Atlanta Braves Fans Love to Hate Liberty Media

Atlanta Braves Fans Love to Hate Liberty Media – but they’re reasons are mostly myth

Yesterday AP’s Paul Newberry posted “Braves go from model franchise to laughing-stock”  (this link is one of about 20 places AP posted his piece) where he outlines the decline of the Braves from perpetual contenders and highly respected organization to laughing-stock. He makes a lot of good points but on Liberty Media he’s not factually correct.

Liberty Media Aren’t the Problem

Fans have a lot of misconceptions about the relationship between Braves Baseball and Liberty Media  Corporation (LMC). Last year Chris Jervis posted a well written, in-depth look at that relationship, I suggested reading it all. Jervis explains that in the grand scheme of things just sending money to the Braves isn’t allowed.

"Under securities law, Liberty Media was also limited from just sending money at will to the Braves. Liberty Media is a publicly traded company with a board of directors and shareholders and fiduciary responsibilities. . . The Braves are a non-essential, non-core part of the entire Liberty Media business group. . .  sending money that should rightfully go back to shareholders . . . could put them in a potentially very bad situation for neglecting those fiduciary responsibilities. . . . There are ways, if Liberty Media wanted to do it, to funnel money to the Braves. . . .why would Liberty Media want to jeopardize a $9B revenue company . . . over a very small, non-essential part of it’s overall business? (emphasis added) . . . it all boils down to the Braves being a self-supporting entity. They run entirely on their own revenues, and if they want to be bigger players in the current baseball economy (i.e. have a higher payroll), they will need to increase revenues."

Newberry says the Liberty Media have cut Braves payroll. That is factually incorrect. Corporate team ownership was a huge problem when LMC made the offer to buy because of the debacle CBS created when they owned the Yankees.

Terry McGuirk was retained as controller of Braves Baseball by LMC  when they purchased the team in order to overcome that issue. He is the de facto owner of the team who makes payroll decisions. He’s said so many times including in interview with Phil Hudson of the Atlanta Business Chronicle who specifically ask McGuirk how payroll was set.

