The Ted Turner Saga | Part 3: The Atlanta Braves & The Sports TV Revolution
Media Moguls with Web Barr
Why Sports Weren't Big on TV
Web Barr explains 1960s–70s limits: few networks, little airtime, and why sports remained mostly local.
Long before live sports dominated television and drove billions in media rights deals, the televised sports landscape was limited, local, and low-priority. In this episode, we explore how Ted Turner saw something no one else did: that sports weren’t just games — they were powerful, 162-game-long TV shows. And when he turned the worst team in baseball into a programming goldmine for his upstart UHF station, he didn’t just change his channel — he changed the entire business of sports.
From the rise of color TV to the birth of cable, Ted Turner saw that sports could be more than entertainment — they could anchor an entire network. When he bought the Atlanta Braves, it wasn’t for wins; it was for airtime. He packed his station with baseball games, outrageous stunts, and a whole lot of personality, turning a last-place team into the South’s favorite pastime. Along the way, he redefined sports ownership, took on the league’s old guard, and helped lay the groundwork for the 24/7 sports era we live in today. This is the wild, unlikely story of how one media maverick turned a struggling team into a national phenomenon — and rewrote the rules of both television and sports in the process.
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Credits
Writing, research, and production by Web Barr.
Artwork by Dylan Lathrop.
Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com).
Chapters
- (00:00): Opening Monologue
- (06:05): Factors in the Sports TV Revolution
- (18:00): TV Hurts Attendance?
- (22:20): Technology Improves Sports
- (32:30): Sports Labor Issues Begin
- (42:30): Ted's WTCG Gets The Braves
- (56:45): Ted Buys the Braves
- (1:05:31): Day 1 as Owner
- (1:19:00): Ted's Home Game Atmosphere
- (1:36:00): Role of a Sports Commissioner
- (1:40:06): Free Agency Begins
- (1:49:00): Channel 17 Andy Messersmith
- (1:54:50): Hank Aaron Home Run Race
- (2:00:00): 1976 World Series Party
- (2:09:14): Ted Suspended
- (2:22:00): Ted Turner Manages the Braves
- (2:37:00): Free Agency Frenzy
- (2:42:00): Satellite Expansion
- (2:52:00): Professional Sports
Sources
Books used in Episode 3. Get em here!
- The Big Time: How the 1970s Transformed Sports in America
- How to Watch Basketball Like a Genius: What Game Designers, Economists, Ballet Choreographers, and Theoretical Astrophysicists Reveal About the Greatest Game on Earth
- The New York Times (01/04/1977)
- It Ain't As Easy As It Looks: Ted Turner's Amazing Story
- Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN, and the Birth of 24-Hour News
- Ted Turner Speaks: Insights From the World's Greatest Maverick
- Confessions of an Advertising Man
- Lead Follow or Get Out of the Way: The Story of Ted Turner
- Media Man: Ted Turner's Improbable Empire
- Clash of the Titans: How the Unbridled Ambition of Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch Has Created Global Empires that Control What We Read & Watch Each Day
- Call Me Ted
- Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the rise of the modern cable-TV business
- Me and Ted Against the World: The Unauthorized Story of the Founding of CNN
- Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television
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