The Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) is co-owned by the Orioles and Nationals, although the Orioles have a controlling stake. Since the network was established in 2005, the two clubs have regularly fought over how much money the Nationals should receive in rights fees each season. These disagreements have led to several court battles over the years.
Earlier this week, the Nationals filed a petition with the Supreme Court of New York, requesting that the court confirm a decision from MLB’s Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee. The committee found that the Orioles and MASN owe the Nationals approximately $320.5MM in TV rights fees to cover the 2022-26 seasons (per Matt Weyrich of The Baltimore Sun). That would mean around $203.9MM in backpay for the past three seasons ($72.8MM for 2022 and ’23 and $58.3MM for ’24) and another $58.3MM in 2025 and ’26. To put those numbers in context, RosterResource estimates the Nationals spent around $130MM on player payroll in 2024.
As Weyrich points out, a quick resolution to this petition would mean the two clubs will be in agreement on a deal that holds for multiple years to come for the first time since 2012. As for whether or not the two sides will be able to stay out of court in 2027 and beyond? That remains to be seen. Orioles majority owner David Rubenstein previously spoke about his desire to move these discussions “away from the lawyers” but stopped far short of making any promises. “I don’t have an easy answer yet,” he said. “If it was easy, it would have been resolved” (per Weyrich).
The Nationals have been active this offseason, trading for Nathaniel Lowe, signing Josh Bell and Michael Soroka, and re-signing Trevor Williams. However, they have not made the kind of big splash (or even medium splash) that some thought they’d make this winter. With a projected 2025 payroll that is still $22MM below last year’s final figure and the possibility of more financial certainty if this $320.5MM agreement is confirmed, perhaps the Nationals will continue adding this offseason to supplement a roster full of talented but unproven young players.
The obvious solution to keep lawyers out of this is for Baltimore to trade Henderson to Washington for Derek Law and then everything is square for a few years
There’s a way to keep lawyers out of DC??!!?!!!
New owner, same deal.
I guess it wasn’t just Angelo’s who thought the money the Nationals wanted didn’t add up.
Maybe if the Nationals sell, maybe then common sense will prevail.
Angelos used Nats for years as his piggy bank and then sidestepped consequences.
Whoever owns the O’s has a financial interest in low-balling the TV rights deal. That’s because the rights are the same for both clubs (a bennie to the O’s, since their market is much smaller), where the lion’s share of the MASN profits go to the O’s.
The entire dispute with Angelos was that he was trying to avoid complying with the MASN agreement by imposing his own (low) TV rights amount. He lost in courts over and over again as the courts upheld the contractual agreement. This move by the Nats is not to break the MASN agreement, it’s to compel the O’s to comply with the RSDC decision (if the parties cannot agree on an amount the RSDC is the dispute resolution mechanism). The agreement and the RSDC as the dispute resolution mechanism have been upheld in courts, so the O’s are merely dragging their feet on this.
Their tv market is not much smaller. It’s identical.
The Baltimore media market is #26 in the U.S. The DC media market is #10. You could look it up on mediamarketmap.com.
The cities are less than 40 miles from each other. The two cities were never really that separate in terms of fanbases and a lot of other things (except maybe for those who grew up north of Baltimore and south of DC). DC still has a big Orioles fan base. Fun fact – in the late 19th century the tallest building in Washington DC was the Baltimore Sun building.
The two cities have a fair amount of animosity between them. There are a lot of Baltimore sports fans who refuse to root for a DC team, and vice versa. I was born in DC but was never interested in rooting for the O’s. I respected the Weaver O’s and the “Oriole Way” and the culture enforced by players like Frank Robinson. But I didn’t root for them. The MD suburbs between the cities is where most of the back-and-forth occurred.
The animosity is overstated for much of the region. I grew up in Howard County, MD, and I was a big O’s fan and a big Redskins fan (and a Colts fan too before they moved). Admittedly, I don’t follow the Commanders anymore because of the Ravens, but the main reason I don’t is because of what Dan Snyder did to the team. The Orioles shouldn’t leave Baltimore because of the Nats anymore than the Commanders should leave DC (actually they play in Maryland) because of the Ravens. I don’t hate the Nats, but I don’t live in the area anymore so have no attachment to them.
