Braves Extend Ace Chris Sale, Announce 'BravesVision' TV Network

00:00:21
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Hammer Territory podcast. I'm Scott Coleman and I am joined on the show today by Stephen Tolbert and Steven We were going to have a busy show today with the Braves announcing a new television network, but we got more news. We have a Chris Sale contract extension as well to talk about. We're going to dig into all of it. Let's jump right into Chris Sale. A one year contract extension twenty seven million dollars for the year twenty twenty seven, so the Braves will have Sale for at least two more seasons. There's also a club option for thirty million bucks in twenty twenty eight. Braves have locked up their ace for at least the next two years, if not three. What was kind of your immediate reaction as the news broke here on Tuesday morning?

00:01:08
Speaker 2: What's up, buddy? So we got the news early this morning. Is like right after the TV news the news drop that they were signing Chris Sale. And we talked about this a bunch over the offseason, that this was a possibility. Springtime is when extensions happen. Chris Sale was a very obvious extension. Candidate because he was going into his last year team control. You typically don't have guys start the season without a contract for the upcoming year unless you plan on them walking, and I'm positive the Braves had no interest in Chris Sale walking, so I kind of had my intenta up for this at some point. The details were always going to be the fascinating part. It's a really good contract. I mean, you know, obviously the headline is the Braves are spending more money on Chris Sale on an AAV basis than they've ever spent on any player before, which is twenty seven May in twenty twenty seven. But just on value, getting an ACE for twenty seven million bucks is a bargain. Quite frankly, it just is. I know it doesn't sound like it, and I know Chris is older and it has got injury stuff, but guys at his level get paid a lot more than that. So this is a fantastic deal for the Braves. So it's a one plus one and it's an add on to his existing deal. Because I had people asking does this affect their luxury tax their av for this year, and it doesn't because it's just tacked onto the end of his current deal, so his current deal doesn't get touched. It's in twenty twenty seven, it'll it'll bump up to twenty seven. And then if they end up picking up the twenty twenty eight option, I think it was at thirty million, then the av for those two years changes, but it doesn't touch this year. I think it's a fantastic deal. They have to keep Chris Sale. The state of their pitching staff being what it is, We're not going to go through all that today, but they don't really have a healthy ace ready to go for next year if they let Chris Sale walk. So getting Chris Sale locked up for two more years at a very reasonable number, I don't know how you can think anything other than this is a fantastic deal for the Braves.

00:03:03
Speaker 1: You know, it's I want to give a tip of the cap to Austin Kane Reach, who is a writer over at battery power dot com, And Austin pointed out, so sure, twenty seven million dollars a lot of money, and potentially thirty million dollars the following year a lot of money for Chris Sale. But this is I mean, pardon the pun here, but I mean it's somewhat of a sale for the Braves on Chris Sale, because if you compare Chris Sale's new contract to what Max Scherzer got at age thirty eight, Sureser got a three year, one hundred and thirty million dollars guaranteed deal a couple of offseasons ago that also had a player option and a no trade class. So again, I mean sure over the course of their careers, Max Shure's is probably a little better than Chris Sale, but similar ages, similar levels of production. Sure'ser got three and one hundred and thirty million guaranteed with a player option, whereas Sale did one year for twenty seven with a club option at the end of it. Similarly, Justin Verlander when he was forty years old, got a two year, eighty six point six million dollar deal. This is a very friendly deal for the Braves. I know a lot of people who have been covering Chrisale for a long time have said, this is a guy. While he's obviously made a lot of money, I think by the end of his career he's going to approach close to three hundred million dollars in career earnings. That is a boatload of cash. But Sale has always been a player who has prioritized his comfort level and preference where he wants to pitch instead of chasing the biggest bag and going to free agency, which he very easily could have done a year from now, and nobody would have blamed him.

00:04:44
Speaker 2: Want to remember, the Braves has already gotten a steal on Chris Sale the first time around, because Boston paid his entire contract the first year he was with the Braves. So in twenty twenty four, his first year, the Braves paid him zero dollars. Then they they readegotiated this deal to get a club option in there for like twenty two million bucks I think last year, and this year he's making like eighteen. Like these are steals for a front line picture, like a bona fide cy young level ace picture. I miss. That's an absurd amount of money that the Braves are not having to spend that other teams have to spend if they're paying, you know, top market value.

00:05:24
Speaker 1: And so.

