Comcast partnership with Braves on new stadium includes establishing major Atlanta R&D center

Tom Paine

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Comcast today announced a partnership with the Atlanta Braves, in which it will provide all its technology goodies for the Braves' new stadium in suburban Cobb County, SunTrust Park, and the office and entertainment complex surrounding it. Comcast will also be an anchor tenant for an office tower in the complex. The stadium is scheduled to open in 2017.

What surprised me was that its plans for the office space are not only for it to house local employees serving the Atlanta market, where it is the major cable system incumbent. It also will have an Innovation Lab that will serve as a primary technology development hub for Comcast, along with the company's other major R&D centers in Silicon Valley, Philadelphia, and Denver.

Comcast plans to base about 1,000 employees at the new office, but its not known how many will be in the R&D workforce. (A Comcast spokesperson said they didn't have any numbers on that yet.)

A little back story: The Braves are currently owned by John Malone's Liberty Media. Cable pioneer Malone has been through the years both a frequent business partner and sometime nemesis to Comcast. He is currently involved in the pending Comcast / Time Warner Cable / Charter deal, through which Charter, in which Liberty Media owns a large stake, will acquire some of the subs Comcast plans to shed and enter into a joint venture with Comcast that will acquire other Comcast and TWC subs.

Comcast could also be interested in a cable rights deal with the Braves similar to the one it has with the Phillies. But last year Liberty Media renegotiated its previously subpar local cable package with Fox channels Fox Sports South and SportSouth. Its a long-term contract but of unknown length, and I don't know if it has any opt-out clauses that would allow the Braves to seek another deal. But the very fact that Liberty Media and Comcast are working together on the Braves makes me think other arrangements could be possible in the future.

See also Wall Street Journal blog article, Braves Hit Home Run With Comcast Deal.

Aereo out of capacity in New York, Atlanta and Miami (Update: NY open again to new subs)

Tom Paine

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(Update 2/6: Aereo reopens to new subscribers in New York.)


Aereo, the streaming subscription TV service that picks up over-the-air channels via a network of tiny antennas, said a few days ago it was "sold out" in New York City and couldn't add more subscribers for the time being.

@RichBTIG @KarlBode @Aereo Yes we are sold out. Will reopen as we get more capacity deployed

— Chaitanya Kanojia (@ckanojia) January 31, 2014

Then, on Monday Aereo's CEO confirmed it was also out of capacity in Atlanta and Miami. CEO Chet Kanojia told the Boston Business Journal the the problem was due to "unexpectedly high demand in those markets." "We are hopeful that we will have more capacity coming online later this week or early next week in all those markets," Kanojia told the Business Journal's TechFlash newsletter. He indicated that these were not long-term scaling issues, but short-term problems occurring when demand in a given metro area approaches capacity faster than anticipated.

Broadband Reports originally broke the New York story on Friday.

I had speculated that Aereo might have been facing some short-term capital constraints prior to completing a $34 million funding round last month. Somebody must be paying the
bills for its monumental legal battles. Others have wondered whether Aereo's technology
might have problems scaling within metro areas, although I haven't seen any real analysis
on that. Some have raised concerns about Aereo's power consumption.

Kanojia also said Aereo received about 100 complaints about buffering problems during the Super Bowl, but attributed most of that to general congestion on the Web at the time. Kanojia said Aereo doesn't have much of a buffer to work with since it's broadcasting live content (unlike Netflix).

Despite various guesstimates, no one seems to have a solid idea of how many subscribers Aereo has. It is currently available in 11 US cities, and announced on Monday it would
launch in San Antonio on February 19. Philadelphia, which was originally scheduled
for last year, is expected to launch some time this year.

First Round Capital was an early investor in Aereo and participated in the most recent
round, although FRC's investments are likely relatively small. Barry Diller's IAC is probably the largest investor at this point.