Looks like they’re heading to Columbus GA when their stadium lease is up after next season. City of Pearl has been losing money on that stadium ever since it was built & it’s about to get worse.
If you like the Mississippi Braves, better see them in 2024.
- Thread starter patdog
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Hate to see them go but I think the city of Pearl has been losing money trying to keep them.
From an organization standpoint I’m sure they’d like to have both their AAA and AA within driving distance of ATL if they can get a similar deal with Columbus as what they’d had with Pearl.
From an organization standpoint I’m sure they’d like to have both their AAA and AA within driving distance of ATL if they can get a similar deal with Columbus as what they’d had with Pearl.
Not a Pearl taxpayer but if I was and the city is losing money on a deal my opinion would they need to shut the deal down. If it's just being used to brag or promote the city they really need to see, is it really doing what it is intended to do. The Bass Pro Shop and probably one of the best outlet malls around right on the interstate is probably doing way more than a seasonal minor league baseball team.
I went to several games early on and had a good time except for the one when I was right behind the dugout and the mascot kicked my coke into my lap and didn't give a ****. I punched him for it...not that it hurt him inside that suit. The game when Chipper made a rehab start there was packed out. Fun game.
Hard to believe that stadium is as old as it is. It’s held up really well. This is what minor league teams do though. They come and go. Someone else will eventually move another team in.
Whatever happened to the consolidation of a bunch of MiLB parks back during COVID? Did that happen? I always figured minor league was losing popularity.
Either way, now the Jackson Metro is going to have two decaying stadiums. Excellent planning, guys. We all knew this was going to happen eventually, that's what the Braves do. If they ever go down this rabbit hole again, please put the stadium downtown, or at least somewhere along the River. It's not rocket science.
Either way, now the Jackson Metro is going to have two decaying stadiums. Excellent planning, guys. We all knew this was going to happen eventually, that's what the Braves do. If they ever go down this rabbit hole again, please put the stadium downtown, or at least somewhere along the River. It's not rocket science.
If no other team team moves in soon, what do y’all think they will do with the stadium going forward in the meantime? Also what’s the upkeep?
Belhaven will be playing their home games there this upcoming season. My guess is that after this year they will demolition that area and try to expand the outlet mall.
If that happened, it would probably also mean the Govenor's cup would played in Biloxi.
If that happened, it would probably also mean the Govenor's cup would played in Biloxi.
Belhaven. Long term, worst case is it sits like Smith-Wills. Best case is turning into some youth sports area like Hoover did with their crappy suburban stadium, but I doubt that works, because Pearl just built a bunch of turf fields, and truth be known, that's just a saturated market right now, every town has them. So pretty much screwed.
All that said, Jackson needs, deserves, and can support a minor league team. Baseball is popular there. Stadium just needs to be in the right spot. Huntsville screwed up by building their new stadium out in the suburbs too. You could even go further and say the Cobb County Braves stadium was a bad idea long term, but in a city as big as Atlanta, it tends to matter less. Birmingham got it right, and that area has flourished due to it. Pensacola did it right too, incorporating their natural strengths, even if not 100% downtown. Autozone in Memphis is 24 years old now, you don't see them losing their teams.
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Not sure if expanding the outlet mall is a great idea. Seems like there are always a few stores that come and go. They’ve done a good job of picking up new tenants when one vacates but don’t think they’d want to have a bunch of empty stores.
just need to get a bunch of former MSU/OM/USM players together and start up the MS Mangos to go head to head with the Savannah Bananas.
just need to get a bunch of former MSU/OM/USM players together and start up the MS Mangos to go head to head with the Savannah Bananas.
-Jackson needs A LOT.
-Jackson doesn't deserve a damn thing except what they get every day for re-electing and appointing the same idiots year after year.
-Jackson can't support themselves. Jackson can't support a mall anymore. Jackson can't support a movie theater anymore. What makes you think somebody will support and drive to downtown Jackson, park their car there and walk back and forth to it at a 3rd stadium in the metro? And no I'm not an outsider looking in, I lived there for 19 years until I saw the writing on the wall and got out in 2014
The outlet mall is crap. When you are having to fill space with VR rooms, axe throwing, escape rooms and no name sandwich/burger places, it has reached the point of no return.
