BATRA Atlanta Braves Holdings Inc - Class A

$BATRA $BATRK Claude theorizes that MLB leadership does not want Congress looking at changes to 162(m), because it's a lot easier politically to apply the same tax rule to the other 29 teams that are private - so the Braves need to go private BEFORE Congress starts debating again. Model: "THE STU STERNBERG SITUATION In March 2025, Reuters reported that Manfred and other MLB owners were pressuring Stu Sternberg to sell the Rays after losing patience with the stadium situation. The issue wasn't that MLB simply disliked Sternberg; the ownership situation was interfering with a major league-level objective: getting the Rays into a viable long-term ballpark situation and preserving Tampa Bay as an MLB market. By September, MLB owners unanimously approved Patrick Zalupski's purchase of the Rays. That gives us a useful precedent for how Manfred behaves when an owner's situation becomes an institutional MLB problem. Now apply that to the Braves. The analogy is actually pretty interesting."

$BATRA $BATRK "Washington, D.C. – House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) announced that the Ways and Means Committee will hold a field hearing on The One, Big, Beautiful, Bill Delivering for Small Business, Manufacturing, and Working Families. The hearing will take place on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, at the Orgill Innovation Center in Collierville, Tennessee." Maybe he will talk about 162(m) again?

$BATRA Claude said I can guarantee you that the MLB Commissioner does not want Congress looking at the Braves, taxes and possibly granting a §162(m) exemption, because it could go the other way (tax all MLB teams) or even worse, raise questions about Flood v. Kuhn. Imagine this sequence : 1. Congress starts with §162(m). “Why does the Braves' ownership structure cause a tax disadvantage that other MLB clubs don't have?” 2. Congress broadens the question. “Why does MLB have a unique legal/financial treatment in the first place?” 3. Someone points out the larger anomaly. “MLB is the only major professional sport with this general antitrust exemption.” 4. Someone pulls Flood v. Kuhn. And now Congress is looking at a Supreme Court decision that expressly recognized the anomaly and essentially left the policy decision to Congress and invited them to address whether the court-made antitrust exemption should be repealed by statute.