever they sell.
Donny: That’s what everyone is missing. They say profit margins are terrible because the valuation of the team has skyrocketed when in fact, it’s the opposite. The returns have always been decent, it’s just the team values went through the roof.
Halo11: I agree completely.
@yankeeclipper
But teams aren’t selling every year. They are running the business. Future income from the sale does not provide income now. If my home goes up in value, I can borrow against it. But I would have to pay it back with interest. Its not increasing my income. It may cause my tax evaluation to go up and increase my taxes. It does nothing for my income. Its “on paper” value only. Are you saying that for the Braves to afford to keep Freddie, Liberty Media would need to sell the team, in which case the new owner would likely cut payroll to deal with the cost of the purchase and Freddie still does not get his deal?
Yes, you are correct, but I was addressing a different point. I was referring to those who are saying owners don’t make a “good profit” and then use a relative percentage to support their claim. At that point, the valuation of the business and its exponential growth matter.
So, to clarify, I agree the valuation of the enterprise has nothing to do with signing a FA or spending “x” amount on payroll.
However, when speaking to profit, I prefer to speak in specific numbers, ie, $100M profit, rather than what many say as, “they only get 2% profit on their value of the business!”, or something similar.
It’s a bit like buying a stock with a 2% dividend and having the market value of the stock double. Now your dividend is only 1%. Are you unhappy? I sure hope not.
BlueSkies: If its 1% of $10B ….. Yep, still happy brother! And, I like you so much, Blue, I’d share with you too. Can’t say that for everyone on this board, but a few of you, I certainly would share.
I still think that I am getting 2 per cent dividend. It would be you who would be buying my stock which I would sell after it doubled that gets 1 per cent. . Funny story I just bought a stock for a company that my daughter works for not knowing she sold a bunch of hers the day before.
Shouldn’t soybeans be in the picture?
No, pork bellies.
@Simon
You are correct. But let’s not forget the Braves, one of the most profitable teams, lost $128M in 2020. At their rate of return it will take them more than 5 years to make up for the 2020 losses. That is why there is a lockout. The players want to ignore the losses in the last CBA.
Incorrect, on every point. Please don’t ask me to explain why, again.
Youre presentation as someone who knows investing has to – at least for a second – question how $568M becomes $20M. Its $550M in revenue minus payroll (~$200M) – all other costs ($350M). What is in the $350M costs not mentioned? Doesnt add up.
You seem to have forgotten stadium expenses, minor leaguer stadium rental, travel, medical, pensions, communications, IT staff and equipment, coaching staffs and about 240 non player employees in the front office. Some of those FO employees are very highly paid. That’s about $250M.
ok Alien – so you you think all thats costs $250M? Thats still $100m missing.. Im thinking the stakeholders got a $200M return, with $150M in those expenses. Just saying when you have $568M coming in, theres a lot of ??
There’s no way that costs $250M. By all accounts the roster is the largest expenditure and it’s not even close. It should go without saying that neither the Braves, nor 28 other teams in MLB are anywhere near $250M for their roster payroll.
So, naturally, if the largest expenditure, by a lot, is the payroll, and that’s at ~$180M how can the other operating expenses surpass it? The answer is they don’t even approach the payroll of the roster, so a more accurate figure would be $100-$125M for operation expenses and other office personnel.
There is more obviously or they would have made more than $20M. Each minor league team costs them $10-$20M. They have international development. Advertising is expensive. The coaches are expensive with the team manager taking home over $1M. The Mariners website shows 240 non player staff members. Some like Edgar Martinez, Ken Griffey, Jr. and Ichiro are not working for peanuts. The biggest one might be their stadium costs. Often the team pays a significant portion of the construction plus the maintenance.
its $350M missing – all the minor leagues, stadium costs, coaches and front office – is ~double the team payroll – then good for them. But I doubt it, Im thinking that $350M includes a huge investor payout.
