It was also particularly striking given that WTCG had experienced major profit losses ever since Ted Turner assumed ownership of the station from Rice Broadcasting in 1970; WTCG had only then started to break even in revenue and was just beginning to become more competitive with the Atlanta market's other television stations in terms of viewership. Channel 17's Braves telecasts began airing nationally at the start of the 1977 season, after Turner and Southern Satellite Systems uplinked the station's signal via satellite. As WTCG reached a significant cable penetration rate throughout the Southern U.S. during 1978 and 1979, Turner ceased syndicating the team's game broadcasts and relegated those telecasts to the WTCG/WTBS cable feed, making the Braves the first team that did not provide live game coverage to broadcast stations outside of those within the team's home market. Turner once famously tried to get Andy Messersmith to use his #17 jersey to promote Superstation WTBS in its early years (the back of the jersey read, "CHANNEL 17"). The MLB organization immediately stopped Turner from proceeding with this plan due to league regulations barring team jerseys from incorporating advertising other than that of the jersey's manufacturer. WTBS's broadcasts of Braves games helped expand the team's fanbase well outside of the Southern United States and earned them national prominence as "America's Team", even as the franchise's performance ranged from amiable to poor for much of the late 1970s and the 1980s. Some sportswriters even posited how such an awful team could have such broad availability via cable television, as with a 1990 "Los Angeles Times" column in which sportswriter Mike Downey jocularly lamented that TBS was short for "These Braves Stink." (During the aforementioned period, the team's only postseason appearance was in 1982 and only three seasons, 1980, 1982 and 1983, had the Braves achieve a scoring average above .500.) At the 2006 MLB All-Star Game, it was announced that TBS would begin carrying a television package that includes all major league teams beginning with the 2007 season. TBS began carrying all Division Series games and one of the two League Championship Series (assuming the rights from Fox and ESPN) as well as the announcements of the All-Star teams and any possible games to determine division winners and wild card teams (those were also carried previously on ESPN). In 2008, TBS began airing MLB regular season Sunday games, with the provision that no team may appear on the telecasts more than 13 times during the season. During the 2007 transitional year, TBS aired 70 regular-season Braves games.