00:05:24
Speaker 2: And Chris did a little like a little sixty second interview this morning right after the deal got announced, and he said it came together very quickly. Him and Alex both kind of made public statements right when Camp opened about wanting to get a deal done, and then he said right after, like we just we just hooked up and were like, yeah, let's just let's just knock it out. He said, took like less less than a week. There was like one back and forth and then that was it. So clearly a lot of motivation on both sides for this to get done. Chris loves it here, of course, Brace fans love Chris. Chris is only he's only been here two years. This will be his third year. Already one of my favorite Braves of all time, quite honestly, Like he is everything I want in a not only my ACE, but just the best player on my team. He's just all about baseball all the time, very no nonsense. You know, his interviews are hysterical because he's just you know, they interviewed him about the ABS stuff and it made like National rounds because he was just very blunt about like, yeah, I want every pitch, I'm not gonna I'm gonna have my catcher do most of the work there. Like he's just a very funny, blunt, straightforward dude, and that's what I want in my ACE. The Braves have gotten unbelievable bargains every year that they've had Chris. It's going to continue for a couple more. I am glad he's getting closer to where probably his market value is. Like Chrisdale should be the highest paid player on the team. It should be Chrisdale Ronald K Junior. Those two are the two best players and have been for a while. So obviously Ronnie's deal is gonna be the one that we look to next. But this is at least closer to what Christale is worth. But the Braves did very very well here.

00:06:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you look at this contract for sale. Now we mentioned off the top twenty seven million dollars, so the twenty two million dollar internal cap for the team has been broken, and Chris Sale feels like a reasonable player to break that cap for future Hall of Famer, respect of the clubhouse, good human, Like I know Chris Cotelo, who's been covering the Red Sox for years. It's like you asked any of Chris Sales teammates when he was in Boston, he was universally beloved. Sure it's similar in Atlanta. So now for years it was that twenty two million dollar cap, and I believe that's where Olsen is and where Riley is. Strider's at twenty million bucks. So I think sales deserving of it, and I think inevitably now, especially his salaries just keep going up and up and up, and are going to continue to do so with the new CBA when it gets worked out in a year, it feels like that cap has been lifted. And now, of course all eyes on a year from now if that's going to be the new cap in the clubhouse and what that'll do for Alex in the front office with free agency in trades.

00:08:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll be honest. I never put a lot of stock in that twenty two number. It always felt more like a paper ceiling than a glass ceiling, because you know, there was always report like Freddie Freeman's like original like contract offer that he didn't end up taking. I think was gonna be for like twenty seven million a year for the Braves. I think at one point Aaron Nola we got confirmation they offered him like twenty seven million. So I don't think it was ever a hard cap. I think it was a soft cap. I think it's just a number they felt comfortable with. But I think they for the right player. They in the past would have gone above it if they needed to. Chris Sale, like you just said, is the perfect guy like him and Acuna are the easy al right. If we're gonna break over this twenty two, these are the two guys we do it with. So yeah, I would not be surprised. And listen, he's got a thirty million dollar option for twenty twenty eight. So this this, you know, this record could only last, you know, until twenty twenty eight if they'd end up picking up that club option. So I'm so it's been so negative around the pitching staff since camp opened, Like we just have not had really any positive news around the pitching staff. I can't honestly think of one like Grant Holmes as being is a lot healthier than we thought, so that that counts. But like, we haven't had a lot of good news about the pitching staff, especially the rotation. And just to know that Chris Sale is gonna be in a Braves uniform for at least two more years, potentially three, and they could you know, this is essentially the Charlie Morton where they just kept doing a one plus one one plus one one plus one. Would not be surprised at all. As long as Sale maintains his production, they just keep doing that. So I would love for him to retire brave. I would love for that to be in like five years, not necessarily in two because I wasn't sure, Like, and he brought this up in his interview, was like, I didn't want to be asked about retirement all year because there was those questions were gonna like he was gonna be asked about his contract and his future all year if they didn't do something in spring. And now we don't have to worry about any of that, and that that is a tremendous feeling to know you have an a level pitcher locked up for multiple years.