Fair – as I said, the back-and-forth is mostly in the MD suburbs (I lived in the Howard County part of Laurel MD for a few years back in the day). And I know a lot of people who do root for both teams. I regularly attended games in Baltimore even when I lived in VA because I like baseball. I did boycott OPACY for years because of Angelos’s refusal to abide by the MASN agreement, but with new ownership I’ve been back.
MASN could have been a real partnership between the two organizations to their mutual benefit and the benefit of baseball in the region. MASN is awful. Their internal programming had all the production value of 1970’s local TV. I had hoped that new ownership would revitalize the relationship, but this current litigation isn’t a good sign for that.
Jcc, you are missing the point. It’s one market. A market owned by the Orioles. All of it.
They agreed to that when they moved a 2nd team into that one market owned by the Orioles.
It’s not one market, DC is the 10th largest media market and Baltimore is the 26th largest. You could look it up.
The O’s did not own the DC market in the sense that they could block the move of an NL club to DC. They could block a move of an AL team, but that didn’t help them here. They COULD (and did) threaten to litigate to the bitter end, though. And MLB didn’t want that, so they reached the MASN agreement. The Lerners bought that agreement along with the team, and neither the Lerners (nor I) am advocating here that the deal be tossed. What is at issue is the O’s refusing to abide by the dispute resolution mechanism contained in the MASN agreement.
Jcc, legally its one market. You can blather on all you want but by the contract MLB signed with the Orioles it is one market.
What is at issue is valuation. It has nothing at all to do with refusing to abide by the agreement. It has to do with a difference in the valuation.
The Nationals are valuing the TV broadcast rights at $194 million for 2025-2026. The Orioles are saying its worth $126 million and that MASN in total didn’t earn more than that latter amount.
You really need to learn what the contract says and what the terms of that contract mean to the parties involved.
Of course they were different.
Many of us only watched Orioles games because there was no alternative during our 33-year wait. We never lost hope that baseball would return to Washington.
Do you imagine for one minute that Colts fans developed a lasting allegiance to Washington’s football team?
Of course not.
Nonsense.
I grew up in Howard County a fan of both the Colts and the Skins. That’s pretty common for the Maryland suburbs of DC, even some closer to Baltimore. And DC still has thousands of Oriole fans — so does Virginia. I went to an O’s game in San Diego in 2023 and sat next to some O’s fans from Richmond, VA. That’s not uncommon.
A couple of my longtime pals in Arlington stuck with the Vichy team but most of us stayed true to Washington and played the long game.
So, I attended the last game at Memorial Stadium and the third game at beautiful Camden Yards.
But my lid featured the curly W.
Not disputing that, but in terms of tv penetration, the market is the same. Where there are Orioles games, there are Nationals games. From South Central Pa to North Carolina both teams are on MASN/MASN 2. Orioles games in DC, Nationals games in Baltimore. If the two teams were on different competing local networks, I would agree with you. We also may not be arguing the same thing.
Another person who does no research before typing on their keyboard. Check the Neilsen ratings for the size of the TV markets.
Orioles got the short end when Congress last looked at the antitrust exemption. Washington DC got a team, Congress dropped its inquiry, and Baltimore lost half their market.
You knew what youre doing moving your business into a neighborhood where the mob is operating a protection racket.<—–same logic
These rules are dumb and have allowed the Orioles to be uselessly medocre (last two years dont wipe away most of the last 25) while the Nats have spent money they didnt have to build marketshare.
I think the team spending money should be rewarded–and thats precisely what happens when there is not a protection racket at work.
If it is one market, then why do the Orioles benefit from revenue sharing from MLB but the Nationals do not?
To me that is the simplest solution. Add the Nationals to the revenue sharing teams and the problem becomes less relevant but if they are treated like different markets in that sense, they should be treated as different TV markets as well.
I think it depends on how MLB defines the exclusive market. What happened after the Senators moved? Did they just extend the O’s mkt to include DC?
The way that media markets are defined is not the major point – MLB’s antitrust exemption allows them to define teams’ markets.
Unpaid — The mob doesn’t have legal rights, MLB franchises have legal rights.
Same logic, huh?
Smh
The Giants’ protection racket wouldn’t let the A’s in San Jose.
Not true — there are still thousands of Commanders fans in the Baltimore area. It’s not really two really distinct TV markets or metro areas like people insist it is. The area has hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of fans that follow both teams. Sure they may favor one over the other, but there is a reason the two teams are on the same network. It’s a fight over money, not a fight over to leave MASN. Sharing MASN makes sense for both teams because geographically the combined cities are closer together than one end of the LA suburbs (or NY suburbs) to the other.