That whole area was poorly planned and cobbled together in piece meal.
if they had built it like a mini version of the Battery where the area was more adjacent to the stadium it would have been much better.
And who the heck even goes to Bass Pro anymore besides Jimmy the redneck and his family from Florence.
That whole area was poorly planned and cobbled together in piece meal.
if they had built it like a mini version of the Battery where the area was more adjacent to the stadium it would have been much better.
And who the heck even goes to Bass Pro anymore besides Jimmy the redneck and his family from Florence.
Stop. Don't be the typical MS murrican idiot.
I'm talking about the whole Jackson Metro, and all the people in it. Baseball is popular in Central MS, and a big portion of the people don't drive to Starkville or Oxford to watch those teams.
And yes, I absolutely think people will drive to Jackson to watch the baseball game. If located in the right place, with the CCID, it would be transformational.
You said "downtown" and "by the river" in the other comment. Which other downtown and river in the metro are you talking about "idiot"? Name all the other metro towns that have a river and downtown, I'll wait.......
I did my time there, there's not enough progressive forward thinking voters left to elect anyone w/ any competence there to salvage it now. Its over
Pearl had the second lowest attendance in AA (Biloxi was worst). If an AA Braves team can't succeed there, then no AA team can. Maybe an A-ball team will move in, but there's a lot less of them than there used to be, and no upside for the MLB club to locate there.
I can't help you. You represent the very people who you are talking about in your second comment. If you can't understand what I'm trying to say, well......I've already said it.
I've already named a bunch of successful metros that have stadiums downtown. And since you want the river, go look at Chattanooga. Little Rock.
ETA: Columbus, GA, who will be getting the team, are located **cough cough** downtown and on a river.
I do tend to agree that the actual City of Jackson can't help itself, so this will likely never happen, since they'll need to involved in permitting, aspects of construction, taxes, etc. for the stadium.
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100% agree however if Pearl thinks they can make a nickel by adding more outlet stores they're going to do it, for better or worse.
I wonder how much of that was due to the awful location, i.e. in the middle of an asphalt sea with nothing really to do around it, or at least that anyone wants to do.
Biloxi, I can't explain, except that I'm not sure the population is there for a team. But they did get new ownership, so maybe that will help.
I don’t know how anyone sustains a minor league team outside of a major city anymore in 2023. You would need a significant entertainment district to make it work.
How I wish my dad and his brother had accepted the first offer for their Hwy80 land in that area many years ago. They finally sold it this year for a fraction of that offer. Tried to get greedy and missed the boom.
A big part of it was when they built the AAA team in Gwinnett. That killed any chance of rehabbing name players in Pearl and killed most if not all of the large crowds to help offset the terrible ones.
I’m not so sure about this one. At least not yet. We will see how it all plays out but I did notice tanger bought the bridge street town center which is nearby. To your point though, the havoc sure have done good at the von Braun
You're right, they have so much population it doesn't matter. The Battery draws 7M visitors per year and that's before counting the 3M Braves game attendees.
Nah, Huntsville did fine.
MiLB is just a novelty attraction that relies on a heavy and growing upper middle class to remain sustainable. Huntsville has that, and the most concentrated upper middle class area (Madison) is where they built the stadium.
Birmingham did the same thing by building close to Homewood / Mountain Brook, and not asking those folks to drive all the way out past the 459 loop to attend games.
The Jackson metro does not have that upper middle class consolidation. That income segment isn’t growing there, and that’s the problem.
ETA: RCTP also outdrew the Barons in attendance by over 25% in 2023, 4911 to 3825 in terms of average attendance. A lot of that is simply that there’s a little bit more to do in Birmingham that the team has to compete with, but its really silly to say Huntsville / Madison made a poor choice in the stadium location.
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Yeah. That stadium also was a contender to take the SECT from Hoover. Metro Atlanta can afford to build stadiums way out like that, with hotels/development attached and such.
Biloxi…where over half the seats are getting fried and it’s 85-90 degrees or higher at first pitch for over half the season
It's a shame the One Lake project wasn't approved back when the Braves were looking. It could have been the start of something cool.
The Memphis Redbirds are near the bottom of attendance for AAA. I think the only reason they will stay around is because of the proximity to St Louis.
