On Wednesday’s earnings call to discuss the third quarter of 2026 performance, Atlanta Braves Holdings officials finally gave us some details on the performance of their in-house broadcast network, BravesVision.
The financial statements looked worse in 2026 because of it, with CFO Jill Robinson admitting that cash flow “looked different” than in past years. But at the same time, ABH officials believe it actually performed considerably better than those numbers suggested it did.
Both things can be true.
Atlanta had roughly 30 days to build and launch a television network after reclaiming its local broadcast rights in the spring after Main Street Sports Group, the successor to bankrupt Diamond Sports Group, failed to make its scheduled payment and ABH terminated the agreement. It took on all the responsibility in-house for producing the games, negotiating distribution agreements, selling advertising, and attracting direct-to-consumer subscribers - all expenses and risks that were previously carried by its third-party partner, with ABH just receiving a royalty check.
After the first season of operation, BravesVision appears to have passed the initial test.
Atlanta Braves Holdings officials reiterated their belief that the network is expected to match the annualized revenue of the previous television arrangement, but for the first time, also stated that they expected it to “replicate” the previous model’s profitability. BravesVision led MLB in in-market direct-to-consumer subscriptions and generated record advertising revenue.
But the quarterly results don’t reflect that same optimism. Media-related revenue declined, BravesVision racked up $26.5 million in expenses through September, and the baseball operations’ profitability actually fell, and sharply.
Understanding why these results are not as contradictory as they appear can shed some light on what ABH actually built, and what BravesVision’s early success may mean for the team’s ability to spend in 2027.
Let’s talk about it.
Revenue will exceed the old arrangement. Profit should match it.
This is the second consecutive quarterly earnings call where we’ve heard an ABH officer state that BravesVision’s annualized revenue is expected to exceed the performance of the old broadcast deal.
Which, to be clear, isn’t exactly a massive bar to clear. Atlanta’s previous broadcast arrangement, locked in prior to the Time Warner transaction with Liberty Media, was considered to be one of (if not) the worst in all of baseball. Reportedly, Liberty’s purchase price actually factored in the weak broadcast agreement, although the broadcast deal was slightly adjusted upwards several years later.
But again, the distinction here is that the revenue was expected to match the old deal. Revenue is money in, but it’s not income. It was income under the old deal, as there were very few costs that ABH had to bear on their books for Main Street Sports Group to produce the broadcasts. But now, ABH is covering those costs themselves.
But for the first time, we got confirmation Wednesday that BravesVision is expected to replicate the old model’s profitability on an annualized basis, too. And that’s the more meaningful test, really: Higher gross revenues matter only if ABH can still see the same profit that previously came from sitting back and collecting a rights fee without operating the network itself. It’s a necessary and important step in the viability of BravesVision as a business.
The problem is that the financials still don’t reflect that income growth just yet.
The first-year financial statements obscure the result
The baseball operations side of Atlanta Braves Holdings saw a drop in OIBDA, their preferred measure of performance1, from $50 million in the same third quarter last year to $26 million. And that drop was despite there being more home games (44, with two of those in the postseason) than the 41 in the same quarter last year.
Some of that decline came from player salaries, which ABH Chairman Terry McGuirk described as an intentional investment in the roster. BravesVision also raised operating expenses and changed the timing of when local media revenue appears in the financial statements.
There is a separate cash-flow issue, too. Under the previous arrangement, Atlanta had recognized and collected the year’s local rights revenue by the end of the baseball season. BravesVision’s distribution contracts generally run from April through March, with payments arriving in arrears. ABH has already incurred most of the season’s production costs, newly disclosed at $26.5 million YTD2, before collecting all the corresponding cash.
That timing mismatch does not necessarily make BravesVision less profitable. It does explain why ABH used more cash and borrowed more heavily during its first year of operation.
Quarter three’s “media-related revenue” was down three million from the same quarter last year, from $79 million to $76 million, and while the national and radio deals helped smooth out some of the cash flow, BravesVision is still lagging.
Robinson acknowledged this change in how the financials for this new venture need to be perceived, reminding the analysts on the call that BravesVision needed to be looked at on an annual basis instead of quarterly.
Unlike in the old arrangement, where the team would have already received all the local broadcast revenue for the year, collections for BravesVision will continue not only through the end of the year and quarter one, but even a bit into quarter two - these were one-year distribution deals that started at the earliest on April 1st, 2026, and are paid in arrears instead of in advance.
