As the Lerner family continues to explore a sale of the Nationals, the franchise’s ongoing dispute with the Orioles over television rights fees looms. Major League Baseball has renewed its efforts to try to broker an agreement between the franchises, write Barry Svrluga, Chelsea Janes and Ben Strauss of the Washington Post. The Talk Nats blog first reported last month that MLB was getting involved in trying to bring the sides together.
As both the Washington Post and Talk Nats have covered during the sales process, the TV rights dispute presents a fair bit of uncertainty for prospective Nationals buyers. As part of the relocation efforts to move the franchise from Montreal to Washington nearly two decades ago, the Nationals agreed to tie their local broadcasting rights to the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network. MASN is jointly owned by the Nats and Orioles, but the Orioles’ ownership share is roughly 77% while the Nats own around 23%. That agreement, a condition of the franchise’s relocation into the Orioles’ geographic territorial rights, caps the Nationals’ TV revenue by making it impermissible for them to sell broadcasting rights to a regional sports network.
The Post notes the original agreement expressly stipulates that the Nationals’ obligations under the MASN deal would carry over in the event of a sale of a franchise. Thus, the unfavorable TV situation is a key consideration for those in discussions with the Lerners.
That’s all the more true in light of recent movement on that front. As Talk Nats and the Post have each reported, a group led by Ted Leonsis now appears to be the frontrunner in the sales process. Leonsis’ Monumental Sports & Entertainment also owns the NHL’s Capitals, the NBA’s Wizards and the WNBA’s Mystics, as well as having full control of NBC Sports Washington. Finding a way to broadcast games on NBCS Washington figures to be a key objective for Leonsis if his group eventually purchases the Nats, but they’d need to negotiate a settlement with the Orioles to buy out of their end of the MASN agreement to do so. Whether the Baltimore franchise would have interest in such an arrangement isn’t clear.
Of course, there’s a strong interest on MLB’s part in facilitating some kind of settlement. Both Talk Nats and the Post have suggested the TV rights uncertainty has slowed down the sale process, and it raises some questions about the franchise’s price point. The league would prefer to see the Nationals sold for a high price (and, to a lesser extent, to expedite the process). The Lerner family has reportedly sought around $2.5 billion.
Hanging over the potential negotiations is an acrimonious past between the Orioles and Nats that hasn’t been resolved. Disputes about the Nationals’ share of TV rights led to litigation that has been pending for nearly a decade. In 2019, an arbitrator ruled the network owed the Nationals around $105MM in unpaid rights fees. MASN appealed that decision, and the appeal has still yet to get on the docket for the New York Court of Appeals.
Interestingly, while an eventual sale to Leonsis still appears to be the likeliest outcome, one person familiar with the process tells the Post a number of paths remain possible. That source suggests the Lerners could still retain majority control in the long run, or perhaps bring in a minority owner initially with a longer-term path to majority ownership. (As an example of that sort of arrangement, the Guardians agreed to a sale in June that sees incoming buyer David Blitzer purchase roughly 25-30% of the franchise initially but have the right to purchase majority control six years down the line).
As the parties try to iron through the TV deal and potential sale, the Nationals’ on-field product is coming off an MLB-worst 55-107 season. They’re firmly amidst a rebuild and have cut back payroll dramatically. The franchise has approached $200MM on player payrolls in the past, but Roster Resource calculates their 2023 expenditures (including arbitration estimates) around $98MM. Svrulga, Strauss and Janes write that a few of the team’s baseball operations staffers have expressed some uncertainty about the organization’s spending capacity and overall direction this winter. Both manager Dave Martinez and GM Mike Rizzo will stick around, at least, with the club picking up 2023 options on each this past summer.
Can the Rays, A’s, and MASN all be fired into the sun so we can stop hearing about them?
Have you seen Superman IV?!??? That will make them stronger!!!
Ha, I’d be equally happy to no longer have to write about this stuff.
We love & appreciate ya Franco! You, Steve, & Mark are our leaders emeritus…Newbies are certainly earning their stripes!
Surprised you chose to omit MLB’s bankrolling of the Nat’s legal expenses. Baltimore is not just fighting for the original terms of the agreement with the Nats but against the entirety of MLB.
