Atlanta Braves Holdings, Inc. announced their excellent results for the first half of 2025 in August 7th. Some digital ink was spilled on this by now already (yeah it was like 2 weeks ago, sorry) and we haven’t been able to give it our full attention. It is just good that the Braves are in the unique position that the general public can peer into the internal financial workings of a Major League Baseball organization. So maybe we can look over the required filings and the publicly available information
to get a better picture of the Braves financial picture.
The Atlanta Braves were spun off from Liberty Media and have a tracking stock. So they must file statements such as the quarterly 10-Q’s and annual 10-K’s. Before the spinoff, the Braves information from Liberty were limited to a few sentences and a table with some top-line numbers. We are seeing more information about the Braves financials nowadays, and your buddy AB is going to try to convey the numbers for the first half of the year and also try to give a sense of their assets and liabilities.
Before we dig in let me state what should be obvious. First of all, no one is going to talk you into buying or selling or holding any securities here. We’re here to provide Braves news and analysis and a means to vent about the season. Second, even if I had a take on a stock then you shouldn’t listen to me about finance, but rather make the financial choices that fit your needs. And third, I love you all enough to sift through the financial statements to catch a glimpse at how the Braves are doing financially, not to recommend anything. Ok, personal disclaimer complete.
Top Line Numbers
Now the headline numbers from Yahoo from August 7th:
The Braves revenues are up while the expenses barely crept up. Let’s look at that revenue and those costs.
This is pulled from page 5 of the latest 10-Q report from the Braves. Revenue from just the baseball side of the house is up 9.7% from the first six months of 2024, and 8% from the first three months out of the year. But look at Mixed-Use Development (The Battery Atlanta) revenue increasing 36.6% versus the first half of 2024. Costs for the mixed-use increased 29.5%, but they gained 11.7 million more in 2025 while spending around 1.4 million for it. So for the first half of the year, each dollar they spent on operating costs for The Battery Atlanta returned seven dollars and twenty-three cents. They do have to spend some money servicing debts in their mixed-use areas and the stadium, and I’ll talk more about that later.
The Braves Holdings Assets: Real Estate Portfolio
Looking over the financial statements, you could probably confuse them for a real estate investment trust if you weren’t careful. The Braves own around 75 acres from the Battery Atlanta. It’s bounded by the I-75/I-285 interchange, Hwy 41, and Windy Ridge Parkway. There are 531 individual residences, 2 hotels (The Omni and Aloft), retail shops, restaurants. Oh by the way, and they play baseball in the 41,000+ seat Truist Park on 80 or so days a year.
If you have never attended a game, the Battery Atlanta is completely full on gameday. I have not found it difficult to find a drink there before gamedays. But I have found it completely impossible to be served food there outside of a small grocery store and a candy shop. It honestly feels small every time I go there. They converted an children’s area inside the stadium into more concessions in preparation for the All-Star Game. (The children’s area was moved to the other side of the stadium just outside the concourse.) To be honest, they need more room to grow. I feel that they could have built everything around the stadium and on the concourse probably 75% larger and still keep it busy.
Then in April 2025, they purchased Pennant Park. which has about 34 acres, and dozen companies paying rent, and over 2700 parking spaces. The two areas are connected by Windy Ridge Parkway, which has a walking bridge to transit fans across I-75. There was a pretty large stink about this purchase at the time. Considering the only real upgrade to the Braves playing personnel was Jurickson Profar, it is understandable. He was serving a suspension to violating Major League Baseball’s substance abuse policies. But even with the parking lots and the corporations on the premises, they still have room to expand and serve more fans food, drink, and a good time.
Above is a listing of Braves Holdings’ property and equipment. That’s over a billion dollars of real estate and two hundred million in furniture and equipment. The Braves properties are basically a baseball-related theme park with hotels, residences, bars and restaurants, parking, and a stadium to show off the players. And with the number of people that visit each year, they could grow that another 50% and still be full.
Revenue
As mentioned earlier, the baseball revenue was up about 10% and the mixed-use development revenue was up around 37% versus this point in 2024. It’s tough to tell if the All-Star Game revenue is included in the baseball event numbers or not. I’m guessing that they don’t count baseball ticket sales until the event has occurred. We understand that season ticket prices had a healthy increase over 2024, and that’s probably what happened here. I also guessing that the All-Star Game events will generate around 25-30 million. So hopefully that will be reflected in the next quarter’s numbers.
Broadcasting income went up 17%, likely boosted by the new a la carte streaming option. The merch sales were basically flat, but let’s wait on the All-Star Game related numbers here as well. The “other” listings are non-Braves-game events that occurred at the stadium. The Savannah Bananas played two games there, which is likely a big part of that 7 million dollar increase.
Debt
There’s a lot to unpack here, so I’ll try to summarize. Those amounts are in millions of dollars.
So if you are looking at those amounts and the current debt and thinking that my math doesn’t math, yes the numbers don’t add up. The amounts listed next to each loan are the initial loan amounts when they were taken out during that year. The total balance outstanding is the total that they owe right now. What I am saying is that those individual balances are smaller, but I am not going to speculate on the current balance of each loan. I will let someone else guess on that math.
So some of the language on the statements is somewhat coded, but I will do my best to interpret what these loans are. The top three debts are related to keeping the lights on during covid times. The 311.9 million was likely money to build Truist Park and the first version of The Battery Atlanta. The bottom 56.8 million was used to purchase Pennant Park, I believe. The rest are various construction projects as they built out the Battery, the office buildings, and other retail establishments.
Summary
It’s clear that the financial success of the Braves is primarily tied to the health of their real estate ventures. Under risks and uncertainties in their forward-looking disclaimer, there were 27 points mentioned. Only three of them are ones that relate to the health of the baseball side of the house: “the achievement of on-field success”, “the Company’s ability to develop, obtain and retain talented players”, and “the impact of the structure or an expansion of Major League Baseball (“MLB”)”. Their biggest risk is that they require that The Battery Atlanta and Pennant Park stay occupied. Thankfully, that doesn’t appear to be remotely a problem right now.
I wonder if their investments will keep the Braves anchored to Cobb County. The Braves won’t exactly be able to pick up their hotels Monopoly-style and move them to another part of town or another state. They have a 30-year lease with Cobb County that can be extended another five years. So hopefully we won’t have to think about it until the late-2040s. By then, the robots will have surely overtaken us and they might allow us to watch the killbots play murderball.
I am also guessing that any payroll increases will be tied to how well their mixed-use properties perform. As much as we might have been annoyed at the office park purchase, it’s probably easier for them to borrow money to purchase property than to start a line of credit to go get a big free agent. The Braves have shown that they are able to leverage what their properties for extra cash though. The 2700 parking spots in Pennant Park at 30 dollars a piece with a 92% occupancy rate (the percentage of tickets they sold in 2024) would yield 6 million dollars a year. That’s enough to pay the debt, and with their other tenants and likely new establishments to come, they should be able to generate a money-making machine. Just got to keep the places full, the interest high, and the people happy.