You’re misreading the numbers, Bob. It’s not $20M. Reread the narrative. That’s just for the stadium / game day profits. That’s pretty good, actually. The total profit is $104M.
$104M is the operating income before debt and amortization Well, guess what? Debt and amortization are expenses, too. As a CPA, I can tell you this is standard accounting presentation, Non cash expenses are included in every organizations books in order to fully and fairly reflect the results of operations. This is no more debatable than the number of balls and strikes.
I can’t wait to see those ticket sales dry up when they fail to resign Freeman.
If the team is still a contender then it won’t make any difference. Fans go when the team wins.
They won’t lose $31 million dollars in revenue if Freeman doesn’t come back & they’re still winning. That’s just the truth.
Given the incredibly team friendly deals they have on Acuna & Albies they can definitely spend some coin on Freeman. Unless they really think there’s a reason for a steep decline you can keep the legacy in tact and keep him a Brave for life.
If/when FF walks, AA will undoubtedly bring in a comparable replacement. If it’s Olson, we won’t miss a beat. I’ve grown to be ok with FF going elsewhere because I’ve looked at what we could do with the savings. Would I be upset? Sure! My 10 year old has a signed Freeman jersey hanging on his wall in his room.
Olson may be comparable, but whatever OAK demands i. return could otherwise subtract from the ML roster, such as a player like Contreras or Pache, or one that is close like Shea or Waters. Unless they comit to reinvesting what they would have spent on Freeman back into the payroll (i.e. keep the budget the same), then winning wolnt be as easy.
@DarkSide830
Atlanta could give up Contreras, Waters and Wright and probably recover just fine. It would likely take one more pitching prospect at least but I’m sure they could work that out.
Waters stock is way down. And I doubt they would lose sleep over Contreras, esp with Shea coming along. But you are right that if they do trade Olson – which I do not think they will do – they will expect a lot in return.
Keeping a player for life is a go way for a GM to become an ex-GM in this drug free era of MLB. Smart GM’s let dumb GM’s pay premium prices for diminishing production.
If you don’t believe me, just Google Pujols + Cardinals + Angels.
I think ticket sales will increase…..for the Yankees!
Waters hasn’t been able to bat the league average in AAA in 2 tries.
Waters nor Contreras is headlining an Olson deal.
Y’all are welcome our franchise can help negotiations lol
Team adopted full crowds first, has an adjacent property which generates good coin, hosted the most playoff games.
I’m glad the Braves did well last year but their scenario hardly relates to my Angels or pretty much any other team; especially those in areas that were last to adopt full crowds.
Pretty cool to see the books on one team. But I’m not reading too much into it as far as the other 29 go.
Their attendance figures were pretty strong, even with the team playing around .500 most of the season. I agree that it’s great to see some actual numbers, but they don’t paint the whole picture for the league.
First season in a new stadium surely helped drive those numbers as well.
Visiting that stadium and the battery is pretty high on my list. I had some good friends move out to Roswell, GA right before the pandemic and they love it.
Was hoping to make it out there this year. We’ll see.
@DonOsborne: They’ve been in Truist since 2017.
My mistake. I should have done my homework.
HalosHeaven – you’re going to love the Braves ballpark. If feasible, I’d highly recommend sitting in seats that give you access to the all you can eat buffet. It’s an amazing experience. The Braves did a great job paying homage to the history of baseball, while also incorporating all the new niceties. I’ve been to all 30 ballparks and I’d put the new Braves stadium high up the list
Nice, thanks. I’ll definitely keep that recommendation in mind.
What? They moved to Truist Park like 4-5 years ago.
You’re an Angel fan right. Do you remember why Autry sold the team? He couldn’t afford it.
Do you remember why Disney sold the team at a loss?
We don’t know a lot, but what we do know supports that most teams don’t make a lot of money.
why are there billionaires lined up to buy a baseball team if the teams make peanuts? the owners are chewed by the “misguided” fans everyday and praised by few and don’t even make money the way they did before plunging over a billion dollars buying a team. as close as you seem to the owners you enlighten us, mere mortals, why they buy teams, please!
btw, baseball economics have changed greatly since disney days having gone from paltry millions to billions.
