make it the biggest. he borrowed $4 million, bought out his largest competitor and then, lost his nerve. he had kind of a nervous breakdown. fear of defaulting on the loan consumed him. and he went against everything that he taught me, you know. be courageous and hang in there. and so, it really shook me. a couple days later, he killed himself. ed turner shot himself in his bathtub in march 1963. the loss left a void ted has felt ever since. are you the man you are today, at least in part, because of your father? sure, sure.
then two black bear, yogi and boo boo. my dad s never been one to shy away from danger. he would send us to t buffalo pasture to run the buffalo up to front so the guests could see them. like, who does that. while his family lived in south carolina, ted worked tirelessly at his company s head quarters in atlanta. to expand his billboard business, he soon acquired several radio stations and then, a small local tv station. was that a risky decision. yeah. because i didn t have any background. i put everything i had into the one television station in atlanta. i don t have enough speed. in his free time, he put everything he had into sailing. the sport he loved since childhood. that was my sport. i concentrated on it. i worked really hard at becoming a champion in sailing.
and the holy grail of championship sailing was the america s cup. it took him from 1958 to 1977 to do it. but he had a heavy focus and didn t let anybody get in the way of that. he got crushed in the america s cup in 1974. so it was kind of the ultimate come back for him. it is close. it s always close. the year was 1977. ted took the helm and navigated his team to victory after nearly two decades in the sport. his yacht, aptly named courageous, totally dominated its competition. winning every race in best out of seven series. we finally won. big hoopla, thousands of boats coming in, thousands of people on the shoreline. champagne everywhere. and ted turns to me in the middle of the melee and said, hey, wasn t that fun? then he said, this will change
in 1960, ted turner left college. his father couldn t have been more pleased. he thought i was wasting my time. you leave brown and go into your dad s billboard business. right. ted was a natural from the beginning, and his dad quickly made him manager of the company s macon, georgia branch. he was running the billboard company there, building more billboards, selling more billboards, make lots of money for his father and for the company. already one of the biggest billboard companies in the south, ed turner took a risk to make it the biggest. he borrowed $4 million, bought out his largest competitor, and then lost his nerve. he had kind of a nervous breakdown. fear of defaulting on the loan consumed him.
give the small station the national footprint ted wanted. his solution? buy a baseball team. if we can t do it nobody can the braves broadcast nation-wide on tbs became america s team. come seat big league team with little league spirit. we re in atlanta. we didn t see the future like ted did. innovative businessmen create markets. superstation tbs. we created one by putting us on tv. he knew eventually we were going to play some better baseball but we needed to get this product out there and create that market. when we bought them in 1976 the were terrible. we finished last many more times than we finished in the first division in baseball. but ted could even make the best out of a bad situation. ted came into the clubhouse.