Comments on: Braves CEO: we’re not selling the team; and, oh, our TV deal is awful

By: foreverchipper10

foreverchipper10 — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:00:04 +0000

This makes me sad.

By: buffalomafia

buffalomafia — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:13:40 +0000

@ vols when in Atlanta go to Fat Macks BBQ

By: vols84

vols84 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:39:01 +0000

Here’s a trade for Bud Selig. Ted Turner trades Teds Montana Grill ownership to Liberty Media straight up for the Braves. Everyone wins with that trade.

By: cur68

cur68 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:54:31 +0000

Big ole slice of cake pu-lease, served on a Jessica Alba.

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:35:57 +0000

Donnnnggggggg! The prize goes to the swarthy globetrotter in the beaver hat! Name your slice!

By: cur68

cur68 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:37:45 +0000

Not Suttree is it? I seem to recall McCarthy going in for that kind of list. Hey, I was drunk.

By: cosanostra71

cosanostra71 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:03:55 +0000

Craig, I enjoy your baseball articles, but it gets old when you talk about religion/atheism and politics as much as you do. I opened this article to read about the Braves ownership situation, not your sarcastic remarks on Supreme Court dealings.

By: umrguy42

umrguy42 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:16:06 +0000

Heck, buffalo, in hockey they gave away the whole team!

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:15:39 +0000

Remembering Harvey Korman is always good for one’s state of mind. Eating beans with friends, not so much.

However, since we’re on the subject of references and allusions, that whole list of unsavory types is in fact (with a few hardcore intrusions from Circling the Bases lore) based very directly on a passage from a great work of modern Southern American literature. The winner’s choice of pie or cake.

Well? We’re waiting.

By: umrguy42

umrguy42 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:13:44 +0000

Nostalgia for “the good old days”, but back when Anheuser-Busch owned the Cardinals, it worked out pretty well too, on balance.

By: umrguy42

umrguy42 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:07:15 +0000

OG, I’m picturing Harvey Korman’s list of groups from Blazing Saddles…

By: buffalomafia

buffalomafia — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:05:26 +0000

I worked in Atlanta this past year & there ownerships in hockey & baseball suck!

In hockey they gave away every great player they had for a Vortex burger! Management didnt care about winning thats why they lost the Thrashers!

Also ifvyou have the best pitching staff in baseball then why didnt the Braves get another bat or two last year @ trade deadline? Maybe they wouldnt have choked & the Cardinals would have not won the World Series?!

Same thing this year the Braves stood pat & did nothing to improve there team?

They still have Chipper Jones who always gets hurt & the overrated Jason Heyworth!

By: dondada10

dondada10 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:52:00 +0000

Good point. I was thinking they were squirreling it away for the draft.

By: drunkenhooliganism

drunkenhooliganism — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:41:13 +0000

Comcast is based in philly and owns philly teams. They are fans and owners. Liberty media is based in denver (I think, my wife used to work for them) and owns the braves

By: WhenMattStairsIsKing

WhenMattStairsIsKing — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:40:58 +0000

After the Wilipons and McCourt, owners and Bud have little counterargument to guys like Cuban anymore. Not that they really did in the first place.

By: tcostant

tcostant — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:40:22 +0000

You know the SF Giants use to do this all time with there budget; save some millions for a July trade. Here is why, lets say you have $4M left in the budget; in July you can aquire someone making upto $8M a year, because you’ll only be paying half there salary. It lets you wait and see, if your in it and lets you fill a need later with a better player.

By: robmoore

robmoore — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:22:35 +0000

I’m at least 4 of those.

By: jwbiii

jwbiii — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:21:45 +0000

Braves games are broadcast regionally by WPCH, formerly WTBS. They are owned by Time-Warner. The deal was probably made when Time-Warner still owned the Braves, but were on their way out the door. Not a very savvy play by Liberty Media if my assumption is true.

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:01:26 +0000

….douchenozzle.

Edit function!
Edit function!
EDIT FUNCTION!

By: cur68

cur68 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:55:53 +0000

I am not a brigand. Haven't held up a traveler, knocked off the payroll stage coach, or poached the King's deer to feed the hungery ever...its not that I wouldn't (actually, as far as face to face robbery goes, it is: I'm pretty cowardly. That deer would be toast, though) I just haven't had the opportunity.