It's a brand new shiny toy. Of course it's going to be popular right now, just like Pearl was when it opened. Get back with me in 15 years. I was around when the games were at Joe Davis, and it got so bad they moved the team to Biloxi. Thirsty Thursday power drinking was about the only ways to get people there.
Location matters. Suburban, soulless stuff has a shelf life. It's apparent to me that many of you simply have tunnel vision or haven't been around long enough to see the lifespan of a lot of developments.
ETA: It's silly to say Jackson doesn't have the middle class to support a team. And Birmingham's stadium is not "by Homewood and Mountain Brook". It's smack dab in the middle of the downtown grid, in an area that was considered dangerous 20 years ago. Downtowns are close to everything, that's why stadiums should be built there.
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It's also such a transitory population. Hard to get tourists or gamblers to a game because they're usually there for another purpose.
Agreed. I was very hopeful, just overall for the area and the growth of the Coast.....but at the same time very skeptical. Neither Gulfport or Biloxi really feels like a 'metro' area to me. Just more of a kinda cool area.
More times than not, building a minor league baseball stadium is one of the worst investments a city, especially a small one, can make.
It seems like the majority of people I know that go to the stadium are for college games involving schools that they have an affinity for or connection with.
So....along these lines.
Fact 1: We know there are a lot of baseball fans, of whatever level, in MS.
Fact 2: Both of the MS teams don't have great MiLB attendance.
Fact 3: We know Jackson doesn't have the current leadership to help facilitate a stadium that may cure the ail of Fact 2.
So it seems to me, the best course of action for everyone (since it's proven in this thread, many others, and reality in general - that no one cares about Jackson), is to let the M-Braves leave. 17 'em. Like you said @Requiem For A Dawg, it's not a good investment overall, and we know we can't use it for a catalyst to help our capital city, because no one wants that. Let Belhaven go back to Smith-Wills, I'm sure they don't like playing in an empty Trustmark anyway, plus it's closer. Demo the damn thing after that, and build more 'Pearl' shlt there, junk that will go downhill in 10 years. The idea here is to not bother with it again, and try and push those Jackson baseball fans to attend at MSU, Ole Miss or USM.
Governor's Cup game moves to Biloxi, which is where the money is in MS, anyway. Until their lease runs out, then just rotate it from Starkville to Oxford.
Seems to me like another example of MS splitting it's resources, by having teams in both places. Honestly, if anyone wanted to invest in entertainment in Jackson, it should be a high level arena, that could host concerts, NCAA basketball, etc. Build JSU's on campus stadium, stop messing around and demo the Vet. The hell with pro baseball, just watch the Braves on TV. Same with the Saints. Focus on college everything.
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Jackson is getting what they voted for.
Its only 7 years newer than Regions Field. You also say “get back to me in 15 years” without mentioning that the Stars made it in Joe Davis, an outdated 80’s stadium in a pretty suboptimal location….for 3 decades. Again, it’s a per capita income / local economy situation for these teams that drives everything.
By the way, Joe Davis has been renovated / repurposed into a multi-use facility that now serves as the home stadium for Huntsville City FC, the reserve team for Nashville’s MLS team. This past year, they averaged 4,600 fans per game. That’s also more than the M-Braves…..and the Barons. For minor league 17ing soccer in the South. Is that possible in Jackson?
It absolutely matters. Build new big 17ing thing as close to as many people with money as you can. Madison, AL has 60,000 residents with a median family income of $111,000 per year. Just for comparison, Madison, MS - by far the most affluent area of the Jackson MSA, has 27,000 residents with a median family income of $77,000. Huge gap there. Its not hard at all to figure this out.
Are you telling me that Homewood and Mountain Brook (and to a lesser extent, Vestavia) aren’t both far, far closer to downtown than they are to the Hoover Met? Its not even close.
They sometimes are and sometimes are not. In Birmingham it certainly made sense for a variety of reasons. Perhaps due to the “dangerous area 20 years ago”, the real estate cost wasn’t too high. And the most concentrated wealth in the area is still closer to downtown than it is out in the suburbs. Huntsville is a very different city as to how it developed, as is Jackson. There is no one-size-fits all approach here.
