In the room at Truist Park where manager Brian Snitker typically holds his daily press conferences, Braves executives updated visiting investment analysts Tuesday on various aspects of the club’s baseball and real-estate businesses.
Braves CEO Derek Schiller and Braves Development Company CEO Mike Plant began with perhaps their most compelling argument for how well things are going: A World Series championship ring was passed around the room for inspection.
The investors’ event has been held periodically since Braves owner Liberty Media launched a publicly traded tracking stock for the team in 2016. Here are some takeaways from Tuesday’s session, webcast by Liberty:
On business as World Series champ
Schiller reported that the Braves have sold out 24 of their first 50 home games this season. He said season-ticket sales are the highest in more than two decades, helping put the team on pace to top 3 million in attendance for the first time since 2000. He also said spending per fan on concessions and merchandise is up from pre-COVID levels.
“Our fan base has grown in size by a pretty wide margin by winning the World Series,” Schiller said.
On streaming games
An investor asked why the Braves haven’t joined the small number of MLB teams (five) that currently allow Bally Sports to offer their telecasts on a new direct-to-consumer streaming service, especially given that the Bally networks aren’t carried on popular streamers YouTube TV and Hulu.
Schiller said the Braves first prefer to see how the initiative works in some of the other markets and “then to look at what the league can do to support the best efforts and practices with that.” But he conceded it’s an issue that the Braves and MLB at large must solve.
“The streaming opportunities that we have into the future are significant. How those get figured out is going to be challenging,” he said. “We as a team and as a league are studying this every day.”
On jersey patches
MLB will allow teams to wear an advertising patch on their jersey sleeves beginning next year, and Schiller said the Braves are “currently out in the marketplace” selling that concept.
He declined to be specific about how much additional revenue the Braves expect such a deal to generate, but made clear it’s substantial: “You’d equate it, probably, as similar to a naming-rights deal,” typically a team’s largest sponsorship.
On Liberty Media
In response to a question from an investment analyst, Schiller and Plant praised the Braves’ oft-criticized owner.
“There’s a lot that has been said about our ownership,” Schiller said. “But I think this thing on my finger (the World Series ring) probably is a good example of how well being in the Liberty Media tent has worked. … It gives us the flexibility and the financial freedom to do the things we need to do to be successful, including what we have done at The Battery.”
Plant said that in the eight years since the team began developing Truist Park and The Battery Atlanta, “not one time has anyone (at Liberty) ever said, ‘Wait, hold on, put the brakes on something.’”
On future development
Construction is scheduled to begin in December, Plant said, on two previously announced additions to the Truist Park/The Battery complex: a 250,000-square-foot, nine-floor office building that will house the headquarters of Truist Securities and a 504-unit apartment tower. Also “on the drawing board,” he told the investors, “is another hotel and potentially a condominium-type project on top of that.”
“It’s all to support our No. 1 objective,” Plant said. “That’s winning the World Series. We hope to do that again.”
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