Atlanta’s BravesVision Grabs Own Media Reins in Wake of RSN Crackup

As Major League Baseball scrambles to accommodate the local distribution needs of more than a half-dozen clubs formerly affiliated with the Main Street Sports RSNs, the Atlanta Braves have elected to take matters into their own hands.

The NL East franchise on Tuesday announced the launch of BravesVision, a wholly-owned multimedia platform that will begin producing and distributing its games in time for the March 27 season opener against the Kansas City Royals.

Under the new BravesVision paradigm, the franchise will televise and stream more than 140 regular-season games to fans across its six-state footprint, a swath of the Southeast that includes Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and the Carolinas.

“This endeavor will bring the most vital link to our fanbase—our television broadcast—back under the control of our organization,” Braves president and CEO Derek Schiller said in a statement. In a nod to the team’s long run on the TBS Superstation, Schiller noted that BravesVision marks a return to form for “generations of Braves fans who were raised watching games on a network that shared ownership with the baseball team.”

Sales and marketing staffers are already being onboarded, and the Braves are working quickly to secure carriage deals with the likes of Charter, Comcast and DirecTV. The club is also said to be interested in pursuing alliances with virtual MVPDs such as Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV.

The Braves’ announcement comes about a year after the Texas Rangers’ split from their RSN, which served as the precursor for the launch the in-house Rangers Sports Network. The AL West franchise cut ties with its legacy RSN/Main Street precursor Diamond Sports Group in late 2024.

BravesVision also will be made available to in-market fans on a streaming basis via Braves.TV, a new direct-to-consumer platform hosted by MLB.TV—which was recently acquired by ESPN as part of its three-year, $1.65 billion renewal with the league.

In addition to the pay-TV offering, Gray Media will televise 15 free over-the-air games in 2026, reprising a similar deal struck between the stations group and the Braves a year ago. Atlanta will continue to be well-represented on the national TV dial; in April alone, the Braves are set to appear on Fox, NBC and TBS.

The Braves’ bid to strike out on their own was necessitated by the imminent collapse of the Main Street RSNs, which appear to be on a collision course with bankruptcy. Earlier this month, the nine MLB teams that remained under contract with Main Street formally dissolved their ties with the company; seven of those defectors—the Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers, Royals, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays—have already come in under MLB’s media umbrella, while the Los Angeles Angels are officially expected to join the rest of the pack before the new season gets underway. 

Main Street still holds in-market rights to 13 NBA and seven NHL teams, but those legacy deals are all but certain to be voided by the time both leagues close out their respective 2025-26 campaigns. Among the pro sports franchises in the Braves’ footprint that may soon be looking for a new local media base are the Atlanta Hawks and Nashville Predators.

Barring a zero-hour infusion of cash, Main Street could begin winding down its operations in the spring. The company began issuing WARN [Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification] notices to its employees last week. A legal requirement designed to provide employees 60 days’ notice in advance of a mass layoff, WARN filings may also include information pertaining to the imminent closure of offices.

The WARN notice Main Street issued to its Atlanta offices indicates that 74 employees will be let go, with the facilities set to be shuttered on April 14. Similar alerts have been issued to staffers in Minneapolis, Detroit, Los Angeles and Milwaukee.

In November, the Braves disclosed that they’d generated $600.3 million in baseball revenue for the first three quarters of 2025, up 7% versus the year-ago period. Per the team’s 10-Q filing, games at Truist Park accounted for 60% of that total ($357.6 million), with broadcasting revenues coming in at $164.6 million, which marked a 14% improvement compared to the analogous nine-month period in 2024.