00:10:03
Speaker 1: And Sale is going to turn thirty seven at the end of March, so not a young man. And we should say there's of course risk, although the Graves have been more than comfortable giving out big contracts on a yearly basis to Charlie Morton. Even Cole Hamils a few years ago was in his mid late thirties, so there is some risk. But it's interesting even though Sale is getting up there in age, this is a guy who basically didn't pitch in twenty twenty twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two, and missed about half of the season in twenty twenty three. So in theory, his arm, his shoulder, everything you need a pitcher to be healthy with in order to be effective, should be relatively fresh compared to his peers at a similar age. Of course, Chris has the longest list of weird injuries I have ever seen from a baseball player. So I think there's a little bit of caution here that he is getting older and he has a long injury list, but he is, in theory, should be a little bit fresher elbow wise. And of course the Braves have known Chris for two years, so they know his medicals as well as basically anyone. I am sure that if there was any doubt about his health and moving forward, they probably would not have guaranteed him another year another twenty seven million dollars.

00:11:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's always really I mean, in order to acquire an ace, you have to take risks somewhere, and that's either in the prospects you give up or the contract you hand out, like that's just the nature of it. There's no risk free way to acquire a picture of this caliber. So the way I would prefer to take risk is the way to mitigate it the most is to kind of limit yourself to shorter deals, and that's what the Braves have done here. It's a two years essentially. You know, he's got this year guaranteed, of course, and he's got next year guaranteed, and that's the only guaranteed part of the deal. So there's no way to remove the risk entirely. I think the Braves have done the smart thing and mitigated as much as possible. And you know, I think we're on I've talked about Chris in the Hall of Fame before, because he had these weird injuries that took a big chunk of his prime. I think he's I think he's gonna be more. I think right now he would be more on the edge than I think he should be. But if if he can stack like five years kind of post all these injuries with the Braves, He's already won a cy Young. I think he would have won another, say Young last year if he didn't break a rib. That's how good he was. He's gonna Walton to the Hall of Fame, and you know there's gonna be the conversation of you know what, what had is he gonna wear? Obviously that he was with Chicago, Boston and now the Braves. But this is a this is a very exciting idea that Chris Sale could pitch for the Braves for you know, five years, six years total. It's not what I was expecting when they made that trade. I was hoping to get one or two good years at the most out of him. But he's been so good. He's he's so much better than I thought he'd be. I mean, he's still an ace, and I did not expect that at his age, So credit to him. This is a really exciting deal. Some good news to that. I'm so glad you and I could come on here and talk about some like. This is not a we were going to do a show anyway. I'm not sure this is an emergency pod. But if we weren't going to do the show today, we would have done a show for this signing. So technically this is an emergency pod for something good, and we haven't had many of those. And that's that's that alone is good enough.

00:13:15
Speaker 1: This really was just a grand slam of a trade and everything since the trade, Oh my god, the trade. Yeah, folks, missed it. Von Grissom was basically kicked out of Boston is now with the Angels. It just that was a once a decade type of heist. To be honest, and very happy to have Chris locked up for another year. It's kind of a big checklist off of Alex's to do list for next winter. And sure, it's twenty seven million dollars. It's a lot of money on a yearly basis, but as we talked about, you have to pay the ace premium and it's it's funny to say that Chris brings a level of stability to this pitching staff with all of the injuries he's had throughout his career, but he does. And when Chris Sale is on the mount, his entire career, he has been fantastic, like a genuinely great pitcher. Every single day of his healthy career, he's been awesome. We've seen it with the Braves fingers crossed, Healthy twenty six, Healthy twenty seven, Because if the Braves are gonna do something special this year, it kind of feels like Sale is going to be a big centerpiece of all that. All right, Stephen, let's now shift our focus to another huge bit of news from the Atlanta Braves. Braves vision the new TV network streaming network for the franchise. More on that in just a minute after a word from our partners.

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00:14:56
Speaker 1: All want to learn more, visit fascinal dot com for an industrial supplies and Innovative solutions. That's FA S T E NA L dot com. All right, Stephen Brave's vision the new network for the Atlanta Braves. It was announced early on Tuesday that Brave's vision will the Braves are basically bringing everything in house in terms of TV and streaming production. That's sales, marketing, distribution of the telecasts, streaming. The team will continue to have pre and postgame shows just like before. And a big question a lot of people had is that, indeed, it does appear that Brandon Godon and CJ. Nikkowski are going to be returning to the broadcasts. There are a lot of layers with Brave's vision in terms of how you can watch the team, where you can watch the team. No more blackouts is a huge deal for folks living around the Atlanta area. But I guess ten thousand foot view Brave's vision. The new home of the Atlanta Braves take on the I don't want to know if monumental might be too strong of a word, but a big day for the franchise, to.

