By creating their own network, the Braves have taken another step forward in the evolution of baseball on television. But in a way, they’re reviving a strategy from their past.
Once upon a time, the idea of a baseball team allowing most of its games to be broadcast on television was lunacy.
“There was a feeling in sports, or at least an attitude in baseball, that you could only televise about 20 games, otherwise you’d saturate the market,” Bob Hope, a legend in Atlanta public-relations circles and the former Braves PR director, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday. “And that was just pervasive in the big leagues.”
At some point in the 1970s, Hope, then serving with the Braves, took a call from Ted Turner, who had an idea. You probably know Turner’s story — he bought an Atlanta television station in 1970 and acquired the rights to Braves games in 1973.
Over time, he increased the number of televised games. He became the Braves owner in 1976. And the reach of the station grew exponentially when he cast the station’s signal nationwide via satellite.
“One day, he just asked me, he said, ‘What do you think would happen if I started televising 150 games?’” Hope recalled.
You probably know the rest. Turner’s vision became reality and the Braves — broadcast nightly nationwide on cable television on TBS — became America’s Team.
Tuesday’s announcement that the Braves will take control of the broadcast and distribution of their games — becoming the second MLB team to launch its own network — is a bold step into the future.
It’s also a return to Turner’s business model — owning both the team and the broadcast outlet and delivering as much of the product as possible to fans (with the intent of generating as much revenue as possible).
It won’t be met with the same skepticism as Turner’s maneuver. But, as he led the way decades ago, other teams may follow the Braves here, too.
“I think what the Braves are doing right now is just a natural step in the evolution of televising baseball,” Hope said.
What does it mean for fans?
For those who watched games on FanDuel Sports Network via cable, streaming or satellite, there may not be much difference in terms of being able to continue watching games through those services.
Just as those carriers put FanDuel SN on their platforms, they’ll likely do so with the new BravesVision. (Fans may recall the disputes that the SEC and ACC had with providers to get their networks onto the largest platforms.)
The channel location will change, but that might be it. BravesVision will produce more than 140 games outside of those that will be the property of national outlets such as Fox and ESPN.
The carriers that didn’t carry FanDuel SN — YouTube TV, for example — may elect not to pick up BravesVision, also. The team will announce partnering providers and channels in coming weeks.
Select games also will be simulcast by Atlanta-based Gray Media on free, over-the-air stations, including WANF and Peachtree TV in Atlanta. Those games will be available across the team’s television territory (Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina and parts of North Carolina) using Gray’s stations in 26 markets in the region.
Fans everywhere will also have the option of subscribing to the team’s streaming package (Braves.TV), which will carry all regular-season games with the possible exception of those that are broadcast by national outlets. This is similar to an offering from FanDuel SN that it provided last year.
And for the Braves, that’s the driver of the change. The revenues will come directly to them instead of FanDuel SN, which paid rights fees to the team and then profited off that partnership.
It’s something like the difference between owning a storefront and renting it out to a business operator versus owning the storefront and also the business.
There’s greater risk and investment on the Braves’ part. But the potential for greater revenues is surely the motivation. There, too, the entrepreneurial Turner is recalled.
“Ted was always confident and bold in what he would do, but he wasn’t always certain how it’d work,” Hope said.
If the Braves’ new broadcast venture even approaches shouting distance of Turner’s, they would have to consider it a grand success.
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