More people have moved to the DC area and close suburbs since the Nats moved here than live in the entire Baltimore metro. The proportion of people here with any memory of the O’s being a possible rooting interest is minuscule. Yes, it may be thousands. But it is a tiny portion of the population. You are living with a memory that has zero relevance in the market that exists today.
I don’t observe a lot of animosity. Frankly, I don’t think the vast majority of people in the DC area who pay attention to sports (more than a third of which have moved since the Nats came here, and about a quarter of which were born after the Nats came here) even think about Baltimore teams at all. At my kids high school here in Montgomery County, the single kid who wore O’s gear (parent grew up in Baltimore) was a novelty, exceeded by the population wearing Yankees gear. The O’s really aren’t relevant here anymore. It’s the distant past and a city here most think of as no more relevant than (and quite a bit further than) Tyson’s Corner.
That stubborn attitude will lead the Nats to seek greener pastures outside the area. Perhaps Nashville, Charlotte or Raleigh.
Anywhere where they won’t have to give up 30-50’of their local TV money.
In no way in any universe does a smaller city “own” a bigger city like DC’s market. MLB granted them a
legal control of the area when DC did not have a team. But it was not a designation set in stone and obviously subject to being taken back.
Unfortunately, MLB under Commissioner Sileg had the stones to bring a baseball team back to one of the most affluent markets in the country but lacked the fortitude to not bend over to Angelos” litigious threats. And here we are, with the O’s not even capable of living up to this raw deal anyway. MLB and the Nats have every right to abrogate this extortionate MASN agreement.
Baltimore appears to still be the bigger baseball market by a good margin. In 2023 the Orioles had a 4.23 rating on MASN while the Nationals had a rating of 0.85. Here’s the link to the Forbes article with the numbers.
forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2023/10/05/mlb-regiona…
Only the Marlins and A’s had worse numbers than the Nats in 2023. From the same chart you can see the O’s had significantly better ratings in 2022 too, even though the Nats had won the World Series only 3 years earlier and the O’s were still not good.
What a stupid comment. Last 25? You mean when they had the most wins in the AL from 2012-16? That was 25 years ago?
Dclive, the contract MLB and subsequently the ownership group they sold the Nationals to says the Orioles own the lion’s share of the combined media revenue in perpetuity.
Many DC residents don’t root for DC teams. Nationals the redheaded stepchild of the East due to demographics- consistently outrooted at home (similar dynamic to Vegas and LA teams playing at Sofi).
Yeah when I lived in the DMV MASN was really kind of a joke. Agree with you on the programming, very dated like 80s infomercials, reminded me of Guy Cabbalero’s faux programming on SCTV
Thats highly antiquated thinking. It may have been that one market dominated by the Os originally but gradually evolved over the decades. Not surprising that Os attendance plumneted in the aughts once the novelty of Camden wore off and the corporate dollars that used to buy up premium seating when there was no DC baseball team dried up with Nationals park. That would be like Philly lording over NY and DC because it was once the US Capitol in the late 18th century. Really sad because up until the recent exciting young Os ball club, Camden became a ghost town, so much so that very few concessions stands were open for weekday games. Baltimore has a longstanding demographic issue remaining competitive in the East, similar to Cleveland with an inherently smaller fan base.
Having lived in both markets, it was the sad sack Bullets ironically that drew support over a unified DMV market and on occasion the Capitols. Baseball and football: night and day difference. Even Terps fans in DC are drowned out by other ACC fans in the area: why the B1G insistence on adding the Terps to expand the conference footprint was always a bit puzzling. No real “there” there in terms of DC local sports alliance unless it’s the Commandos-Wash football team. Think a big reason by Wilbon and Tony pivoted so quickly to succeeding with PTI was that they were so used to covering national sports when they used to banter back and forth over columns at the Washington Post.
This is also an outdated understanding of SC demographics. The area used to be transient. It is no longer. It has grown by ~50% in 20 years and people are coming to stay at rates similar to other cities. There are certain away teams that get a lot of fans – but it doesn’t matter who the fans are rooting for at a particular game. Most of those fans wear home jerseys when their ancestral team isn’t in town anyway.
