Call Me Ted (15 page)

A few years later, Teddy also left home to attend McCallie. My alma mater was no longer a military school but it still accepted boarders and maintained much of their philosophies about discipline and citizenship. As in the case of Laura’s departure, getting away was a good thing for Teddy and home life in Atlanta settled down for Janie and the other three children.

10

The Braves

T
he Braves were a huge shot in the arm for us. Ratings for the games were strong and our ad sales team had solid success selling them. We also estimated that moving these telecasts over to our station prompted about 100,000 people in Atlanta to buy UHF receivers, so not only were our ratings high for the Braves games, but viewership increased across our entire schedule since more people could see the station. Being associated with the team was also a lot of fun. I hadn’t been a baseball fan but now that we were carrying games I went to the ballpark often and watched a lot of the other games on TV.

As helpful as the Braves were, we’d have been much better off if the team had won more games. Advertisers like being associated with a major league franchise, but they prefer that team to be a winner. The Braves of the early 1970s were pretty bad, but after posting consecutive losing records our first two seasons carrying games—1972 and 1973—they started turning things around in 1974. In April, Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record and the team went on to win eighty-eight games for the season. Atlanta was really excited about baseball—nearly a million fans went to the ballpark and our ratings improved. But the team did a total 180 degree reversal in 1975. They traded Hank Aaron to Milwaukee the very season he broke Babe Ruth’s record, lost ninety-four games, and saw their attendance drop almost in half (530,000 fans for eighty one games—fewer than seven thousand people a game). I went to Fulton County Stadium for one of the last games of that difficult season and there were barely six hundred people in the stands. The Braves were losing and it was obvious that the fans weren’t the only ones who had packed it in; the players had, too. The whole experience was depressing. I got restless. I walked up to the club level to see Dan Donahue, the team’s president, and I said, “Dan, I consider us to be partners, and we need to add some more excitement next year. What are we going to do to get the team on track?”

Donahue looked at me and said, “Well I don’t know what you’re going to do next year but I know what we’re going to do. We’re selling the team.”

“What!” I was shocked. The Braves meant a lot to my business and there were constant rumors that someday they might move out of Atlanta.

“Who’re you going to sell it to?” I asked.

“To you,” Donahue answered.

“
Me?
” I was stunned.

My dad taught me early on that long-term relationships with your customers and partners are important because you never know; the guy who you’re friendly with today might be able to help you out tomorrow. He was right. For the past few years I’d demonstrated to Braves management that the team was important to me and now they were offering me a first-look chance to buy the franchise.

I caught my breath and I said, “Okay, but if I’m going to consider this, I need to know a little more about your business. How much money will you lose this year?”

“About a million dollars,” he replied.

“Okay, how much do you want for the team?”

“Ten million.”

Ten million dollars!
For a business that was losing a million dollars a year? We’d paid $2.5 million for Channel 17 and $1 million for Charlotte. Our company’s biggest acquisition ever—my father’s purchase of General Outdoor—was $4 million. And that company was profitable and in our own industry. My first reaction was that this was completely out of the question, but before I said no I asked him for a couple of days to think about it.

After the initial shock wore off I spent the next couple of days taking long walks in the woods. I’ve often used long walks to clear my head and in this case it cleared quickly. The Braves were a key asset and I
had
to go for it. Major League Baseball was high-quality programming for Channel 17 and by owning the team I would control its long-term TV rights. Plus, buying this franchise would really put our company on the map. There was just this one little problem—I couldn’t afford it. Our other businesses were performing pretty well but we still had a lot of debt and even if I could scrape together $10 million it would be hard to justify paying that for a business that was losing a million a year.

I might have had room to negotiate on price, but I decided to focus on terms. I told Dan, “Look, I’ll buy the team, but I can’t afford to pay cash. How about I give you a million dollars down and you give me nine years to pay the rest, with interest?” He said he’d need to talk to his partners and would get back to me. I knew that since I’d been given the first look I needed to put in a strong bid. My offer was unconventional, but it would allow them to tell the world that they got their $10 million asking price. (Incidentally, throughout my career I’ve been criticized for being a poor negotiator and overpaying for things. But by not hesitating to make quick, aggressive bids, I usually got the deal and even my higher priced acquisitions have turned out to be good investments.)

Dan got back to me quickly and told me my offer had been approved. I was elated, but we were only halfway home. The next hurdle was approval from the Major League Baseball owners. In addition to my not fitting their mold, I think I was the first person to try to buy a team with less than 100 percent cash. Some were also concerned about my ultimate intentions on the TV side of things. I would be just the second owner who controlled both a team and its broadcast station (Gene Autry of the California Angels was the first), and I had made a few comments about distributing WTCG on cable outside Atlanta. Some owners worried about what this might mean in terms of TV competition in their home markets. But the Braves were a bad team in a relatively small southern city and I don’t think many of them saw me as a threat.

Still, I couldn’t take any chances so I went into full sales mode and did everything I could to get into baseball’s good graces. In a lucky break, the guy running national sales for Channel 17 just happened to be Stan Musial’s son-in-law, and when it came time for me to meet with commissioner Bowie Kuhn and the rest of the owners, none other than “Stan the Man” provided my flattering introduction. I was also careful to make sure that Bill Bartholomay agreed to stay on as Braves chairman after our deal closed. Through our previous rights negotiations I learned that he was a man of integrity and I knew that the other owners liked and respected him. Major League Baseball was a new world to me and Bill’s presence would be very helpful.

We successfully resolved our financing and league approval issues through the fall of ’75, and in January ’76 Turner Communications Group took over as owner of the Atlanta Braves. It was a thrill for all of us at the company. The team might have been losers, but they were in the big leagues, and now so were we. I’d become successful in billboards, broadcasting, and sailing through dedication, motivation, smarts, and plain old hard work. I assumed that baseball would be no different. I figured I’d simply go in there, fire up the team with enthusiasm, and we’d be tearing up the league in no time.