00:16:06
Speaker 2: Be sure, Yeah, we knew it was coming. This has been coming down the tracks for I mean, honestly, going back multiple years now, is that RSN model was slowly dying and everybody, you know, the Braves run a level where the Braves need to have their own network. You know, the Mets have their own network, the Dodgers, the Cubs, like the big franchises that have big TV markets have their own network now they don't depend on these third party rsns. And the Braves have a massive television market as people know, it's a national team a lot because of TBS and how a lot of it's grew up watching the team. But they have a massive television market and it's big enough to justify having their own in house network, and that's essentially what they launched. And we knew it was coming as soon as the you know, the RSN fallout from a couple of weeks ago. We've just been waiting on the news that we finally got at least the announcement that it's happening. It's called Brave's Vision. One of the points that we we tried to make over the last few weeks was it was almost certainly going to have a linear TV component as well as a streaming component. It's almost zero chance the Braves were gonna launch a network that didn't have linear TV as an option. Just the baseball demographic is older. Older people still get their TV via you know, cable, so it was always going to have that. And what we got in the announcement today was they're gonna start negotiating with each of the individual carriers. So if you're living the South like I do, Charter, you know, Exfinity, AT and T, Direct TV, all the big ones, and as they get as they come to deals with each of those, they will announce. And because we had a lot of people asking, like is my carrier going to carry this network. And I would say to you, the Braves are not going to launch a network and not have the major carriers involved. They're not gonna have a swath of millions of fans who are just unable to access the games. So if you're one of the if you're with one of the big guys, you really don't need to worry. It's just about finding how much it's going to cost. Is it going to be in your base cable package or you gonna have to pay more for it, and then what channel it's going to be on, And we'll know all that information closer to opening day. But this is a big deal. This is a big deal. They should have their own network. They're the type of franchise in Major League Baseball that needs their own network and they should not have to depend on somebody else to manage production. Having Brandon and CJ back is fantastic. It's all in house. It's exactly where it should be. We'll learn more the devil's in the details, a little bit about pricing and stuff as we get closer, But thirty thousand feet this is a big deal.

00:18:36
Speaker 1: And I will say, let's hope that This is a financially sustainable, feasible endeavor for the Braves because by bringing everything in house, you're cutting out the middleman. You are removing the RSNS, which was basically how we've watched baseball our entire lives, other than the TBS days, which I guess is not really a regional network. It was just a big ass TV network. But the Braves are bringing everything in We had heard in recent weeks they've been hiring salespeople who are now going to sell ads. From a viewer perspective, as you said, we'll learn what the TV channel is and all the options for how to watch the games. But the Raves are bringing it all in house, and in theory that should mean more money. In theory, if they do their jobs, you would have sponsors all over the place. It would just bring in more revenue year over year for the team. In one note, I wanted to mention this. I am, of course not in the Atlanta area. I'm out here in Arizona. I saw a ton of questions I know you did too, about what does this mean for me if I live out of market in Arizona, or in Missouri, or in New York or in California. Nothing this Braves vision announcement really impacts other than the financial component, really impacts those living in the Braves Television network area, which is Georgia and Alabama and Tennessee. And there's a big map actually with all the counties that are technically Braves TV county. You will continue if you're out of network, you will continue to purchase MLBtv and watch the Braves just if you as you've been doing for years. That's how I watch them, It's how a lot of people watch them, especially for a team that has so many fans nationally. If you're out of market, other than some new branding and you know the revenue side of it for the team, nothing will change. You will continue to watch your games on MLB TV.