Not so much animosity as indifference. Two cities don’t really pay attention to each other. The faux beltway rivalry they try to gin up is pretty arbitrary. Might as well be the Braves and the Mariners, or Devil Rays-Rockies
What about interest? Such could be another factor should the sides not settle.
The O’s had both the Baltimore and DC markets before the Nats came to town. Need to get some compensation for that.
They drew from both markets, but DC was not within the O’s territorial rights. They could have stopped an AL team from moving to DC, but not an NL team. But it was going to impact the O’s, who had been trying to convince DC fans that Baltimore was their team (it worked about as well as the DC NFL franchise trying to convince Baltimore football fans that they didn’t need their own team because they could root for DC).
But Angelos threatened to sue anyway, and MLB had some things involving the ownership shuffle between the Expos, Marlins, and Red Sox that they didn’t want to expose to discovery. So they caved and reached the MASN deal. The Lerners bought that as well as the baseball organization, so they’re stuck with it.
TL;DR: the O’s DO get compensation in the MASN agreement. The consistent problem is that the O’s don’t want to abide by the agreement that they signed – they want MORE compensation. That’s why they’ve lost in court so often.
JCC — I bought my Orioles tickets for years at the Orioles store at Farguette Square in the heart of Washington DC.
I’d say that’s a pretty good indicator of Orioles rights.
Oh yeah …the MASN deal itself would be a pretty strong indicator they had rights too.
If the Orioles had no DC claim, why is there a discussion here? Maybe because they DO have rights as recognized by MLB, the legal system, and the fact that the Nationals are fighting about Money not Rights.
The O’s tried to make DC part of their informal market. They failed. The O’s store in Farragut Square closed.
The MASN agreement is not because the O’s had the right of refusal. It’s because they could (and Angelos would) litigate it out for years and MLB wanted closure (and to avoid opening their books to the discovery process). So they bought off Angelos with the MASN agreement.
And the Nats are abiding by the MASN agreement. The entire dispute is because the O’s are not abiding by their obligations under the agreement that they extorted out of MLB. The Nats did try – once – to break the MASN agreement by arguing that the O’s refusal to abide by the agreement constituted a breach of contract and voided the deal. THAT argument the Nats lost. The courts have consistently backed the agreement, including the rights fees dispute resolution process through the RSDC..
So you’re saying the O’s have Squatters rights?
This isn’t about all the ancillary crud you’re mentioning. This is the O’s needing to comply with the contract they signed and it’s why they keep losing in court. They want to get it out of court, but their attorneys don’t want to give an inch strategically. Sure does help their billable hours.
Uh, DC was ABSOLUTELY Baltimore’s market – that’s why this arrangement exists in the first place. To compensate Baltimore for cutting their market in half.
Jcc, you are trying to make an argument that is demonstrably wrong and one Manfred has said is wrong. D.C. is within the Orioles territorial market. That is the entire reason for the agreement they are in litigation over.
Not sure what you mean about “informal market.”
MLB’s constitution Article VIII, section 8 narrowly defines where a team can build its park.
Section 9 ambiguously states what a teams television market is.
“The definitions of the home television territories of Major League Clubs shall be maintained in the Commissioner’s Office. Amendments to such territories shall be made only with the approval of the Executive Council.”
Thats what it says.
Nobody gets to decide their own market, and their market isnt determined by the FCC. Its posted in Manfred’s office.
And in that definition, DC was not in the “home territory” of the O’s such that they could block the move of an NL team to DC. IIRC (and I’m too lazy to confirm the mechanics of this at the moment) RFK and Nats Park are JUST outside of the radius of the O’s home territory.
TL;DR: under the MLB constitution the O’s lacked the ability to unilaterally prevent a move of the Expos to DC.
Jcc, you are wrong. Legally. Contractually. D.C. is part of the Orioles market.
Jcc, you are not lazy, you are just wrong.
[citations needed]
Actually I agree with this. It’s not the same media market as the media/entertainment industry sees it – the DC market is much larger and more affluent than the Baltimore market. But the parties have agreed to treat it as one under the MASN agreement. Which is why even that basic structure benefits the O’s by giving them the same TV rights fees as a team in a larger market even before one gets to the lopsided ownership split.Which is fine – the agreement was to buy off the O’s from litigating the Nats’ move to DC. Mission accomplished!