My hope is that a case like this gets the public access to one of the team’s books and ledgers.
Works for me.
Does Gary Thorn still do Orioles games? Always liked voice and announcing games on ESPN as well.
No, unfortunately. Great voice.
I like his “GOOD BYYYYYE” home run call. Miss it!
If the Nats want out of the deal they voluntarily entered into in order to convince the Orioles to allow their market to be gutted by giving permission for another MLB team to set up shop less than an hour away, they are free to return to Montreal.
Otherwise suck it up, buttercup.
The Orioles have lost multiple times in the court, over this. MASN, on the whole, is pretty lousy.
it maybe lousy but it was was agreed to before the move. if they want to change the deal everyone has to agree to the change if i remember right didnt the orioles already ceded them a bigger chunk than the original deal allowed or pushed up escalators.
This reminds me of when the mall of america came in to jersey. For Jets and Giants to stay in the same space instead of moving from secaucus certain agreements were made (i think it was something with traffic conditions on gameday) and needed their approval before anything could happen in the area. Basically the mall plans was getting shotdown unless the Jets and Giants approved the deal. Some kind of green papers moved hands and all is right in the world.
This could be a something oakland could point to the A’s so they dont move as look at the difficulties you may have in another market such as in the bay area with the Giants.
MASN lost in lower courts, not the Orioles.
MASN lost those cases on how much needed to be paid to the Nationals from revenues for past seasons, not on the merit of the original agreement. That original agreement was never in question in any of the court cases.
Something else to keep in mind is that the litigation is over TV revenue for a specific time period in the past, not current revenue splits.
As the article stated, the amount MASN owes the Nationals for past broadcasts is still in litigation and is unlikely to be settled any time soon.
The Nationals chose to sign an agreement with MASN because they wanted to get out of Montreal. It was not forced upon them. They could have moved elsewhere. They need to either come up with some huge dollars, think half the amount that the franchise is about to be sold for, to buy out that lifetime contract with MASN, or they need to suck it up as the King just said.
Perhaps but MASN, primarily owned by the orioles, has not lived up to its end of the bargain. This has at times impacted spending by the Nats. If one party doesn’t abide by the original terms of a deal, at some point the deal is moot. The courts have repeatedly agreed with the Nationals in this but Angelos keeps appealing. Since he owns the orioles and most of MASN you can’t really separate the two.
Play all you want with the semantics. The Orioles own over 70% of MASN for all intents and purposes it’s the Orioles who own the vast majority of MASN and that is why people say “Orioles” as the controlling entity.
The Nats did not “voluntarily” agree to this deal, MLB did. When MLB sold the team to the Lerners, it was part of the package,
Besides the deal being bad and one-sided, the hapless O’s have not even been able to live up to their side of the bargain. On those grounds alone, the deal should be abrogated.
Additionally, the O’s have run the network on the cheap and it fails to properly promote either team, but especially the Nats.
Angelos has been a horrible owner. Because of how he ran the O’s into the ground and his animosity to DC getting their own team, he drove away countless former O”s fans such as myself, who were prepared to support both teams. Meanwhile O’s fans should be grateful to the Nats for forcing Angelos to ever field a competitive product.
Finally, there is no way in any sane person’s mind that the Baltimore owns the DC market, which is the much bigger of the two. Let the O’s stand on their own. I hope they can, but stop meddling with the Nats.
At just a 45 minute drive down 295, DC was functionally part of the Orioles’ market for decades after the Senators moved to Texas and they had no real incentive to allow another club to move in on their turf. The MASN arrangement was a perfectly reasonable compromise and the only reason the Nats exist in their current form.
Angelos should have just vetoed it altogether honestly and forced the Expos to move to Portland or Las Vegas instead.
Portland and Las Vegas do not have ballparks that are major-league standard. Major League Baseball, who owned the Expos in their final years, was willing to put the renamed Nationals in RFK Stadium until Nationals Park was built.
Maybe it was a 45 minute drive back when that MASN deal was made. Now it takes at least twice that time to drive from DC to an O’s game.
