When the 2019 season gets underway, there will be a new look to Atlanta Braves broadcasts on Fox SportSouth and Fox Sports Southeast. Per an exclusive report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Tim Tucker, Jeff Francoeur will replace Joe Simpson as lead analyst for broadcasts on the regional networks.
Simpson will remain part of the broadcast team but will shift more to radio side while still making a few TV appearances. Per the AJC’s report, this was a joint decision by the network and the team and it appears to have caught Simpson off guard.
“I had proposed cutting back, but my proposal was a lot different than theirs,” Simpson said. “I was suggesting maybe cutting back to like 120 TV games, hoping to fill in the rest with some radio. But they’ve cut me back to 20 or 30 TV games with the rest being radio, so that came as a surprise.”
Francoeur will work around 100 games next season with Tom Glavine also seeing an increase in games. Chip Caray will return as the TV play-by-play announcer.
Simpson has drawn criticism for some remarks that he has made over the last couple of seasons. Without going into details on those remarks, many felt that the Braves broadcast booth needed a refresh and this move signals that both Fox Sports and the team agreed with that assumption.