Endeavor acquires all four Braves minor league affiliates

The Braves have been somewhat unique for a while in that the team itself owned and operated most of its minor league affiliates. In many cases, minor league teams have individual owners and then enter into agreements with teams to be their affiliate for a period of time.

The Braves did have some teams that fit into that latter category including the Carolina Mudcats, Florida FireFrogs, and Augusta GreenJackets, but other than those, their affiliates were Braves properties.

However, it had been recently reported that a company called Endeavor was looking to form a holding company that would then begin purchasing minor league teams in bulk to try to operate at a scale that could make them more profitable and to add some level of uniformity to how the business side of minor league teams operate. It looks like the Braves’ minor league affiliates will be a part of the initial wave of acquisitions.

According to Baseball America’s previous reporting on Endeavor’s move into the business of minor league baseball, it seems likely that in the next few years that they will own 30-40 minor league affiliates in the next few years. There are limits that have been placed as to how many teams they can acquire per year, but most seem to expect that those limits will be relaxed as the impacts are better understood.

On the one hand, this will be in a boon in some ways for these Braves affiliates as Endeavor has a lot of financial and marketing weight behind them which should attract more fruitful sponsorships and ticket sales if all goes according to plan and the sales are approved. However, the down side is that one expected side effect of Endeavor buying a bunch of teams is that some roles are expected to be centralized which is likely to lead to layoffs and employee transfers to different roles.

In short, its a brave new world for minor league baseball and the Braves’ affiliates are going to be right in the middle of the first wave of it.