I have lived in the greater DC area for 50 years. I worked in Baltimore for 30 of that. Trust me, while some in the northern DC suburbs did grow to be Orioles fans, the greater DC metro area was not and was never going to be Orioles country. While the cities are close, they are culturally quite distinct. This is a bad agreement which was forced on the Nationals and which MASN has never lived up to.
Angelos did not have veto power and could well have lost an ownership vote. It’s hard to say for sure; perhaps enough other owners may have felt bad about the league muscling him. But he wasn’t particularly popular with the other owners and MLB had a lot more to gain from moving a team to a major market like DC.
Whatever, Selig liked to operate via consensus and worried about a lawsuit from Angelos as well, so he caved to this MASN extortion. From there Angelos has not even lived up to it and has done a poor job with the network to boot.
Don’t forget, too, that DC did not object to Baltimore getting a team when the O’s moved there, although of course that was a different era.
What owners would have felt bad for Angelos? Ask around how many like him.
MLB purchased the Expos in 2002 and moved them to DC for the 2005 season.
When they purchased the Nationals in May 2006, the Lerner group agreed to the TV deal in order to be able to move into a top 10 market in baseball. Ted Lerner and Stan Kasten took over a year looking over the deal before they finalized the purchase of the team, so there are no excuses. If it wasn’t worth it they would not have bought the team.
Baltimore owned the DC market. That much is a fact. Since the Senators moved to Texas in 1972.
Since the Nationals came into being in 2005, the Orioles have lost 60% of their sponsorship revenue compared to 2004 and seen attendance drop from consistent top 10 with attendance around 40k/game in the late 1990s and early 2000s to less than 26k/game even in the 201-2016 Showalter years while they were a winning team and in the playoffs 3 of 5 seasons.
At 30-40% drop in attendance even while winning and a 60% in sponsorship money is a pretty good reason to cut spending. Do you blame the Angelos’ for not continuing to be a top spender on their team?
The Nationals either need to buy out that deal they voluntarily signed on for, or suck it up. No one else is to blame for their situation.
It is the Orioles who are not honoring the agreement. There was supposed to be a reset of the rights fees every 5 years. The Orioles have refused to honor that part of the agreement and have hung things up in court. The agreement stated arbitration if the two teams could not agree on rights fees. The arbitrator ruled and the ruling was more favorable to the Orioles than it was to the Nationals. Despite that the Nationals accepted the arbitrator’s ruling, The Orioles did not.
No complaining by the Nats. They just want the Orioles and MASN to live up to the RSDC’s award of annual rights fees. Do some homework on the situation.
Weird how the baseball attendance trend went versus football.
When the Colts left Baltimore in 1984 a lot of Baltimore-area fans adopted the team from Washington (I refuse to use their current name). From the NFL’s standpoint the TV/radio market in Baltimore became neutral. There were more Washington fans on the west and south side of Baltimore – Frederick, Columbia, Annapolis – who adopted DC but some on the north and east side – like Harford and Cecil County – adopted Philly. When the Ravens moved in 1996 many people who had been Colts fans became Ravens fans, and the Ravens also developed a strong presence in South Central PA….where many people moved to escape from Baltimore.
I don’t know a whole lot of people from the Baltimore area – even Frederick, Columbia, Annapolis – who became Nats fans when they came to town. I know some people in the DC/NVA area who remained Orioles fans after the Nats arrived. The vast bulk of the Nats fan base is from DC south and NVA, so while the markets technically intersect DC’s biggest fan base is mostly an hour further away from Baltimore than they are from DC.
MLB was intent on moving a team to DC and Angelos, being a very successful lawyer, was able to negotiate favorable terms to remove his objections to the move. It does not appear that the MASN deal was very well or clearly written.
O’s get 70+% of MASN revenue that is much higher because of the Nationals winning division championships and a World Series. 100% of MASN without the Nats is less than 70+% with the Nats.
Then Angelos and MASN delivered a crappy product, stiff the Nats by not paying what they owed, and then drag it out in court for years.
That sounds like an agreement that the Nationals should be forced to honor? LOL
#selltheteambob …oh wait wrong franchise.
Should have negotiated better terms when you signed the agreement or moved to a location where there wouldn’t be a need for an agreement.