00:20:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we got a ton of those messages because again, the Braves are a national brand. They have fans all over the country, they have fans all over the world. The big change is obviously in market, because in market, fans like me and millions of others who live in the Braves Television network have never been given the ability to watch the Braves on MLB dot TV because those games get blacked out. What this with this news is the Braves are going to have a subset of a subscription on MLB dot tv where you can purchase the Braves games. I think they said one hundred and forty because there's national games that obviously have exclusive TV rights, so I think it's like one hundred and forty games. But people in market can now stream Braves games on MLB dot tv, which have never been able to do before. It is going to be a special subscription. It's not like if you just buy the normal MLB dot tv package like you have for years, you would be blocked out from Braves games because it's the same setup. What you're gonna have now is a special subscription that you can buy for in market games, which we've never had before. So it's just another option. If you're somebody who watches on linear TV like cable, this really doesn't change much for you. It's gonna be exactly like it was with the like FanDuel and Bally. It's just you're gonna have to figure out, you know, when the Braves announced these deals, you know, is the channel gonna be on the cable package you currently have or do you have to upgrade your cable package? What channel is it, you know, and how to find it? All that stuff will be announced as they make deals with those carriers. So the linear TV people, it really isn't changing much. It's just what the channel is going to be different, and the branding is gonna look different. Still gonna be CJ and Brandon, which is awesome. The streaming people is where I think the biggest change is coming because because I don't have like, I don't have cable, I don't have linear cable. I watch everything via streaming. So now that I can stream on MLB dot TV an Atlanta Braves game is a massive change for me. So and there's a lot of us out there like that. So that's where the that's where the big change comes.

00:22:26
Speaker 1: And you know you mentioned YouTube TV and Fubo TV is popular. I think the Braves did announce like a They have a frequently asked Questions page, and I believe one of the questions was I have YouTube TV or I have Fubo What does this.

00:22:40
Speaker 2: Mean for me?

00:22:41
Speaker 1: It seems like the Braves are working on that where they might be able to integrate Braves Vision into you into your YouTube TV package. I don't know what that's going to look like, and I'm sure the team will announce it in the next six weeks, but that's a possibility. And then on the streaming side, so say you are somebody who has cut the cord, as so many people will have, you'll have two options. We think you can either purchase Braves dot tv, which is the Braves only, so you would get all one hundred and forty Braves games streaming. You can also purchase Braves TV plus MLBtv, and that would get you access not just to Braves games, but to all other twenty nine teams. We don't know pricing yet, and I know pricing was something a lot of people were asking And this is just a guess based on what other teams in Major League Baseball have done. But for example, the Saint Louis Cardinals now have Cardinals dot TV for in network streaming. Cardinals dot Tv is ninety nine ninety nine for Cardinals only, and if you want all the games, it's one ninety nine ninety nine. We don't know for sure that it's going to be one hundred bucks to watch Braves only and two hundred bucks to watch everybody. That kind of feels like what it would be it's sub one hundred dollars, which I mean by a penny. It's sub one hundred dollars, which is kind of an easy to market price point to try to get as many people to sign up as possible. I'm sure the Braves will announce this in the coming weeks. It could be more. I guarantee you it won't be less. It could be more because the Braves are such a massive market and team and fan base. But if you're budgeting this stuff out, probably one hundred bucks to watch the Braves in network on streaming, and if you want to watch everybody, it'd be about two hundred bucks.

00:24:22
Speaker 2: Yep. And I you're one hundred percent riding, will not be less than that. I would not be surprised if it's more. I wouldn't be surprised if it's like one thirty for the Braves and you know, maybe two thirty for the for everything. But because like you said, the Braves are just a it's a higher level product and it's in more demand.

00:24:38
Speaker 1: So we'll see.

00:24:40
Speaker 2: I will say this with YouTube TV specifically, it's going to be very similar, like as the Braves announced these deals for like Charter and AT and T and all the big cable carriers. It's gonna be the exact same thing with streamers, like we're gonna just wait, are they gonna announce? You know, these carrier disputes are very common now in our world. Like you see all the time you're watching YouTube TV and it's like this channel is about to go away because we're not, you know, we're in a dispute. So the carrier and the network are gonna have to strike a deal. And that's the same for all of the cable companies and all the streaming services. So people ask, is it gonna be on YouTube TV? We don't know, and honestly, the team doesn't even know, Like they're they're gonna have to get into these negotiations and come up with a number that makes sense for everybody. So I you know, the devil's gonna and the devil's in the details and a lot of stuff we just don't know. But the fact that it's been announced, we know it's got linear TV attached. We know that people in market are gonna have an option to stream Braves games as massive because we just didn't have that before. So and the fact that it's all in house, the Braves don't have to worry about some RSN going to bankruptcy court because they can't pay their bills and having their whole TV lives disrupted because of it, which is what happened to the Braves the last two years. They have to worry about any of that. They own it all now, so that that's fantastic. That's just a two really good sets of news that we got this morning, and you know, honestly equally impactful, like how you watch the team, how you watch the Braves, where you watch it matters, It matters to every fan. So we're still wedding on some more details, especially on pricing, but this was good news today.