Now, if we could just get the O’s to abide by the agreement, specifically the dispute resolution mechanism, that would be great.
Moving a park in was never the issue. Section 8 only protects like 5 maryland counties for the O’s. It was always about the TV territory, which you seem to misunderstand as being based on media markets. Its based on what MLB awarded the teams. Given the nature of the agreement, it seems clear that they had awarded DC to the O’s. if that wasnt the case, this agreement wouldnt exist. because, as you say, bud didnt needs the o’s permission to move into dc
@jcc
espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=1891484
just fyi and this was before the lerners were even involved and washington had new owners. MLB had to make baltimore whole as it was part of their mlb territory. If it is not their territory who owned it prior to them.
If you want to know another reason why the orioles did what they did, look into what happened when the giants moved their stadium into the territory that belongs to oakland.
It was not in the territory where the O’s could unilaterally block the move of an NL team. As for the reason for the MASN agreement – to compensate the O’s for the loss of revenue from having a team in DC – we are in violent agreement. MLB made the deal to buy off Angelos’s threats of litigation, and the Lerners bought the MASN deal along with the team. Whatever they think of the agreement, they signed up for it.
The entire dispute has been over the rights fees and the O’s abiding by the dispute resolution process laid out in the MASN agreement.
The Senators had the market from Maryland to the Carolinas for over 50 years before they allowed the St. Louis Browns to relocate in Baltimore. Who said when the Senators left in the 1970s that the Orioles automatically could keep the DC region? Fact is that was never given to them permanently. You’re smart enough to know that I would hope.
That is an absolutely awful and utterly irrelevant legal definition of exclusive MLB territories.
Jcc, the Orioles could not block MLB from moving a team into the D.C. area, but they could block them from being on TV or radio. This is about broadcast rights. Damn you are dense.
Steve, this is about broadcast rights and when the Senators left there were no local broadcasts. Just national broadcasts.
The answer to your question is MLB. The Orioles own the majority of the broadcast rights in the market in perpetuity as long as they are located there.
Dope.
The Orioles are running an $88mm payroll, refusing to spend money on pitching, and stiffing the Nationals. Not a great look.
“Stiffing the Nationals.”
Now there’s that DC lobbyist spin machine!
Here’s some spin: Baltimore is the only team in MLB who claims TV revenue from another franchise. Washington is not Baltimore. The fan bases are different and the two cities are vasty different. Every team deserves its own TV revenue. If your market is too small to sustain itself without hosing off another franchise……move.
That was the arrangement the Nats agreed to in order to convince Peter Angelos to allow them to move into his franchise’s existing market.
If the Nats don’t like that, they can move back to Montreal.
Mister Nat — Yeah, that’s total spin, your right!! I laughed! Good job.
Now, in reality, the Nationals came to DC by the Orioles allowance. They need permission to come to DC by the Orioles (and all 29 other teams). The Orioles said ‘this is the cost of removing 3 of top 10 media markets in the Nation from our own area’ and the Nationals signed it knowingly giving up control of their TV rights.
If the Nationals wanted their TV rights, there were many parts of the country that offered that to them…but they refused, and signed the Orioles deal.
What you call someone who agrees to a deal …then sues to get out of the deal.
Angelos didn’t have decision making authority to stop the move. But he did threaten to litigate, and MLB didn’t want to have to open their books as part of the discovery process. So they did the MASN deal. The Lerners/Nats had nothing to do with that. However, the deal was part of the franchise that they bought, and they were free to reduce their offer to account for the diminished value created by MASN. So they got no kick coming about the agreement.
The problem is that the O’s have consistently tried to avoid complying with the agreement’s terms in order to impose their own artificially low rights fees (thus maximizing their profits). Courts have upheld both the agreement and the dispute resolution mechanism (the RSDC) repeatedly, so it’s disappointing that new ownership is going down this same path.
The Nats aren’t suing to get out of the deal. They are suing to enforce the deal. What do you call someone who agrees to a deal and then refuses to abide by their bargain?
Except the O’s still won’t comply with rendered decisions.
One cannot help but enjoy the irony of a person whose handle is “O’sSayCanYouSee” mocking someone whose handle is “MisterNat” for being biased/spinning.
JCC — Angelos is the one who wrote the MASN deal! MLB just accepted it not wanting a protracted legal fight with Angelos. (They wanted an Expos home, and the franchise to off of MLB books since MLB was running the Expos at the time. Fighting with Angelos was going to cost years of back and forth and MLB had no stomach for that).