Baseball wanted a team in DC. Politicians, who hand out vast sums of money, vote for absurdly favorable tax treatment and other legislative goodies, wanted a team in DC. The Orioles certainly have their rights under the agreement, but there’s a lot more than vanity to this.
On the other hand, the Nationals are actually a successful franchise overall that you never hear anyone talking about moving. Isn’t that what’s best for the sport as opposed to these perpetually challenging franchises that we’re talking about multi-billion dollar new ballparks and still have no idea if they’ll ever be viable? Baseball and its owners should value healthy franchises and not be hung up on territorial rights for regions that can clearly handle two teams. I know that’s not how the world works, but just sayin’. Does anyone know how long the Nationals are obliged to be a part of that MASN deal?
The Orioles are not moving. People who “talk about it” have an agenda, but no basis in fact.
Also, there is no need for a new stadium in Baltimore.
I assume you’re responding to me, in which case I never said the Orioles should move out or that they needed a new ballpark. My point was that the region can support two teams, so future emphasis of MLB, its owners, and its fans should be to just make it work and be happy there are two healthy, functional franchises, instead of saying that they never should have moved there in the first place because of territorial rights. That is all. Then I asked if the Nationals were beholden to that deal forever, and if not, for how long.
I guess it depends on what you consider a successful franchise. Is it playoff appearances or selling tickets?
The two teams that you constantly hear about moving are two of the most successful franchises in baseball in terms of winning games.
The Rays have been in the playoffs 8 of the last 14 years including the last 4 straight after coming into existence in 1998 as an expansion team.
The A’s have been in the playoffs 11 of the past 22 years.
There are teams like Pittsburgh that has 3 playoff appearances in the last 30 years, San Diego that has 6 appearances in the last 30 years, the Angels that have just one appearance since 2010, and Seattle that before this season last went to the playoff in 2001 that no one talks about moving those teams.
What MLB values is large TV markets and the As and Rays are in huge ones.
The agreement with MASN is permanent, As long as both franchises exist, MASN owns the rights to the DC market.
Great points and thank you for answering my question. My idea of a successful franchise is perhaps a bit simple and antiquated, where I’m more or less basing my judgement on whether the fan base will attend games on a regular basis provided the team is successful on the field. So for instance, even though the Pittsburgh Pirates are looked at as a team that’s not very successful in the modern era (Yes, I know they’ve had some success on the field recently, I read those posts too! lol) I believe the fans will pack the ballpark when they are experiencing success. So when I look at a team like the Rays being one of the most successful teams of the last decade, it bothers me to know that they are consistently at the bottom in MLB attendance, and wonder if it’s even worth trying to keep them there.
Which brings me full circle to my original point which was that with teams like this in the league, that operate in a perpetual state of not knowing whether they are in a viable baseball market, I consider MLB a healthier league with the “successful” Nationals team existing, as opposed to arguing they should have never existed in the first place. However, thanks to your more nuanced explanation of the situation, and the dynamics of MLB teams and how they are valued, I can understand better the Orioles position as well as why MLB might still value the existence of the Rays in Tampa Bay and the A’s in Oakland. And to be fair to the fans of those respective franchises, I do think they deserve a better fan experience than that which they are currently experiencing in their respective ballparks.
It’s a corporate deal that lasts into perpetuity which is forever unless there is a default in the contract, amendment, or an agreed upon sale.
Understood. There are a few morons on here who are dead-set that the Orioles are moving ASAP
I don’t know that you can say the Nationals ever agreed to it. Wasn’t the team essentially owned and run by MLB at the time? In any case, MASN (and the Orioles) have NEVER lived up to the terms of the agreement, which is why they owe the Nationals so much money for past seasons.
Bravo, someone who got it right.
MLB agreed to it. MLB owned the team. There was no “Nationals” to agree to it because MLB owned the team.
MLB negotiated the terms. You weren’t in the room to know why Selig caved but we all have a good idea why he did. The fail safe in the deal for the Nats’ side was the reset of annual rights fees and the formation of the RSDC to ultimately decide the value. The Nats accepted the value, MASN (Orioles) did not, and that’s why this has been tied up in the courts for nearly 10 years and over and over under appeal has been found in favor for the Nats. The one appeal the Orioles won was early on that there was a conflict of interest with a law firm. The Nats will win this all if they are willing to wait it out.