Boy, did I have a lot to learn!

The first thing I figured out was that to be good in baseball you needed to be able to hit, run, field, and throw. If you couldn’t do those things well, no amount of motivation or enthusiasm could make the difference. Unfortunately, this was precisely the situation we inherited with the ’76 Braves. I did make the effort, though. I remember inviting all the players up to our station offices on West Peachtree. I packed the team into a small conference room and introduced myself and told them a little about our company. I told them about my sailing and business experience and my belief that a lot of the keys to success in those fields applied equally to baseball: play as a team, be disciplined, work hard—these all were essential whether you were racing boats, selling ads, or playing baseball. The players relaxed, laughing, and excited about being part of a new ownership team.

Enthusiasm was high across the league the first part of that off-season. The 1975 World Series between the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Red Sox was one of the greatest ever played and drew some of the highest TV ratings in history. Then a labor dispute almost blew the whole thing. By February of ’76, discussions around free agency and the reserve clause grew so difficult that the owners locked the players out of spring training. There I was, all geared up for my first season, and we were going to shut down. It was very frustrating for everyone.

Because of the lockout, we would now lose spring training games that we had sold to sponsors and were counting on airing. The players weren’t allowed to have official practices but they got together informally to stay in shape and be ready as soon as the season began. Meanwhile, I became friends with Bill Veeck of the Chicago White Sox. Bill was known for being a lot less traditional than his peers and he and I hit it off. Together we decided to get our nonroster players together to play what we called a “nongame” that we could televise back in Chicago and Atlanta. As a show of support for our advertising partners, we gave them free airtime in the telecast and it turned out to be a big win all the way around. The players got some practice, the fans saw a game, our sponsors got free airtime, and we generated a lot of good publicity. The lockout ended a couple of days later, but if it hadn’t, I’m sure we would have tried to do more games.

A TED STORY

“A Real Breath of Fresh Air”

—Terry McGuirk

Shortly after buying the team, Ted moved some of our offices down to Fulton County Stadium. In addition to freeing up space at West Peachtree, it gave our sales team a little cachet to be housed at the ballpark. By being around the front office I had gotten to know a lot of the guys pretty well and one day Ted walked into my office with Eddie Robinson, the team’s general manager. They explained that they wanted me to go with them to Florida the next morning for the opening of spring training, and literally out of the blue, Eddie said, “You’re going to put on a uniform and pretend you’re a nonroster invitee. You’re going to play with the team during the day and at night you and Ted can get together and he can ask you questions.”

Ted wanted to learn more about baseball and this was his solution! I couldn’t believe it but it sounded like it could be fun. Dave Bristol, the team’s manager, and one of the coaches were in cahoots, but my identity was a secret to all the other players and coaches. So the very next day, there I was suited up and training with the Atlanta Braves. I did this for about three weeks and debriefed Ted every night. He is such a quick learner and his memory is so strong that his understanding of the game of baseball went from zero to 100 percent during that short period.

It all finally ended one day when we were playing the Mets in one of our first spring training games. We were in one of those stadiums where the bullpens are open and just off the foul lines and Dave Bristol had sent me out to guard the pitchers and catchers from foul balls. The game was a long one and came to the point where we had played practically everyone on the roster. If he were ever going to put me in a game, now would be the time. But Dave was a serious baseball man and couldn’t bring himself to do it. At that moment it became apparent to Ted and me that the jig was up. The next day, I came clean with the other players and coaches and let them know I was heading back to my real job in Atlanta. My last night there I took a bunch of guys out for dinner and we all had some good laughs over the whole thing (and I did well enough that they offered me an AA contract!).

As strange as the whole thing was, I think it confirmed to everyone that Ted was going to do things his way and for most people in the Braves organization he was a real breath of fresh air. For me, it was just another example of how my career with Turner would never be dull.

During the lockout I decided to stir things up and jump into the middle of one of that year’s highest-profile player negotiations. As I learned about the game, everyone told me that strong pitching would be the key to turning the team around, and the big free agent going into 1976 was a pitcher many considered to be among the league’s best. His name was Andy Messersmith. As you might imagine, I wasn’t the only one interested in him and I soon found myself in the middle of a bidding contest with, among others, George Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees. Steinbrenner was every bit as competitive as I was and he was in the country’s number one TV market and had deep pockets. He saw free agency as a huge opportunity and he wanted to make Messersmith one of his first blockbuster signings. As hard as it was going up against the Yankees, Messersmith’s agent did nothing to help matters. I was pretty sure he was simply using my offer to increase the bidding by Steinbrenner and the other interested owners. By the end of March, the Yankees were declared the winners of the Messersmith sweepstakes.

Shortly after the public announcement from New York, Messersmith claimed that his agent had negotiated the contract without his authority and he didn’t want to be a Yankee. Apparently, their money was good but New York put in a bunch of other clauses Andy didn’t like. For example, in addition to taking a big share of his endorsement income, the Yankees included their standard clause that required their players to have short haircuts and no facial hair. That wouldn’t be a problem for me—heck, I was the owner and I had a mustache. Suddenly, we were back in the running and I moved quickly. With Steinbrenner out of the way I was in front of Messersmith with a big smile and a big offer, and about a week later, he signed with the Atlanta Braves for more than $1 million over three years. That doesn’t sound like much today but it was big money back then. This was a high-profile signing and the fact that we’d landed him ahead of the New York Yankees really pleased our fans. We hadn’t played a game yet, but we’d created a ton of excitement going into opening day.