00:26:20
Speaker 1: It definitely is. And we're going to continue to talk about the good news and a few other odds and ends. But the first another quick word from our partners.

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00:27:30
Speaker 1: All right, Stephen, we are back, and they should say that today's episode of Hammer Territory is engineered by Fastenal. Visit Fastenal dot com to learn more. Just a couple other quick notes on Braves Vision and the new TV network. Additionally, if you are in the region, but maybe you don't want to pay for the streaming service or you don't have cable, the Braves did say that they will continue to broadcast a handful of games over the year on Gray television stations, which they announced a few weeks ago for spring training. I believe there's fifteen games on Gray TV stations and select markets, largely in the Southeast. But if you're not going to pay for the service, it is worth noting that you may be able to get a handful of Braves games over the antenna. And then lastly, one other note, and the Braves made sure to make note of this. So with Brave's vision that is going to be about one hundred and forty games, you do not get the national telecast games through Braves dot TV Brave's vision on your cable or satellite provider, those are going to continue to be blacked out. You, of course then have to watch on ESPN or now NBC is the new Sunday Night Baseball Home, or of course everyone's favorite Apple TV games or Peacock games which dear Lord and head at any time one of those happened. It is like World War three on the internet. But wanted to make note of those two items in terms of the TV deal.

00:28:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the downside of having such a large national brand as your favorite baseball team is that the national broadcast want them a lot on their national you know, on the national side. So NBC is launching this new Sunday Night Baseball thing for ratings purposes. They're gonna want the Braves and so and they're gonna want the Yankees and the Phillies and the big markets. So, yeah, the Braves are only playing one hundred and forty kind of normal games in terms of the TV side. They've got all of these national games. I expect that to continue. It's usually I mean that's not crazy, it's it's a little high. Like normally it's like you get like one forty five or maybe one fifty in terms of your regular broadcast. So this year's one forty Again. The MLB's got some new TV partners they're rolling out, NBC being the big one, so it's not surprising. But yeah, you're gonna get a lion's share of the games on whatever you're whatever you're currently using. And I'll say this, the Braves are the Braves have I'm not going to say they're going to have more money to spend. But when this TV stuff was happening, there was a real conversation about how much of a bath they were going to take on revenue, and I was really actually pretty concerned because it happened so late in the calendar, Like the Main Street Sports stuff happened like a month ago, and I was really concerned, like the Braves were gonna have to maybe only do like a streaming thing for twenty twenty six, that the revenue was gonna come way down, that payroll might have to come way down because of it. We ha's heard some numbers about what other teams have had to take in terms of revenue when MLB took over their distribution. I was quietly concerned that the Braves were really going to be in a tough spot, maybe not long term, but maybe just in twenty twenty six. So the fact that they saw it coming and I think everybody saw this coming down the track for the last couple of years, but the Braves were proactive about having this ready to go in a month's noticed. They've been able to launch this. That's a that's not a given. There's a lot of teams that didn't do that, and I weren't prepared to do that and aren't going to reap the benefits of it. So credit to the Braves for seeing this coming. They're probably they're probably going to take a little bit of bath in year one just because it's new and they were making a lot of money on the old RSN deals, But long term, the projections on this are way higher. There just are because you're you're not you're keeping everything inside. So this is fantastic, I mean, and getting it launched so quickly is not a given. And so credit to the team for launching this so quickly.

00:31:32
Speaker 1: I know that when it was first announced that the RSN deal with the Braves had fallen apart, former Beat Beat writer in Front of the show, Justin Tuscano tweeted out, like, this is not a big shock to the Braves, Like, there are folks who've been thinking about this new era of Braves TV for a long time, and you're absolutely right. There's there's no way you could bring all this together in four weeks, no, I mean, and this is and also the Braves knew their TV deal was close to expiring, and there's no you know, if you're a television executive, you're not a dummy. We know that so many of these RSN deals signed right before literally millions of people started cutting the cord and just going to Netflix and Petecock and not having cable as they used to have for years and years and years. It feels like the Braves are well positioned, and you know, the beauty of this is being a publicly traded company. I would assume we will get details on this TV deal, you know, in the financial quarters to come so well, No, I agree. I think year one that might be a little slow off the ground, but ideally by year two, year three, year four, the Braves really have this humming and get it closer to the revenue that some of the biggest TV markets in the in the game bring in year over year.