The next time either of these teams come to the taxpayers, palms up, maybe the taxpayer should tell them to get their respective houses in order first. Why enhance the value of either franchise using public money right now? Both sets of owners will eventually sell, the litigation is approaching PickwicK Papers in length, and they ought to work it out between them.
Maybe to solve the issue, move the team, there are a lot of cities clamoring for a franchise that wouldn’t have restrictive T.V right deals. Cannot understand why The Nats are there anyways.
Lol the Nationals have outdrawn the Orioles every year since 2009. Since their inception the Nats have 5 playoff appearances to the Os 3, and 1 WS to the Os O. So which team are we moving? Because at this point I’m not really sure why the Orioles are there–they field a crappy product that their fans don’t support (which, to be fair, why should the fans support that when clearly Angelos doesn’t care about his fans?).
Were people clamoring for the Astros to move when they were tanking for years? Granted, Angelo’s is a terrible, cheap owner and the Orioles’ rebuild has been ridiculously long and painful, but I think 2022 should help prove that things are turning around finally. If you’re not excited about a core of Adley, Grayson, Gunnar, etc., then you’re missing something.
Hurricane Sandy is right: neither team needs to move, as the market can support two teams. NYC, L.A., the Bay, and Chicago all do it, often in multiple sports. Maybe MLB just needs to intervene to force MASN to up their game. Maybe contingent on a Nats sale to Leonisis the Nats get to broadcast on NBCSW but the O’s get a share in that network. Something can be done outside the box to keep two viable teams viable.
Yeah I actually agree with you. I’m not a fan of either team so really it’s no skin off my back, but it’s laughable to suggest the Nats should move when objectively they’re a healthier franchise and of greater value to MLB as a whole. Mostly I think it’s dumb that fans argue the MASN dispute like it’s their own–rather than fans taking a side in the dispute, they should stand united behind “eat the rich.”
The Nationals. Prior to the Nationals moving to DC, the Orioles were consistently near the top of the league in attendance after Angelos bought the team..
Wrong again. The Orioles were 12th in attendance in 2004 at 2,744,018. Stop fibbing on your numbers and do some homework.
Steve M – Angelos bought the team in the early 90s. The Orioles drew over 3M after OPACY opened and were among the top few teams until about 2000 or 01 when it started to drop off.
When the team was new and OPACY opened of course they did. But the fact is the team’s attendance continued to drop. I’d say when Cal Ripken retired n 2001, it all changed. But Pads fans is putting up pure fiction.
Steve Dumas, consistently means more than one year.
1996 – 2nd – 44k/game
1997 – 2nd – 46k/game
1998 – 2nd – 45k/game
1999 – 3rd – 42k/game
2000 – 4th – 41k/game
2001 – 6th – 38k/game
2002 – 10th – 33k/game – they finished with 95 losses and STILL drew that many
2003 – 10th – 30k/game- They lost 91 games and STILL drew that many
and then there is your one season
2004 – 12th – 34k/game – After two 90+ loss seasons and looking at another losing season before it began they drew 34k fans per game and were in the top half of the league in attendance.
Baltimore drew from all over the region and fans packed that stadium win or lose.
We are not talking about the Expos that drew 9k/game that year. 34k.
Contrast that to 2012-2016 when they were playing playoff caliber ball and went to the playoffs 3 of 5 seasons. They had the best record in the AL those 5 seasons.
Those years they drew 26k. 29k, 30k, 29k, and 27k. Not once in the top half in attendance.
The difference? The Nationals were drawing away fans.
Please take your garbage elsewhere. Facts are spoken here.
You don’t understand why they are in a major media market surrounded by some of the richest counties in America?
This is hilarious. The Nation’s Capital. America, baseball, apple pie, and Chevrolet.
Lol good luck with that. This has been in court who knows how many times, MLB has tried to intervene who knows how many times, and we’re still at square 1. All 3 branches of government and God himself could rule on this and they’d still fight over it.