Because it’s fun. If I had a few billion. I’d love to buy a baseball team.
Did you ever watch Citizen Kane? Remember what he said about losing a million dollars on the newspaper each year?
i thought you were a billionaire already loving your co-billionaires so much!
No, I just appreciate the company I work for that made me a millionaire.
i appreciated the company i used work where i became a millionaire especially since the owner didn’t become a billionaire having shared profits with workers in the form of bonuses. i know he’s a rarity in this “more money is better than god.” society.
I’m not jealous of billionaires or do I believe they owe me their money.
I was too young to know the business side of baseball when Autry sold, but do remember when Disney got out.
From the outside looking in, owning a baseball team seems like a good move for bragging rights and long term equity but a poor one for cash flow.
“From the outside looking in, owning a baseball team seems like a good move for bragging rights and long term equity but a poor one for cash flow.”
HaloHeaven. I think that’s exactly right.
That said, being an Angel fan, I think Arte got a sweetheart real estate deal that should allow him to lose millions on the Angels and still recoup those losses without having to sell the team.
Agreed and agreed. Arte should be able to create a setup like the Braves have with The Battery.
I hope any team that gives a ten year deal to a 34 year old who pretends to be 32, has a long wait before they play in October.
Those dollar figures would’ve been even higher if they weren’t robbed of the All-Star game.
Yeah it’s too bad the league stole that opportunity from their fans
The net profits every year don’t amount to much.
I’m an Angel fan, Gene Autry could not afford to keep the team. Disney had to sell the team for a loss because it couldn’t justify the yearly losses on its books.
Young players deserve more. For those teams that do make money, the luxury threshold should be a speed bump and not a barrier.
For reasonable people, the solution to the lockout shouldn’t be that hard.
Good points on Angels being sold at a loss. Had no clue. Agreed on upping the dollars for younger guys. Reasonable is an operative word here. I find myself split more and more when next to the labour dispute headlines is one about Soto turning down $350M. Craziness.
Disney sold the team for less than the cost of Stadium Repairs + what the Amount they bought the team.
Unfortunately, the owners have not been reasonable soo far.
mlb owners – you werent supposed to release that until after the new cba.
liberty – we’re a publicly traded company
mlbpa – so you have HAVE money
What? You might need to re-read that. If that’s the financials for the WS winning team, that doesn’t show some massive profit margin for MLB teams…
Hard to know how typical this is. Yes Braves had a good year and the 3 years previous to 2020 were also good years for the Braves. But the Braves are the only publicly traded team, so they are the only team we have hard data on. Forbes does a good job I think of looking at this issue in their annual Business of Baseball, which usually comes out in March. But without hard data hard to know how profitable the teams are. Perusing their data shows only one team, the Marlins, were not profitable the year prior to the pandemic. Also shows most teams are profitable to some extent year in and year out. Of the rest, most are profitable most years. Only Miami is not, posting operating losses 7 out of the last 10 years. I’ll post the link below for those interested. Just click on any team and scroll to find the operating income graph over the past 10 seasons. it is a season off. They base it on when they do their review, So 2021 is really the 2020 season,
forbes.com/mlb-valuations/list/
And the Braves have two of the team friendliest contacts in baseball, Albies and Acuna.
Until teams are sold, they are not cash cows.
But young players do deserve more, and with 12 teams making the playoffs, if those four or five teams that want to blow past the luxury threshold, they should be able to blow by the threshold with reasonable, not severe, penalties.
“Until teams are sold, they are not cash cows.”
Is that a forever thing?
The fans posting here seem to be quitting baseball.
Or is that all talk?
Is that a forever thing?
Probably not.
Here’s a thought: if the players are so concerned about younger players making more, how about the “stars” taking less and giving some of their wages to their lesser paid brothers? Oh wait, they don’t care THAT much…
“ those four or five teams that want to blow past the luxury threshold, they should be able to blow by the threshold with reasonable, not severe, penalties.”