That means when looking at the YTD numbers through the third quarter of the year, you’re comparing a full completed payment cycle for the old distribution plan to just two quarters of BravesVision, where they had to frontload the expenses so that they could produce and broadcast the games, but have only been paid roughly two full quarters of the revenue for it.
Matching the old deal is still an upgrade
But even though the financials haven’t borne out the full size and scope of BravesVision, ABH officials were quick to tout some of the best news about the broadcast arrangement.
For one, BravesVision led all of MLB in in-market direct-to-consumer subscribers, who all purchased viewing access to Braves games directly from the organization, and even continued to add subscribers beyond the usual June cutoff for signups. They touted the record advertising revenue generated, as well as the fact they were able to both preserve the broad linear distribution they had under the old deal plus adding free over-the-air games.
And most importantly, the club retained control of its content and the customer relationship, something that CEO Derek Schiller brought up later in the call in response to a question about offseason programming.
“I think we have a greater opportunity to have a deeper relationship with our fans.”
He also framed it as a similar relationship to another subscription business that sports teams are heavily involved in: season ticket holders.
“We’re very familiar and comfortable with, and have a degree of expertise in, a subscription business, if you will. When you think about it, a season ticket or a premium seat is really a subscription product and has a lot of analogy to a subscription product. […] I think there’s some expertise that we already have here in office, and the organization wil utilize that.”
He also admitted that they’re working on both business and content improvements to BravesVision, as well as pointing out that offseason content has just started on the network.
(If you need more offseason content, BravesVision, let me know and we can work on licensing the Braves Today podcast for the channel.)
What ABH still needs to prove
I want to point out that all of this sounds great, and if it’s true, it is legitimately impressive that they stood up this business so quickly and already have it on pace to replace the old arrangement’s contribution to the company’s bottom line at the end of the first year of operation.
But that being said, we’re still relying on a lot of public statements from ABH officials that aren’t yet borne out in the reporting that they’re required to make every quarter and annually.
In the next earnings call and going forward, there are still some things I’m looking to see from the organization:
Subscriber totals and economics - ABH says BravesVision led MLB in in-market DTC subscribers, but it hasn’t disclosed either the actual subscriber count or the revenue those subscriptions generated.
Actual full-year results - not to belabor the point, but “annualized profitability” is a management projection, not a completed full-year result that can be audited.
Renewals vs churn, in both distributors and subscribers - how many distributors and subscribers that were here for year one don’t come back for year two?
DTC retention during a losing season - average attendance per home game in Q3 of 2026 was up 14% over last year, when the team had a losing record and wasn’t going to be in the postseason. What happens to DTC retention during a losing season (or a prolonged work stoppage)? I know that I’ll personally be getting a renewal email right before the scheduled Opening Day, and if the owners are still locking out the players and it doesn’t appear likely that the season’s going to start on time, a lot of people will have issues handing over their money.
The 10-Q that ABH filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission this morning still describes BravesVision as new and unproven, warning that production costs, distribution negotiations, and on-field performance still have an outsized impact on their economics. Standard language, but an important reminder.
Does this mean more money for the roster?
That’s a good question. No one on the call explicitly promised anything, although reading between the lines on McGuirk’s prepared remarks about how the increased offseason investment in the team - the Braves had their highest-ever cash payroll this season at $263.6 million, finishing 6th-highest per Cot’s Contracts - makes one believe that it could.
And the company’s cash flow, which looked rockier due to the economics of BravesVision, was materially worse, but the company’s liquidity appears to be sufficient. As of September 30th, ABH reported $121.5M in cash or cash equivalents and another $180 million in available borrowing capacity on the baseball side, through their TeamCo revolver and the league’s credit facility.
They also tapped into that revolver during the season to smooth out the BravesVision working-capital gap.
BravesVision does not hand Alex Anthopoulos a new $30 million check for free agency. If the annualized results match ABH’s projection, it does do something nearly as important: It replaces profit the club was in danger of losing while giving Atlanta control over a business with room to grow.
A year ago, the collapse of Atlanta’s local television partner looked like a threat that could eventually force the Braves to retreat financially. After one season, BravesVision looks considerably more like an asset.
That does not guarantee a larger payroll in 2027, particularly with the next CBA’s economic rules still unresolved. It does remove one of the strongest potential arguments for shrinking it.
And that may be Atlanta’s biggest off-field win of 2026.
Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization, ABH’s preferred non-GAAP measure of operating performance. The more common EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) also isn’t a non-GAAP measure, but it starts farther down the income statement and adds back interest and taxes.
$21.4 million in production expenses, $5.1 million in BravesVision-related sales, marketing, and administrative costs.