It would be best if the entire Angelos clan just sold the Orioles and put all of us out of the misery of having to read about the scum family. Peter Angelos, and his family, are one of the most despicable group of people in sports ownership and his exit would be most welcome. Maybe they and Dan Snyder can amuse themselves with a soccer team
So says someone that’s never heard of Middle East oil money bankrolling European soccer teams. Manchester City, Newcastle United, Paris Saint-Germain to name a few.
They agreed to the tv rights deal.. don’t cry nor or move out of the market Orioles have the right to..Nationals agreeing to this is only reason they were allowed to move there in first place.. aid you don’t like it go back to Montreal.. You affected thr a orioles value and revenue so deal with it… You can’t change a deal down the road that you ageeed to
You say that, and yet Angelos is $100m behind in his payments. No crying indeed.
That is in the appeals court right now and has not been decided.
Your paragraph is weak. Very weak.
I’m sure there’s an amount the Orioles ownership would accept to make it worth their while to void the existing agreement and be rid of the ongoing litigation. In theory that could become part of the cost of purchasing the Nationals.
About a $1 billion. That was what MLB considered the value of the deal when they agreed to it in 2004.
Wrong. You are throwing out a whole lot of numbers and you’re wrong. There was never any valuation that high for MASN. The infusion of cash put it at a few $100 million and part of the cash infusion was the Nats “payment” to capitalize the venture.
READ what the commissioner said about it at the time. MASN was established in 1996 as TCR Sports Broadcasting to sell the rights to Orioles games, It was already handling the broadcasting rights for the Orioles which included the DC Metro area and the Baltimore Metro area. The 5th largest combined DMA in the country at the time.
The Orioles were being asked to give up a majority of that large of a market. So MLB gave them a huge payout to do so.
The INITIAL payment by Lerner was $125 million in 2005. Then the Orioles received a lifetime of owning 77% of MASN and control of one of the largest TV markets in baseball.
If you don’t understand this stuff, don’t comment.
The commissioner said that to justify the contract he agreed to BUT nowhere did it say in the owner’s agreement that a TV territory is automatically controlled rather it was to be amended by the TV committee. Nowhere did it say it required compensation to change it. Only stadium locations are set in stone.
The Senators were in that market until they left. The Orioles then expanded into that market as a temporary placeholder and everyone knew it.
Lerner did not make the INTIAL payment in 2005. That was MLB that made it. Lerners bought the team in the summer of 2006.
Clearly you still don’t understand this. The lifetime owning will be 67% Orioles and 33% Nationals in 9 years and 2 months by the way.
Read the documents. They’re all public.
Hard to believe that a issue unresolved for 15 years can be solved in a matter of months…
The Orioles had territorial rights to block an AL team. They had no rights to block an NL team. MLB/Selig offered the MASN deal when MLB owned the Expos to avoid a lawsuit since they knew there was a lot of dirty laundry behind the Expos prior ownership and the deal for the sale of the Marlins and the Red Sox. Tom Boswell of the Washington Post documented this in a 2012 article. washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/florida-marlin…
Come on. Get it right. MLB made the deal with Angelos so there would not be any legal proceedings to hold up the move. Any entity that was going to buy the Nationals from MLB were going to be subject to the “MASN Agreement”.
Abiding by the agreement called for a reset to market value of the annual rights fees. The panel awarded the Nats an amount that the Orioles side disagreed with and it’s now been embroiled in countless legal wranglings and appeals.
That didn’t happen until 2012, the first year broadcast rights fees came up for negotiations.
Initially the Nationals asked for $118 million which at the time would have given them the highest broadcast rights fee in baseball. MASN countered with $39.5 million, a 40% increase over what the Nationals were paid in 2011. Which itself was 50% more than what both they and the Orioles were paid in 2005..
In June of 2014 a MLB committee came back and said MASN should pay $59.5 million for that period. MASN appealed and The NY Supreme Court threw out the MLB ruling in 2015.
In 2018 the case was sent back to the MLB committee who again ruled for $59.5 million for 2012-2016 and $60-70 million for 2017-2021. MASN again appealed.