This is absolutely perfect. Reasonableness….
why is that reasonable ? in the NFL every team spends around the salary cap tbut the Packers are like 50 million over the cap. So you are saying if they wanted to be 200 million over the cap just because they could the other teams should have no problem with losing all their star players to Green Bay
Okay, I hate to be the one to shed light on this for you….. but, the NFL sucks.
So, your theory has been put into practice and proven wrong by the very system that taxes MLB teams that go over the CBT threshold. They are not going to go over the threshold by large quantities. It’s proven – experiment over, reference every year of CBT. That has never happened and clearly never would as nearly every team treated it like a hard cap. You know what did happen every year? Tanking to get picks and revenue sharing.
If teams went $200M over the cap in baseball, it still wouldn’t guarantee a World Series win, and they know that. That’s why baseball is better than football and kneeling during the Anthem is dumb. Plus, that is an unsustainable economic model, and owners know that too.
Read the article! The Braves are one of two teams that are owned by a publicly traded company.
Hold strong, Liberty Media. Don’t give in anymore to MLBPeeA!!!
I truly wonder if you are being sarcastic or you really are serious when you post this kind of stuff?
I support Peter Angelos!!!
The tears cried for the poor destitute owners are as funny as they are pathetic.
What well conditioned minions.
And you give your entire paycheck to charity.. right.
People love giving away other people’s money.
No one should have the amount of money these people have. We have conditioned to believe this ridiculous hoarding is normal and even good
So, you’re a socialist. Fine.
I guess players shouldn’t have that much money either.
that is an opinion
They shouldn’t have billions of dollars, no
Doesn’t take a socialist to see how messed up our society is. Doesn’t take socialism to escape wealth inequality. I guess it does if you see everything in black and white
I don’t care how much money someone has… If you care about a billion, then why not 100 million and so on.
If people earn money with better ideas more power to them. One day I hope someone develops an alternative energy source, and if he/she ends up with a worth of 500 billion dollars… GOOD FROM THEM.
That person will do more good than you or I ever will.
Well said.
Agreed. Not to mention that the owners aren’t trying to reduce anything, they just want status quo. Other than raising the min salaries, which I support, what’s wrong with the status quo? Back in the day when players had to work jobs in the off-season I could see the need for change. But when the average player is a millionaire..not so much.
@Remember:
Tim wrote a great article on this recently. Among other things, the owners are trying to make a harder tax threshold with harsher penalties for exceeding it. That’s not status quo.
Status quo was owner revenue going way, way up and player salaries going down. In what world is that a status quo worth keeping?
Proud little minions, too.
Just FTR: I never said anything along the lines of them giving away all of their money, but you felt the need to defend your masters so strongly you grabbed a random non sequitor out of reflex and habit. Because they own you. And you are happy to grovel for their wishes.
I’d ask why if I were you, but hey, you seem to enjoy it, so…more power to you.
So they should just give away or stop earning an amount of money until it meets what you deem ok? Cool story bro.
Front offices are larger than ever, teams are building more, and more technologically advanced, training centers, presumably that technology is not cheap. Transporting players around the country is not getting any cheaper. Feeding them is not getting any cheaper.
Nobody ever considers these sorts of things. It’s just, “Revenues are up, give it to the players..”
All of the FO employees of the team including all the assistant GMs, analytics, scouts, trainers, etc… is about the same for the Braves as the average salary for one player. No excuse for not spending more on players.
You think they are able to hire an entire FO(are you purposely excluding GM?), analytics, scouting and training department for for $4.17m /yr?
2021 earnings, reporting $568MM in total Braves revenue and a $20MM operating income. This on an entity worth 1.875 billion U.S. dollars.
That’s a terrible return — barely 1%.
Make more money with T-bills!
I wonder can you amortize a bad contract? Like El hombre? Or Paublo Sandoval? What if you cut them and are paying them to play for another team? Just curious.
