Liberty Media Group to buy Braves from Time Warner for $1.7 Billion

If the Braves are worth $450 million, then how much are the Yankees worth? I mean, this will be the Braves last year on TBS, right? So whatever future TV revenue they make now will certainly be less on TURNER SOUTH/FOX SPORTS NET/CHANNEL XYZ/Other Cable TV Outlet they will end up being on, right since they won't fall under the same media banner (i.e. Yankess on YES, Red Sox on NESN, Cubs on WGN which is owned by Tribune)? I guess the price was too high for local billionaires (i.e. Falcons owner Arthur Blank was trying to make a deal early last year) to cough up. How are Braves fans handling the thought of an out of town media conglomerate running the franchise now ? ? ?

THE BOTTOM LINE: Time Warner hasn't been free spenders on the Braves lately unlike Tribune has been with the Cubs (for example). I guess only time will tell how Liberty Media Group will treat the Braves. I know that Braves fans haven't been to happy with the way Time Warner hasn't spent the money to get big name free agenets over the last few years.


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Braves reportedly sold to Liberty Media Corp.Associated Press


NEW YORK -- Time Warner Inc. finalized an agreement Monday to sell the Atlanta Braves to Liberty Media Corp. after more than a year of negotiations.

The deal, which values the team at $450 million, was submitted to Major League Baseball for its approval process, two people familiar with the deal said, speaking on condition of anonymity because no announcement had been made and publicly traded companies were involved.

The parties hope baseball will approve the sale in time for the team to be transferred by Opening Day, the person said. Under the agreement, Terry McGuirk will remain in charge of the team after the sale. General manager John Schuerholz and manager Bobby Cox also are expected to remain on, the person said.

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the finalization on its Web site, said Time Warner will transfer the Braves, a group of craft magazines and $1 billion in cash to Liberty in exchange for about 60 million shares of Time Warner. Based on the closing price of Time Warner's stock Monday, the market value of those shares would be about $1.27 billion.

Liberty Media spokesman John Orr and Time Warner spokesman Ed Adler declined to comment.

"We received certain of the sale documents today but have not yet reviewed them," said Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer.

He said baseball staff will go over the documents to make sure they meet baseball's usual sale rules.

"It will then go to the ownership committee, then will go to the executive council, then will go to the clubs," he said.

The parties had waited to receive tax opinions before reaching an agreement, the person involved in the deal said. The agreement was designed to minimize taxes.

Liberty currently has about 170 million shares of Time Warner, which is equivalent to a stake of about 4 percent of the media company, whose holdings include Time Warner Cable, HBO, AOL, CNN, Warner Bros. and Time Inc. The deal would reduce the size of Liberty's stake in Time Warner to about 2.6 percent.

Time Warner acquired the Braves when it bought Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting Systems from Ted Turner in the mid-1990s.

 

I hope the new owners bring back Cheif Nokahoma.

 

Wonder if the new owners will actually spend money on the team? I still wish Arthur Blanks, Falcons owner, would have been the owner, we know he tries to win by spending on players..

 

Atlanta journal Constitution says it's the worst case scenario for the Braves. They won't be spending as much money

 

Arthur Blanks looked into buying the team. He got out of the process almost a year ago. As for the new ownership group, who knows? What did the AJC base their assumption on that the Braves would spend less? The problem in MLB is some idiot owners like the one in San Fran. Who the hell would give Barry Zito that kind of money.

 

Chief Knockahoma & Fulton County Stadium 'back in the day'. Your still missed . . . 3

Hell yeah !!!!! Have a teepee somewhere in the outfield where between select innnings, him and some female dancers (I would call them the Tribe) would come out and do some dances . . That would kick ass !!!!!!!! Or perhaps the teepee could be set up behind the vistors bullpen where he & the Tribe members could harass the other team's relief pitchers throughout the game !!!!!!!! Or maybe at the start of each game, they would lead the Braves onto the field with everybody doing the 'Indian Yell' as the make their way to their teepee . . .

 

:notworthy:

 

well fuck

 

That's not good news. If true.. bye bye Andruw ..

 

As a further cost cutting move the Braves new ownership group has decided to move the team to Gastonia. Everything is cheap there.