Its still in litigation.
Baltimore doesn’t have proprietary rights to baseball fans in that region. I’m old enough to remember when the O’s came to Baltimore in 1954 from St. Louis. They had no MLB franchise before that. Washington had professional teams from 1871 – 1971. Then the Nats came in 2005. The O’s are new guys on the block compared to charter AL teams like the Ind/Guardians.
When the St. Louis Browns relocated to Baltimore, Maryland in 1954 they impeded on the Washington Senators market. There was no whining or anything. Bud Selig caved to Peter Angelos because he knew if he didn’t that there would be a delay in selling the team.
The only issue was that at some point in the owner’s agreements were geographical stadium boundries. The Expos coming into the region had to be south of Maryland. There were no rights for TV just like in Los Angeles and New York and Chicago where they all go head to head with competing networks.
Selig never had to give in to Angelos but did because as you can see with this MASN lawsuit, Angelos has tied that up in the courts for 10 years!
In 1954 families were lucky to have 1 car and baltimore cities population was thriving. I get what you’re doing here but irrelevant in todays landscape
Sorry, there is no irrelevance here. Angelos bought the Orioles for $173 with what has been called the best stadium and best stadium deal in America. he can see the team for 1000% more today at $1.73 billion
In fact when the Expos came to DC, Selig even guaranteed Angelos a minimum guarantee on what his franchise would sell for.
But still, the MASN/Orioles is withholding $100 million awarded by the courts in unpaid annual rights costs.
Again you are wrong. You have a complete misunderstanding of the facts.
The COURTS did not award the Nationals anything. An MLB committee did. MASN appealed. And it would be MASN that would have to pay that money. A corporation owned 77% by the Orioles and 23% by the Nationals.
Selig did not guarantee Angelos a selling price for his team. How could he possibly know what market values would be when or if Angelos ever decided to sell? That is a complete lie.
WHAT?!?
The lower court did award the Nats $100 million. What are you talking about? Angelos/Orioles/MASN appealed even after it was upheld by a higher court.
washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/10/22/nationals-mas…
There were no territorial TV rights agreements until 1974. So the Orioles could not have “impeded on the Washington Senators market.”
Regardless of what side you are on, this is a fascinating, and very monotonous, case. Whenever has the MLB paid for a team’s legal fees and actively campaigned for one team over another? What will the Baltimore franchise look like financially after they pay out whatever settlement they are likely going to have to pay? Will be interesting to see what happens, and the Nationals sale only makes it more interesting.
Seems like a King Solomon moment.
This isn’t complicated.
MLB made the deal to give the rights to Baltimore. MLB needs to pony up the cash to buy out Baltimore from the Washington TV rights, less what is already owed and not paid. Period. I might be ok with a new owner picking up 1/3 of that cost but MLB made the mess and now they have to clean it up.
I kind of agree with you. MLB created this mess and they need to solve it. It has been over 10 years in the courts.
What is 77% of the rights to the the DC market that MASN holds in perpetuity?
How long is perpetuity? The 68 years the Orioles have been in Baltimore? The 122 seasons their franchise has been in existence?
How much is that worth? The $70 million annually the MLB committee said that MASN should pay the Nationals for their broadcast rights? Inflation? At what rate?
$70 million per year for 68 years is $4,760,000,000. 77% of that amount is $3,665,200,000
Add in annual broadcast fee inflation at 3% for 68 years and that is over $20 billion.
How about for 122 years? The math is staggering.
How much of that should the Lerners or the new owners of the Nationals pay?
No matter how you look at it, its a huge amount of money that might be in litigation longer than the broadcast rights fees have been.
I wonder if I can sell my house and just keep all the money I still owe on the mortgage? I know I signed a deal but it would help me sell much faster if I could just shirk my previous agreement. That seems good to me. The Nats are idiots.
washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/10/22/nationals-mas…
That is not analogous to this situation, but funny nonetheless.
This isn’t a loan (mortgage), rather this is a contractual agreement that two courts found in favor of the Washington Nationals for $100 million. The Orioles/MASN/Angelos have appealed again in 2020 to the highest court of appeals.
washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/10/22/nationals-mas…