They built that stadium there in Madison because they had the land to do it. Went cheap, instead of doing it downtown where it should have been. I'm very familiar with this development.
I do agree that Huntsville has a better situation than Jackson, for middle-class spending. And yes I know all about Joe Davis and their soccer. It too, would have been better downtown but, they used existing resources, understandable.
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Just to clear up some misinformation about this situation and TM Park in particular, please note:
TM Park is privately owned. The stadium is not owned by any public entity. The debt on the stadium is government backed, but the ownership of the stadium is private. The majority of the government backed debt will be satisfied in 2024. Everyone forgets that the stadium is 20 years old. Time flies.
There are 89 minor league stadia in the United States. 88 of 89 are owned by governmental entities. TM Park is the only minor league stadium in the country that is privately owned.
The new owner of the AA braves franchise is Endeavor, formerly known as IMG, formerly known as William Morris Agency. Look up Endeavor's financials. Multi-billion dollar behemoth. They now own or control more than half of minor league franchises in the country and they are adding more every day. They are in the entertainment business. They are looking for cheap venues that they do not own, do not maintain, do not upkeep, do not improve, do not retrofit, do not conform to major league standards or requirements, do not conform to federal accessibility laws, do not retrofit to provide gender neutral facilities, do not conform to account for female umpires/players, do not pay taxes on, do not debt service, do not pave the parking lot .... getting the picture?
Endeavor is capable of playing major league hardball while the privately owned venue in Pearl is struggling to play double A ball. Not a fair fight. Endeavor is spoiled because they have lease arrangements with governments in every other city where their teams play and those lease arrangements are exactly what one should expect from a publicly owned stadium. Endeavor will win either by cramming a really bad lease renewal down the private owner's throat or moving the team. The problem in Pearl is that the stadium is privately owned and the ROI is not there at the lease numbers that Endeavor demands.
The solution is a hard one. TM Park needs to be publicly owned in order to be competitive and attract a quality product. Private stadium ownership simply does not work long term and will never work for more than just a few years.
TM Park is privately owned. The stadium is not owned by any public entity. The debt on the stadium is government backed, but the ownership of the stadium is private. The majority of the government backed debt will be satisfied in 2024. Everyone forgets that the stadium is 20 years old. Time flies.
There are 89 minor league stadia in the United States. 88 of 89 are owned by governmental entities. TM Park is the only minor league stadium in the country that is privately owned.
The new owner of the AA braves franchise is Endeavor, formerly known as IMG, formerly known as William Morris Agency. Look up Endeavor's financials. Multi-billion dollar behemoth. They now own or control more than half of minor league franchises in the country and they are adding more every day. They are in the entertainment business. They are looking for cheap venues that they do not own, do not maintain, do not upkeep, do not improve, do not retrofit, do not conform to major league standards or requirements, do not conform to federal accessibility laws, do not retrofit to provide gender neutral facilities, do not conform to account for female umpires/players, do not pay taxes on, do not debt service, do not pave the parking lot .... getting the picture?
Endeavor is capable of playing major league hardball while the privately owned venue in Pearl is struggling to play double A ball. Not a fair fight. Endeavor is spoiled because they have lease arrangements with governments in every other city where their teams play and those lease arrangements are exactly what one should expect from a publicly owned stadium. Endeavor will win either by cramming a really bad lease renewal down the private owner's throat or moving the team. The problem in Pearl is that the stadium is privately owned and the ROI is not there at the lease numbers that Endeavor demands.
The solution is a hard one. TM Park needs to be publicly owned in order to be competitive and attract a quality product. Private stadium ownership simply does not work long term and will never work for more than just a few years.
All this is spot on, expect I saw Jxn's death spiral coming in the 90s.
The stadium was key in getting Bass Pro, Sams, other developments and the Outlet Mall. It has likely has been a net win for Purl. It is still in good shape and has a lot of life, and can likely be used for different events in the future, location is good with a lot of room, but no direct interstate access.
Several things hurt attendance, having two of the most popular and successful college teams in the country in our state (with a 3rd successful team) certainly takes attention away from the Braves. Additionally the MS Braves did very little outreach or promotion. The MS Braves are not owned by the ATL Braves.
As others have stated, if the Braves can't make it here, no franchise will. Maybe a summer league for college players could make it?
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