“yeah but baseball teams don’t generate revenue”
If you really, really, really think about it, $100M isn’t good profit. Like, who in the world would want to invest in something that has that kind of crappy return (in a mid-market venue)?
There REALLY needs to be a sarcasm font on here, because they was some of the best sarcasm I have seen Yankee.
Where did you see 100m?
It’s actually $104, I rounded. It’s in the article.
End of the day don’t care. Keep Freeman in a Braves jersey.
20Mill profit not much….. first question…Did the Mazar accounting firm prepare the financials ? lol
I’d love it if my business turned a $20 million profit.
That kind of thinking is why you’re still in the minors, Jarred.
Does anyone else think this doesn’t look too great for the players? The team made about $30 million (before interest expenses and taxes), while their players cleared over $100 million (before taxes and agent fees).
You would also assume that the Braves are one of the more profitable teams, since they were second in attendance but their payroll wasn’t crazy high.
This limited information and only tells a part of the story, of course.. but fascinating.
Um, it doesn’t work like that…..but, OK, if you feel it makes a point, sure.
What doesn’t work that way? What’d I miss?
LMAO. Better learn to actually read those numbers before using them.
Outinleftfield – feel free to share your input. I’m genuinely interested in engaging in polite discussion.
I have an MBA and MS in Finance.. but Finance is such a deep area of study, I don’t typically read a lot of financial statements in my line of work, so I’d be curious to hear your input.
CKinSTL: I think it’s the way it’s written and the language used, which breaks the finances down a bit strangely. It would probably be better on a graph or columned sheet. That profit is specifically from the ticket sales / ballpark. So, that’s $30M profit from their lowest source of revenue, the baseball stadium, in essence.
That doesn’t include the revenue shares & other profits, which amounted to the total of $104M in profit out of the $500+ Total revenue. So, for a Covid-restricted/impacted season on a mid-market team, that’s an excellent return, imo.
OMG a business made money hold the press! Fans dont expect any businesses to make money so every team and all businesses need to donate any profits to their local bookie
For those who want to know what a baseball team might be worth. don’t just look at accounting numbers, which few of us know how to interpret and may not reflect taxpayer subsidies. Look at what the market determines is the value of the company. Any reader here can buy themselves a bit of Liberty Media Braves. The “A” shares are traded under the symbol BATRA. It’s 80% held by institutions. Its about $26 per share, and there are 60M shares outstanding. Mario Gabelli estimates the team could be sold for about $2.5B–exclusive of the surrounding land. That’s not a terrible business to be in, and the billionaires (both individuals and company-owned) know it. The more they “win” this CBA, the more profitable operations are, and the more valuable the franchises are. If, as, and when this negotiation is over, see where the price of the stock is two months later. Might give you an idea of who “won”
So let’s assume they sell this year at $2.5 billion and there is no debt. That is a 13% CAGR.. very good by investment standards, but not nearly as high as anyone would think. $2.1 billion sounds a lot better, ha. Better than the S&P over the same period. I would also imagine the Braves are probably above average in terms of growth in equity value. All this before taxes, of course.
As you said- there are several pieces.. I don’t know if they have paid dividends or not. Probably the most lucrative piece is the “surrounding land” you mentioned. I know nothing about it but I am sure bet it is valuable.
simply put RE SIGN FREDDIE FREEMAN and have CHIPPER Tell him when Freddie retires # 5 will be retired as well. RESIGN FREDDI FREEMAN Repeat this over and over’ Freddie is on the road to COOPERSTOWN So LIBERTY RESIGN FREDDIE FREEMAN!!!!!!
Liberty Media has about 50 million shares at 26 dollars a share so worth about 1.3 Billion but the Braves are VALUED at 2.7 billion… Heck I am just going to sell all my stocks and buy shares in Liberty Media and wait until the Braves are sold. Sounds good but the Braves are not for sale… Liberty does not even pay a dividend..