Yes, the Learner’s got a big discount on the franchise because of the agreement.
The dispute is about ‘how’ you calculate the TV money. Orioles get to make the decision on which ‘model’ to use. The Nationals want a different model. The Nats sued, the Orioles stopped payment until resolution of the grievance. Perfectly normal and legally above board for both parties.
But that was the deal signed; that the Nats were subject to the Orioles accounting.
As for the RSDC, it was a binding arbitration panel of other MLB owners. They sided with the Nationals (because doing so meant they got millions for their own clubs by siding with the Nationals). The Orioles went to federal court saying the RSDC itself is unfair.
Federal Courts agreed with Orioles and broke a Binding Arbitration settlement.
Do you know how rare and how exceptional it is to break Binding Arbitration agreement? 99% of Binding Arbitration cases are upheld.
Orioles must have been lucky to get out of that…or…they were in fact railroaded.
That’s simply inaccurate. The O’s did initially win in court because the trial court set aside the initial RSDC decision on bias grounds. Not because of the composition of the RSDC, but because of a conflict of interest of the law firm that represented the Nats. I’ve actually read the decision; the trial court upheld the RSDC process itself and rejected every substantive challenge that the O’s raised. Which is why it wasn’t the Nats that appealed the trial court decision, it was Angelos and the O’s. And they lost, over and over and over. The RSDC has been UPHELD as the proper binding arbitration venue.
JCC — awww, irony not a thing in DC anymore huh? 🙂
Hah! No, I am enjoying the irony immensely.
A Nats fan telling the Orioles to move is like a Mets fan telling the Yankees to move. DC is the only city to lose two Major League franchises after WWII. The Senators left in 1960 and the new expansion Senators left again in 1972.. The saying was “First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League”. There always were many Oriole fans in the DC area because baseball in DC was either unstable, terrible or non-existent — and because the cities are less than 40 miles apart. Baltimore has the Orioles because the fans in the area (including thousands in the DC area) love the Orioles. Meanwhile, DC has the Nats because DC has money. And if the MASN deal falls apart the O’s will be fine, drawing from their large fanbase in the DC area anyway.
@King Floch, actually Angelos and the O’s never owned the TV rights to the DC Market, they just claimed they were entitled to the revenue b/c there wasn’t a team there until the Nationals. The rights are clear as numerous posters have noted it’s in the MASN contract and held up in court. At this point MLB should force the O’s to abide by it.
If that’s true, why don’t the O’s simply walk away from the deal and let the franchises find their natural levels? According to you that will inevitably result in the Nats moving, so it would ultimately be in the O’s best interests. Problem solved!
Er, if the Senators left twice, wouldn’t it be like the Yankees telling the Mets to move? Because the Yankees have stuck around since almost forever… and two other NY teams have left that weren’t the Yankees?
Little inaccurate that DC is the only city to lose two teams, the Giants and the Dodgers are both teams that left the same city post WW2. (and they were both significantly closer to the Yankees than the Senators to the Orioles, who of course came from St. Louis.
None of this is terribly relevant though, as we could just use an agreement based on modern technology (ie: ratings, of which we know generally down to the person who has tuned into a game these days) and split the money based on people who watch instead of whatever psychotic formula a billionaire comes up with to make sure they’re more of a billionaire than their enemy billionaire that they have to share billions of dollars with.
It’s an entirely stupid problem trying to divide up a gigantic pile of money when you’re already rich and still don’t spend the money on your team, for both owners. MLB could fix it, but it does require some billionaires to die off and let someone else solve the problem with common sense instead of the completely insane devotion to money that MLB owners have.
Generally I agree with you, and that’s probably what will eventually happen with the RSA model falling apart across the league. But it’s not only the Orioles who behave this way. Most owners defend what is now seen as their TV territory. The Giants stopped the A’s from moving to San Jose. No doubt the Braves will challenge any team trying to move/expand to Nashville or other nearby cities. Surely the Astros and Rangers will try to stop any other team from moving to Texas even though the state has grown massively over the past few decades.
No, it would be like the Mets telling the Yankees to move because the Yankees had been in NY since around 1901/2 and the Mets didn’t come into being until after the Giants and Dodgers left.