By: APBA Guy

APBA Guy — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:53:32 +0000

It’s not like the principals at Liberty don’t have the money: Chmn. John Malone is Forbes’ 69th richest American with $ 4.5 Bn (approx 20x Mitt Romney) and is well known for his hardball tactics when he ran TCI cable. So you wonder about this local TV deal. Who is it with? How does it favor Liberty, or does it favor an owner(s) individually or through another held entity?

Clearly as a division the Braves are only a small part of Liberty, not mentioned in the opening paragraphs of their Annual Report. My guess is that they could go for the right price. CEO Greg Maffei is from Oracle, so money is all that matters to him. He was the highest paid executive in America in 2010 at $ 88M. Not bad during a recession. That’s about equal to the Braves payroll. Maybe that’s how they set it. The team makes what Maffei makes.

Plenty to feel good about, Craig.

By: El Bravo

El Bravo — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:51:51 +0000

*douchenozzle (best post script ever too)

By: mooseinohio

mooseinohio — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:51:39 +0000

Yet somehow Mark Cuban would be bad for baseball. Wake up Bud – passionate owners with money make things happens and tend to keep their team in the news through making deals. Not always for the betterment of the team as Tom Hicks and Daniel Snyder have proven but Cuban did turn a lousy basketball team into playoff caliber team that won a championship.

As a longterm fan of all team New England I can say that the Red Sox benefitted greatly once a committed owner bought the team, the Pats went from dog house to penthouse after Kraft (long time season ticket holder) became owner, the Celtic won a championship again after new owner from Boston bought the team and the Bruin raised a banner after longterm tightwad Jacobs let the rein go.

By: El Bravo

El Bravo — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:48:59 +0000

In the farm system I must trust…

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:48:09 +0000

PS – does that mean that there’s a little Calcaterra knockoff somewhere in the bowels of the midwest without a local team to root for who will never have the opportunity to discover the Bravos on TBS like Craig did, changing his life, altering his perceptions, and warping his values so profoundly that litigating to screw over corporate sharks like the ones he worked for himself lost its frisson at such a tender age and condemned him to a basement, a keyboard, a monitor, occasional mini-novas of media notoriety and spring training camps whose stands vend horrible horsemeat and Velveeta™ sandwiches and endless correspondences with a faceless audience of derelicts, miscreants, pariahs, poltroons, spalpeens, curmudgeons, clotpolls, trulls, trolls, brigands, topers, runagates, rakes, duchenozzles, smellsmocks, lobcocks, reprobates, chipwiches, horriblehorsemeatandvelveeta™vores, tosspots, sots and archsots and other assorted and felonious debauchees?

By: Jonny 5

Jonny 5 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:47:41 +0000

Let’s not leave out Miami. Remember the Marlins had flashes of dominance when Loria didn’t even really give a crap about much but the bottom line. Now I think he may have a different view. Another team that will undoubtedly duke it out in the NL East.

By: hank10

hank10 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:44:59 +0000

Just another example of what happens when a corporation buys a sports franchise and it becomes nothing more than a line item on their balance sheet. Of course there are corporate owners who pump money into their franchises (Comcast and the Flyers for example) but mostly they own them as they would stock.

By: WhenMattStairsIsKing

WhenMattStairsIsKing — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:44:49 +0000

As a Cub fan, going from Tribune to Ricketts has been wonderful. I think teams are a lot more interesting when you have an actual person, or family, running a team, as opposed to a faceless corporation few fans know much about.

Let’s hope Ted goes batty one more time and buys the team back.

By: dcfan4life

dcfan4life — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:26:07 +0000

The real question then becomes does this remove the Braves from a competitive team. They have been in the mix or winning divisions for 20 years with great signings, strong pitching, and a good farm system. Does there unwillingness to spend now ensure they fall back down to middle of the pact. As a Nats fan id love for us and Philly to duke it out each year instead of worrying about the Braves but as a baseball fan to see such a great organization get gutted like that is just sad.

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:06:19 +0000

Being married to Ted Turner turned Jane Fonda into a born-again Christian. I mean, really, could it have been that bad?