As you may have already heard, the Braves have split from their Fanduel-sponsored TV broadcaster. What we will get in the place of that is to be determined. We’ll see the Braves somewhere, and I believe Battery Power will have some great guesses on the future later. But here the question: why can’t we just have the Braves back on TBS?
Teams are not allowed to broadcast their games into other teams’ territories anymore. We used to have WGN show the Cubs and WOR show the Mets along with the Braves on TBS. At one point, you could see as much as half of the National League on some days with only a cable subscription. But they did away with that years ago.
The Braves on TBS was fun, but you couldn’t see every Braves game there. As far back as 1990, TBS had a small portion of games that weren’t on their network. I don’t know the reason for this exactly, but they maxed out around 155 a year. I don’t think anybody noticed until 1991 when they suddenly were in a pennant race with the Dodgers. Some of those August and early September games were not carried because TBS had a limited number of games and they wanted to ensure that they had the last games of the year. 1992 is when we were introduced to SportsSouth, which filled the gaps.
Enter the Braves network phase
From a TV money perspective, why would we want it on basic cable anyway? Remember, the Braves don’t have a stake in Warner Bros Discovery (or the abomination it might turn into), which is TBS’ parent company. The Braves are better off having a wholly owned channel. But if they’re smart, maybe they can acquire some of the names, logos, and music of the old days. Maybe they can acquire some random movies that were part of the Turner catalog. They could call it “Turner Legacy”, or some such. We can rebuild it. We can duplicate the content.
I think the Braves will have to work around the NBC, Peacock, Apple, and other assorted carve outs. But just give me “Turner Legacy”, make it a small fee for cable customers, and give the cord cutters an option. One thing we know is that they won’t pull it from cable companies in the middle of the season over a contract dispute. Our wrath toward the team would be too terrible.
