MLB Team to Become a Separate Publicly Traded Company

A popular MLB team is about to become a separate publicly traded company. This week, Liberty Media announced that its board of directors has authorized management to pursue a split-off of the Atlanta Braves and The Battery Atlanta into a new trading stock, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The move is pending approval from MLB and the current Braves Group holding. 

“We plan to split off the Atlanta Braves into an asset-backed stock to better highlight its strong value. Additionally, post Split-Off, we plan to recapitalize all of Liberty Media’s remaining common stock into three tracking stock groups,”  Greg Maffei, Liberty Media President and CEO, said in a statement. “These actions will provide greater investor choice and enable targeted investment and capital-raising through more focused currencies, while maintaining an optimal capital structure for Liberty Media and preserving optionality with respect to our subsidiary SiriusXM and our Live Nation stake.”

The newly formed company will be called Atlanta Braves Holdings. Braves chairman Terry McGuirk wrote a letter to the Braves staff and said nothing will change when it comes to day-to-day operations, and the deal is expected to close in 2023. “For the most part, nothing will change in how the Atlanta Braves and The Battery Atlanta will operate every day,” McGuirk wrote, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “My role as the ‘Control Person’ of the Braves franchise under MLB rules and our executive management structure will remain the same.”

McGuirk continued: “We all remain committed to demonstrating to our fans, guests, vendors, and other stakeholders the collective value of the Atlanta Braves and The Battery Atlanta and the important role each of us play in delivering the differentiated experience that our fans and guests have come to expect from us. We will continue to focus on being the best in sports, entertainment, and real estate and most importantly to continue to focus on our annual goal of winning the World Series.”

More details will emerge over the next few months, but if the deal goes through, the Braves would be the only MLB team to be publicly traded and the only North American sports team whose ownership is traded on some kind of major stock exchange. Liberty Media is the principal owner of the Braves, a team that won the World Series last year.