{"id":16466,"date":"2025-07-17T13:40:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T13:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/16466\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T13:40:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T13:40:15","slug":"the-battery-atlanta-next-front-in-war-between-mlb-owners-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/16466\/","title":{"rendered":"The Battery Atlanta: Next front in war between MLB owners, players"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ATLANTA\u00a0\u2014\u00a0In 2021, Times columnist Bill Plaschke incurred the wrath of Atlanta<\/a> by blaspheming the entertainment district surrounding the Braves\u2019 ballpark as a \u201csterile shopping mall.\u201d The district, called The Battery, prefers the grand descriptor of \u201cthe South\u2019s preeminent lifestyle destination.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a walk around The Battery, so you can understand why it could become one of the flash points in the coming holy war between owners and players.<\/p>\n

If you leave the ballpark through the right-field gates, you are in The Battery. You\u2019ll see a plaza in front of you, and around you places to ride a mechanical bull, go bowling, navigate an escape room or take in a concert.<\/p>\n

You can eat, drink, shop, dance, stay in a hotel. You can live here, in apartments above the storefronts. You can work here, in office towers housing corporate giants.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo create an environment where you can spend eight, nine hours at The Battery and the field, and still feel like you have all the time in the world, I think they\u2019ve done a wonderful job building this place,\u201d Dodgers and former Braves All-Star first baseman Freddie Freeman<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

Truist Park, home of the Atlanta Braves, is part of The Battery, a mixed-use development designed to be profitable for the team well beyond the MLB season.<\/p>\n

The Braves built all this, not only to lure fans to come early and stay late on game days but to make money from the property 365 days a year rather than 81. On that front, it is a spectacular success: Nine million people come here each year, and the Braves generated $67 million in revenue<\/a> from The Battery last year.<\/p>\n

This, according to major league officials, is the template for the modern team. The Angels had planned a ballpark village<\/a> twice as large as The Battery. Imagine what the Dodgers could build<\/a>, and how much revenue they could generate, on property twice as large as the Angel Stadium site.<\/p>\n

And, speaking of revenue, Rob Manfred has something he likes to say to players about it. The MLB commissioner spoke at the Braves\u2019 Investor Day last month and said he tells players that their share of the sport\u2019s revenue has dropped from 63% in 2002 to 47% today.<\/p>\n

Baseball is the only major sport in America without a salary cap system, in which owners agree to spend a designated percentage of revenue on player salaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we had made a deal 10 years ago to share 50-50, you would\u2019ve made $2.5 billion more than you made,\u201d Manfred said he has told players, in comments first reported by Sports Business Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The players and their union rolled their collective eyes at those comments. It is no secret that many owners want a salary cap, and the cost certainty that comes with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all tactics,\u201d Dodgers All-Star catcher Will Smith<\/a> said. \u201cIt\u2019s all early negotiating stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Said Arizona Diamondbacks All-Star outfielder Corbin Carroll: \u201cOwners don\u2019t want to put money in our pockets. For them to emphasize how we need this so much, there\u2019s a reason for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tony Clark, the union\u2019s executive director, said the revenue numbers the league shares with the union are not consistent with Manfred\u2019s statements. And, when you consider a percentage of revenue, you have to define what counts as revenue: What goes into the pool to be shared with players?<\/p>\n

\"Tony <\/p>\n

Tony Clark, executive director of the MLB players\u2019 union.<\/p>\n

(Brynn Anderson \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s go back to The Battery, and to the revenue opportunities that such ballpark villages create for teams.<\/p>\n

A report released in April by Klutch Sports, the Los Angeles-based agency, called such villages \u201cthe sports industry\u2019s $100+ billion growth engine,\u201d particularly as media revenue wanes. Within the pitch to team owners: Those villages \u201cgenerate attractive financial returns that stand outside of league revenue sharing requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Translation: You can make all these millions without sharing any of it with the players.<\/p>\n

The Braves are building here because the team plays here. That is the new issue looming over the next round of collective bargaining: If a team builds around its ballpark, should that revenue be shared with players?<\/p>\n

\u201cOh yeah,\u201d Athletics All-Star designated hitter Brent Rooker said. \u201cRevenue is just any dollar that teams bring in that ultimately could be turned around and used to put a better product on the field. It\u2019s got to include tickets, TV, concessions, all the things around the stadium. It\u2019s got to include all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is the money a team makes from renting office space outside the ballpark really relevant to the team?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what Braves president and chief executive Derek Schiller told ESPN<\/a> about The Battery: \u201cYou\u2019ve got a whole other set of revenues from the real estate development that can then be deployed for the baseball team.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked Clark whether, if negotiations turn to the possibility of revenue sharing along the lines Manfred discussed, the money from ballpark villages needs to be part of the conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n

He declined to elaborate. Understand this about Clark: He can filibuster a yes or no question into a 45-second monologue without actually answering yes or no. That he would say a clear \u201cyes\u201d and nothing else leaves no doubt about his position.<\/p>\n

If the players do ask that owners share revenue from such ballpark villages, the response would be predictable: First, we share baseball revenue from baseball operations, and real estate developments are not baseball operations. Second, if you want to share in the revenue, you can share in the risk too, by helping to fund construction of the ballpark village, say, or by assuming some of the losses when a tenant drops its lease and leaves storefronts or office buildings unoccupied.<\/p>\n

Said Carroll: \u201cI think that\u2019s a conversation that won\u2019t need to happen, because it won\u2019t get to that point. A salary cap is a nonstarter from the union\u2019s perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enjoy the All-Star Game Tuesday, because this summer is one of relative peace. The collective bargaining agreement expires after next season, which means the rhetoric between players and owners ought to be flying this time next year. If the owners insist on pushing a salary cap, a lockout almost certainly would follow.<\/p>\n

And, if the owners push revenue sharing, The Battery could provide the push for the players\u2019 pushback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA\u00a0\u2014\u00a0In 2021, Times columnist Bill Plaschke incurred the wrath of Atlanta by blaspheming the entertainment district surrounding the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[15556,13087,15560,363,15561,2066,15558,15554,15553,14801,15559,99,1599,15555,13192,15557,1139],"class_list":{"0":"post-16466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ballpark-village","9":"tag-braves","10":"tag-league-revenue-sharing-requirement","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-mlb-owner","13":"tag-money","14":"tag-next-front","15":"tag-owner","16":"tag-player","17":"tag-revenue","18":"tag-salary-cap-system","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-team","21":"tag-the-battery","22":"tag-tony-clark","23":"tag-union","24":"tag-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}