"I’m the control person of the team, which is in the coin of the realm of baseball is the person who has to make the decisions — no one else can make the decisions. . . (Liberty Media has) no intention of getting involved at the decision-making level of this organization. Hudson asked the question again when he queried who made decisions about adding payroll and specifically about adding Ervin Santana in 2014 McGuirk said, “It’s totally my decision.” (emphasis added) Next: Quoting those who do it What LMC Executives Say When the sale was approved, John Malone was the prime mover from LMC’s side. Malone already owned a small interest in the Braves through his share in Time Warner and made it clear in a 2008 interview with Forbes that LMC wanted to stay out of running the team because they had no expertise there. “We don’t have to run the baseball team, nor would we be any good at it. This is not unusual for us. We’ve always had a highly decentralized approach to running businesses.” Forbes went on to say that, “Malone has given his baseball people all the money they need, upping the club payroll from $87 million to $102 million, the tenth highest in the majors.” Liberty’s CEO Greg Maffei opined that Braves leadership were  “. . .  reasonably more empowered. . .(now that Liberty has) given them freedom to move.” More recently Maffei spoke specifically about team payroll in an interview contained in Tim Tucker’s “Liberty Media ‘happy owner’s of the Braves saying that payroll is set by Braves management led by McGuirk and gave a one line layout of the process. “What happens is. . .the Braves’ management brings us a budget, a payroll budget included. And I don’t think we have once changed the number. . . It’s not like we come and say, ‘Nah, you got to cut that.’ I don’t think that has happened in the nine years that we have been involved. . . (they set) the direction on what (sic) they think the right place to invest is, the amounts they want to put in what parts of the operation, including payroll, and we have assented every year.” Newberry makes a lot of assumptions in his piece that contradict what history says happened. Investment Newberry swears there’s no reason to leave Turner Field after twenty years as if the Braves cut and ran without making a genuine effort to stay. More troubling is the absentee ownership, a callous front office that has left Gonzalez unfairly flapping in the breeze, and the impending move to the suburbs for a stadium that wasn’t needed (Turner Field is only 20 years old) and will be paid for with a huge chunk of taxpayer dollars. In fact the Braves began to seek improvements at The Ted after the 2003 season as they moved to halt a declining attendance. While the Braves were a successful team throughout the 90s attendance dropped sharply after 2001. According to the Forbes piece study instituted by McGuirk found four three things that needed to be addressed;  traffic and parking issues, bad stadium food, terrible customer service and a team that couldn’t seem to take the last step in the post season. Next: Why Did The Fans Stop Coming The Scoreboard at Turner Field showing the Braves congratulating Chipper Jones after his last game mandatory Credit Photograph taken by Fred Owens Off the field As a result of the study the Braves spent $1.5M on signage and parking improvement, made concessionaires upgrade menus and provide a better selection, and hired new oversight for their own staff of ushers and customer service folks. In 2005 they updated the stadium with a $10M scoreboard and added a place for kids to play during games and the following year they added the all-you-can-eat-seats and added the Suntrust Club at a cost of $6M. All of this increased attendance came in spite of a stuttering team’s performance. The one thing the Braves had no control over was access but that doesn’t mean they didn’t try. In 2003 a plan to add an amusement park near Turner field surface but slowly died. Over the years plans to improve the area rose and fell without success with the final flurry being made by Invest Atlanta with the support of the Braves. Four alternatives plans for the area were submitted at the beginning of 2013 and all of them included expansion of the streetcar and/or MARTA  service as well as more parking. In July of 2013 the Braves joined with American Maglev Technologies Inc. in a proposal to build a maglev train from MARTA’s Georgia State station to Turner Field. at the time Mike Plant said things could go forward with the “right commitment and a willingness” (by the city) to reach an agreement, he believes “we can really move pretty quickly.” The commitment and willingness of the city didn’t materialize and in fact Marta had more than once threatened to cut off their shuttle service to Turner Field. No improvement to Turner Field can increase attendance if the fans cannot get to the game. The City was all wrapped up in getting the Falcons a new home and couldn’t be bothered to take the time to help the Braves with things that had been on the table for the city since 2004. So when the Braves found a willing partner who wanted them they left. Objectively one wonders why the decision was hard at all.  Of course fans want to know about what happens between the lines. Next: Sign him Jun 24, 2014; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira (25) hits a ball during a game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre. The Toronto Blue Jays won 7-6.Mandatory Credit: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports On the field One of the first things McGuirk wanted in 2007 was to trade for Mark Teixeira, a huge contract at the time that added about 14% to the opening day payroll. That happened without interference and since that time he’s added contracts and taken on salary mid-year as he wished. In every year except 2008 and 2011 end of year payroll increased over opening day payroll. In a 2007 Barry Bloom reported that MLB Owners were assured that  leaving the operational control of the team in familiar hands and wanted to make sure McGuirk remained with the club. The owners had previously been assured of that condition when the deal was formally announced in February. “There are no changes,” McGuirk said. “There will be a continuation of past practices.” In a February 2014 post CBS’ Sports Dayn Perry harked back to that quote and said it was time for fans to reassess Braves ownership. To be sure, there’s been a steady drop in payroll as percentage of the league mean under Liberty, but that pattern of decline was already in place well in advance of the sale. . . I’m leaving out something very obvious: the extraordinary investment the Braves have made this offseason in arbitration-eligible and pre-arb talents already on the roster. The prevailing reality is that the Braves, coming off 96 wins and a division title, are well-poised for the future, and that’s in part because the maligned Liberty Media is willing to underwrite all these high-ceiling young players and keep them in Atlanta. Given longstanding perceptions, that reality may take some getting used to. The decisions made after that season by the new brooms who decided that to sweep away years of decay also required moving some of those contracts do not change the fact that LMC has always allowed payroll increases when asked even when revenues declined. That’s A Wrap I understand that LMC is an easy target but the facts are that they are not the problem. LMC did not convince Frank Wren, John Hart or John Coppolella to make bad trades or sign players who under performed.  LMC did not encourage Frank Wren and John Coppolella to draft badly or trade away talent for lesser players, those were baseball decisions made by baseball the people. The Braves are a mid market team with a town that supports them sporadically even when they are good. While the Braves have settled around $110M and we’ve been told that $120M is possible when McGuirk was asked how high he saw the payroll going he said, “… and $150 (million) is probably more like the legitimate high end of teams. . .” except for what he called outliers; Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox etc. Whatever the high end becomes, it won’t be LMC making the decision about how the size of the Braves payroll. That rests on the shoulders of McGuirk who – like all owners  – will presumably will get tired of losing and the associated costs due to bad baseball decisions and replace those decision makers.  How long that takes is anyone’s guess.I’m the control person of the team, which is in the coin of the realm of baseball is the person who has to make the decisions — no one else can make the decisions. . . (Liberty Media has) no intention of getting involved at the decision-making level of this organization.“We don’t have to run the baseball team, nor would we be any good at it. This is not unusual for us. We’ve always had a highly decentralized approach to running businesses.”“What happens is. . .the Braves’ management brings us a budget, a payroll budget included. And I don’t think we have once changed the number. . . It’s not like we come and say, ‘Nah, you got to cut that.’ I don’t think that has happened in the nine years that we have been involved. . . (they set) the direction on what (sic) they think the right place to invest is, the amounts they want to put in what parts of the operation, including payroll, and we have assented every year.”More troubling is the absentee ownership, a callous front office that has left Gonzalez unfairly flapping in the breeze, and the impending move to the suburbs for a stadium that wasn’t needed (Turner Field is only 20 years old) and will be paid for with a huge chunk of taxpayer dollars.“There are no changes,” McGuirk said. “There will be a continuation of past practices.”To be sure, there’s been a steady drop in payroll as percentage of the league mean under Liberty, but that pattern of decline was already in place well in advance of the sale. . . I’m leaving out something very obvious: the extraordinary investment the Braves have made this offseason in arbitration-eligible and pre-arb talents already on the roster.The prevailing reality is that the Braves, coming off 96 wins and a division title, are well-poised for the future, and that’s in part because the maligned Liberty Media is willing to underwrite all these high-ceiling young players and keep them in Atlanta. Given longstanding perceptions, that reality may take some getting used to."