ATLANTA — The Atlanta Braves and several other Major League Baseball franchises are in the process of selling their minor league affiliates to a holding company which will operate them for the teams.
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Pending agreement on closing conditions, Diamond Baseball Holdings (DBH), a subsidiary of Endeavor has purchase agreements in place with nine teams, including the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants and the Braves. The company says they are negotiating for more teams.
The Braves sent the following statement to Channel 2 Action News regarding the purchase agreement:
“The Atlanta Braves have entered into a purchase agreement with Diamond Baseball Holdings, a subsidiary of Endeavor, for the sale of our three minor league baseball teams. With Major League Baseball’s recent realignment of the Professional Development Leagues (PDL), the Braves organization is assured of optimal geographic location for our affiliates for the foreseeable future and we felt the timing was right. We support and are encouraged by Endeavor’s investment into the PDL and the teams are in good hands with some the best staffs in the PDL system. We want to thank those employees, many of whom have been with our organization for a very long time, and we look forward to the same consistent relationship in developing Braves players.”
The agreement covers four of the Braves minor league teams: AAA Gwinnett Stripers, AA Mississippi Braves, High A level Rome Braves and Single A Augusta GreenJackets.
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Endeavor is a multimedia company with holdings in sports, fashion, event marketing, UFC and more.
“Opportunities to move into an ownership position of a sport so steeped in history are increasingly rare, and we are confident this will drive meaningful growth in the Owned Sports Properties segment of our company,” said Mark Shapiro, President of Endeavor. “Just as we’ve done for the UFC, PBR and EuroLeague, we see tremendous potential to turbocharge these storied clubs using the scale and capabilities of Endeavor. Our expertise across sponsorship sales, event operations, licensing, marketing and content creation will bring incredible value to these clubs, supporting communities across the country who form the backbone of the Professional Development League system.”
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Diamond Baseball Holdings said they will be supporting their clubs with ticket sales, partnerships, naming rights, food and beverage, merchandising and more.
Neither DBH or Endeavor released a timetable for the purchases to be completed in their news release.
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