You’re right that the Dodgers and Giants also left after WWII. I meant to say other than the Dodgers and Giants — — and the Orioles moving from St Louis in the 50s! — forgetting they all left later than the Braves left Boston and the A’s left Philly. You were totally right to call me out there. Too late for me to fix it.
But if you want to go way back, the original Baltimore Orioles — which were one of the greatest teams of the 1890s — folded around 1900 and moved to NY to become the Dodgers. A new Orioles team formed shortly after but folded about a year later and more or less regrouped to become the Yankees. Teams moving from town to town go way back.
It’s not like MLB in Baltimore is something that’s only been around since the 50s, while cornerstone teams like the Yankees and Dodgers have been around forever.
D.C. is within the Orioles market as defined by the contract they signed. So in that regard D.C. is Baltimore. Or at least the Baltimore market.
The Nationals do not deserve to steal what is rightfully by contract the Orioles property.
16- DC was clearly part of the Orioles market all through the 80s and 90s and into the early 2000s. Huge numbers of DC residents regularly made the 30-45 minute trek up to Baltimore to attend Orioles games and watched/listened to their broadcasts from home. You’re basically arguing that the Red Sox should have no say in whether another MLB team moves into Framingham, MA (30-45 minutes from Boston).
jcc- The bottom line is Angelos didn’t fight to the last breath against the Nats moving into his existing territory (even though he probably should have in hindsight), and the TV rights compromise was the reason for his non-resistance.
Even assuming that is true for the sake of argument, there is no theft here because the O’s agreed contractually to the move of the Nationals to DC. While the MASN deal was slanted heavily in the O’s favor (to either get their approval for the move, or to buy off their litigation threat, whichever explanation you prefer), virtually the entire series of litigation has been to compel the O’s to abide by that agreement. It’s a contractual obligation.
The Nats once did try to argue that the O’s refusal to abide by the agreement constituted a breach of contract that allowed the Nats to void the deal, but that was the one issue where the courts refused.
The reason that he didn’t fight is that as a litigator by trade he knew that, ultimately, he would lose. So he made the best deal that he could.
And we are all in violent agreement that the TV rights compromise is valid. The litigation has always been about making the O’s abide by the agreement that they reached.
Maybe it only took DC residents 30-45 minutes to get to a game in Baltimore 25 years ago. Now it’s at least double that for any weekday game, and most weekends too. No one living in DC today would consider Baltimore “local”
Or the Orioles could move back to St. Louis – given that the Senators allowed the Brownies to encroach upon their territory.
Actually the arrangement called for fair market value to be paid to the Nationals. The RSDC has ignored fair market value and they even stated
“It was foreseeable that, to minimize the risk of bankruptcy, MASN would have sought, and the Nationals would have agreed to, a reduction in rights fees for 2024-2026; and a 20% cut in rights fees is consistent with what the market expected in 2021.”
— the RSDC wrote in their decision
“Yes, the Learner’s got a big discount on the franchise because of the agreement.”
The Lerners paid $475 million for the Nationals which was a record price paid for any MLB team that did not include a team owned stadium. There was no discount on the team price.
The Market wasn’t too small until MLB made a deal with the politicians, and gave half of the Orioles market to another team (for the good of the sport!).
Drewnats33 — Baltimore goes back to St. Louis, than the Yankees can move back to Baltimore.
The Orioles were in Baltimore before 1954. After all, Babe Ruth was a Baltimore orphan…and the Orioles were the first AL East team with the Babe. John McGraw was a shady/amazing first class of HOF player/manager that oversaw the Orioles become the Yankees.
And yeah, the Orioles were there before the DC Senators too.
DC has been stealing from Baltimore for over 100 years. Wizards and Capitals both were Baltimore too. Wanna guess about Colts and Redskins?
Baltimore existed before the country. DC was made after the country.
DC has had a younger sibling tilt since inception.
JCC — you do realize that the MASN deal is work product Peter Angelos, not MLB. Peter and his firm wrote the document.
Peter wrote it, MLB and Lerners signed it.
So yeah, I’d say that qualifies as having authority to block the move. If they didn’t need his authority to move into DC…why’d they sign?
Actually I believe the first iteration of the Orioles moved to Brooklyn and became the Dodgers. The very short lived next iteration regrouped as the Yankees.
niched — huh, I hadn’t known/heard about Dodgers angle before. Good on ya’!