00:32:47
Speaker 2: And this wasn't part of the announcement today, but there was a report from the Sports Business Journal, who did a great job covering this stuff. By the way, I think it was yesterday that the Braves may look into partnering with some of the other local professional teams. I think it said the Hawks and maybe the Tennessee No it.

00:33:06
Speaker 1: Was Grizzlies, maybe the Charlotte Hornets. Like it was kind of a random mishmash of Southeastern professional teams.

00:33:14
Speaker 2: Yeah and so, and that helps you know there's there's business reasons for that, but also helps with programming year round. Obviously, NHL NBA seasons are kind of opposite of MLB seasons that happen in the winter, because it's gonna be a network that has programming all the time, just like any other channel you turn on, you know, any time of year it's gonna have They're gonna want to have some sort of programming on year round, and obviously the baseball season is not year round, so I would not be surprised if this gets expanded to NBA NHL. A lot of those franchises were also up ended by the main street sport uh, you know, bankruptcy or whatever, so they're gonna be looking for team homes as well. A lot of people want to attach themselves to the Braves because the Braves are such a massive market. They can carry a network by themselves, just on the just on the ratings. So I would don't be surprised at all if like the Hawks join this at some point. If you're if you're an Atlanta Hawks fan, or if you're a Charlotte Hornets fan, or you know whatever the NHL teams are in those areas, I can't tell you, but don't be surprised if that happens as well.

00:34:13
Speaker 1: And you would think that would bring in even more revenue for the team. You know, if you're if you're selling ads for Braves games, it's hey, you want to also be on Atlanta Hawks games with you know, with Brad Rowland in press row covering the boys, and you know, it makes it right. It's another revenue stream we gotta get.

00:34:29
Speaker 2: We got to get Brad a GoPro and just have the you know, you can watch the game from from Brad's point of view, just from the top of Brad's head.

00:34:36
Speaker 1: There you go. Yes, nobody grinds more on the Atlanta Hawks feat than our our good old friend Brad Rowland. But yes, it is. To put a ball on this, I think there's a real potential here for the Braves to bring in even more money. We know that the Battery is packed for eighty one home games a year. Yep, ticket sales are always strong. God, let's hope the team is better this year so they don't see that decline in August and September ticket sales and revenue, because I mean, can't imagine many folks were eagerly waiting to drop two hundred dollars to go to the ballpark last September with the team just totally dead, but a big day for the Braves. Chris Sale extension absolutely helps the team out twenty twenty seven, hopefully twenty twenty eight and a new era for Braves Television with Brave's vision. And I'm sure in the weeks to come we will learn more about pricing and availability and all that good stuff.

00:35:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we'll cover all that as soon as that stuff drops. Obviously, we're not going to leave you guys out in the cold. As soon as we know which carriers get added, the Brave said they would announce each We'll talk about it as soon as we know pricing, we'll talk about it as soon as we know channels. Honestly, like you know, we'll throw that stuff out there too, just so everybody knows. Everybody just you know, most people just they don't really care about the business side. Most people just want to know where can I watch the game? How much is it going to cost me? And where can I watch the game? So as soon as we have all that stuff, we will we will throw it out to the public.

00:35:57
Speaker 1: And a reminder one more time that if you are not local. If you are not in the Braves TV network, nothing has changed by by your MLB TV. You'll have the Braves on on opening day and every day after that. So one more time for that note. I lost track of how many people ask me that question earlier today.

00:36:16
Speaker 2: And if you have any questions, I will send you Brad Rowland's email and he's our customer service rep and he will answer any questions that you have.

00:36:25
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, let me. Let me pull up Brad's number here.

00:36:27
Speaker 2: I've got a cell phone number here as well. Here we go.

00:36:30
Speaker 1: Yes, it is seven to seven zero three. Sorry Brad. All right, folks, That is going to do it for this edition of the Hammer Territory Podcast. We'll be back with plenty of coverage this upcoming week. The Braves are actually playing a game right now that is going well knock on wood as we record, so we'll talk about the games the next time we have a show on the feed. As always, a big thank you to everybody for checking us out. We'll be back with plenty more and until then we will see everybody next time.

00:37:02
Speaker 4: The Diffrent

00:37:05
Speaker 1: SA