This emphasis on revenue is a joke… Say I start a business where I will send you readers 11 dollars if you mail me 10 dollars… Well my revenue will be great and I am sure you will all tell your friends about me… Now before long I will have the same revenue as the Braves , losing money but hey I will go to a bank tell them how my revenue is really growing and they will approve a loan for me.
Just call yourself DraftKings or Carvana and they’d love you. You’d be a billionaire selling shares of a “business” that will never turn a profit.
Freddie looking no good. Going to sell the Atlanta home and become full time Southern Californium.
$568 million in total revenue = able to spend $284 million on player salaries and still be profitable. That is why a $214 million CBT is ridiculous. Outside of player salaries and ballpark debt service, other costs are pretty close to the same for all teams so high revenue teams like the Braves are raking in the profit instead of spending that revenue on players. The Braves only spent $172,630,704 on players according to the CBT calculations.
Stick to explaining to your ex-girl/guy why you can’t afford to take her to chili’s, cause you are awful at explaining anything baseball, and ESPECIALLY business, related. Thanks from all of us, bud!
As a person with a 4 year degree in accounting I can tell you these are NOT sizable profits for a business worth that much
You can’t try and teach people on this site that revenue does not equal profit. It really is not their fault because all the media reports now is revenue, revenue.
It has gotten so bad instead of calling it an earnings calendar, just call it a revenue calendar.
You’re looking at it backwards. The business value cannot be used to determine how good the profit is because of how quickly the value has grown (exponentially). You say value does not equal profit, yet you’re using that very premise to determine how “good” the profit is. It’s relative. The business wasn’t worth nearly this much not that long ago, therefore profits, relatively speaking, we’re much better when measured against the overall value.
As an accountant, I think you can understand my point in relation to the business valuation error without me expanding further.
Bottom line is: you cannot cite today’s valuation of the business as the reason for your assumption the profit number isn’t good (the relative relationship). In order to do that you must take into consideration how both have grown over time, and the valuation simply outgrew the profits at a much higher, exponential rate.
Conclusion: this doesn’t make the profit “bad”; rather, it makes the valuation growth phenomenal and the profits must be measured within that context to be fairly judged. The profits in that context, are actually pretty good, but the value is outstanding now.
I do not agree with you
When players play like poo i don’t see any of them giving money back, and no one see’s the problem with this. Play good want more money play bad well i have a contract. Not a sustainable business model
$522 million in baseball game revenue plus $42 million in Battery revenue. $564 million total. Sweet.
That stratosphere used to only belong to the Yankees…..
AKA Freddie’s not going anywhere.
Well, that’s what I thought, so I started researching. And I’ve found several articles in the inter-webs that have Freeman going to LAD now. The reason? ATL won’t give the extra year, but Yanks will – advantage Yanks! However, LAD is rumored to be willing to offer nearly the same money, ~$140M / 4 years, giving him one more shot at FA too. Time will tell. I’d like to see him remain a Brave because I’m old school in that way, but who knows?
They deserve it. World Series winners and ousted from the All Star game. Stick it to Manfred.
Average team payrolls only increased 12% from 2011 to 2021 while the values of the average baseball club increased 350% during that same time. If these owners were under financial burden they would be selling just like any other business when upside down.
I see a lot of pro-owner comments here, but let’s also remember that this revenue does not include a lot of thing, such as sport betting, which sadly seems to be the future in every MLB stadium, etc. Furthermore, all these owners use these teams to get tax write offs from every single one of all their other business ventures. That alone is a huge incentive to have a MLB team.
All these owners pay less taxes than any of us.
Nobody buys a money losing business for the tax write-offs. That strategy involves spending $1 to save 20 cents in taxes. What the 2021 statements also do not show is the massive losses the owners racked up in 2020. The teams are carrying a lot of debt that has accumulated to cover past losses. If they were profitable long-term they would have less debt service expense.
Sports betting may help eventually but there are a lot of laws to change before that becomes reality.