Braves sale expected Wednesday

[braves guru]

New York — The biggest trade in Atlanta Braves history is due to go down Wednesday night. Bigger than the trade that sent Hank Aaron to the Milwaukee Brewers in 1975, or the one that brought John Smoltz from the Detroit Tigers in 1987, or the one that sent David Justice to the Cleveland Indians in 1997. Wednesday's trade — to be completed if Major League Baseball approves it during a late-afternoon meeting — would send the Braves franchise, a group of craft publications and about $1 billion in cash from team owner Time Warner to Liberty Media in return for a huge block of Time Warner stock long held by Liberty.

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[freak]

Looks like everything went through.

 

[Vercingetorix]

When you consider that Arthur Blank was at one point interested in buying the Braves, this completely sucks. The team is now owned by a media conglomerate who only bought the team for tax purposes. Look for A) Turner Field to be renamed after one of Liberty Media's properties before long -- QVC Stadium, perhaps? -- and B) the payroll freeze to remain in place. Yuck.

 

[14straight]

i was watching the braves live pregame on sports south and they had an atlanta sports writer on that said that the new ownership could mean an increase in payroll and a better possibility of getting andruw back...for what its worth

 

[Vercingetorix]

I would be delighted to be wrong about that. It's just hard for me to think that a Denver-based media company who is only buying the team in a stock swap because they can save money on taxes is going to have a lot of interest in jacking up the payroll to win games. I'll believe it when I see it, I guess.

And it could have been Arthur Blank. Agh.

 

[utbravesfan]

I think that Liberty Media will be better than our previous owner Time Warner. Liberty Media has agreed to keep the Braves for 4 and 1/2 years. They also said that payroll will not be lower than the previous 3 years. The Braves might have a chance to resign Andruw and lock up some of the young guys like Francoeur.

 

[utbravesfan]

I just read this interesting article about the new owner, which is making me excited because the owners seem like they are going to be better owners than Time Warner. This article is an interview with Liberty president and CEO Greg Maffei.

On whether the payroll, which can't go down, will go up: "I'm going to leave that to [Braves CEO] Terry [McGuirk[, but I would be surprised [if it doesn't go up]. The goal is to have a successful franchise, and winning franchises are successful franchises, and there probably is some correlation between payroll and success. Not an absolute correlation, but certainly some correlation. We'll look to Terry and [Braves general manager] John [Schuerholz] to come in with what they think is needed. . . . There will probably be a budget outlined, and within that budget Terry will have flexibility to increase payroll."

http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/braves/stories/2007/05/17/0517libertyceo.html