Do you mean that putting a spin on it is his right or are you saying he is right? There’s a big difference between your and you’re. It’s your car or something belonging to you. You’re means you are. Don’t people know that?
Big talk from someone who lost not one, (1960) but two (1971) franchises.,
Baltimore moved to the area in 1954 and has been a constant presence. Washington is more like an itinerant team.
Steve, MASN is making less money and since the money the Nationals receive is 30% of the revenue MASN receives it makes sense that they would award them less money.
The RSDC still values the combined broadcast rights of the Orioles and Nationals at $194 million for 2024-2026.
Are you seriously dense enough that you think they would get that much money today if MASN filed for bankruptcy?
They signed to avoid endless litigation that would potentially have exposed details about the franchise ownership shuffle (between the Expos, Marlins, and Red Sox ownership) that MLB preferred not become public.
People/businesses – especially at the level of sophistication of MLB and the team owners – reach agreement to avoid litigation even when they are reasonably confident of the outcome.
Have the parties or the RSDC altered the original MASN agreement? Because the original agreement clearly calls for the two teams to receive equal rights fees payments. If you have a link to an agreement or holding that makes the changes to the allocation of the TV broadcasting payments I will stand corrected.
Where are you getting these numbers from? Spotrac had the Orioles end of season figure at $109 million. Assuming no further offseason additions, their opening day payroll will be $129 million. They’ve basically doubled spending since 2023. The refusal to spend narrative doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
spotrac.com/mlb/baltimore-orioles/payroll/_/year/2…
I was looking at the wrong column of Sportrac – I was looking at the CBT number. My bad.
Though, to be fair, no matter how you calculate or evaluate their payroll they’re in the bottom half/bottom third of the league.
Sure, except the first Tax penalty is >$100M more than that payroll for a team trying to compete in the AL East.
Dank, Spotrac is typically off in its numbers. Use Roster Resource or Cots Baseball Contracts like this website sues and you will rarely get an argument. They may be off by a million or so in their figures but when official numbers are released that are at least that close.
The Orioles ended 2023 at $89 million in CBT payroll and are at $143 million today for 2025. Their opening day MLB payroll in 2023 was $60.8 million and it is $121.3 million for 2025 as of today.
They have roughly doubled their actual payroll in 2 years.
No one should make that muchmoney
Why?
there are millions starving in america
And?
Do you believe in the invisible hand?
You didn’t answer the question.
Donate your salary and time to feeding them. Become a lobbyist for the rights of those who have less. Get off of a site that discusses entertainment and onto one that discusses solutions to that problem. Go to your church or synagogue and preach to them the laws in their religion that say the job of the members and society as a whole is to care for the poor and the sick. Just stop doing it here.
Professional sports is the sand box for millionaires who like to play games with their money. The fact they are mainly men who are billionaires, and the wealth is spread primarily to other men helps keep the economy in their favor, as usual, which is another discussion. Meanwhile, we blissfully pretend that this kind of thing is normal and even a fun and desirable way to spend time.
What a silly post.
agreed. We need to spread the wealth
No one is forcing you to have anything to with any sport so get off your high horse and stop pretty be anything but a tool of the far right.
Move to China and see how great communism is.
16 — They have communism in China?? The world’s 2nd largest economy…communist?
Well if China is the 2nd largest economy and communist, we should all want that.~
If they generate revenue exceeding that by a great deal why not? Now how they choose to spend the money might be something to question but since people are still dumb enough/scared of death to believe in an afterlife and some all powerful god, not much we can do to change stupid selfish decisions
@taki
in the time you are talking about the millions starving in america you could have been making meals for them or transferring all your excess funds salary 401k to shelters and charities for the homeless.
also curious you know taxes are paid on this money which eventually make its way into programs such as section 8/affordable housing, snap, etc etc.
Huh?
The Orioles payroll is at $135ish million presently and we were just trying to sign Corbin Burnes to a franchise record contract on top of that.
@King Floch, this tikiagedola is an infamous troll, he constantly makes new usernames and makes these “dumb” comments to make people like you fall for reply threads that he doesn’t answer to. It makes him giddy to see people ‘triggered’.
Good to know, thanks.
Where do you get the 88 million figure? Most websites estimate the Orioles payroll for 2025 at around 130 million. The reason it’s estimated is the Orioles have 11 players eligible for arbitration. Their projected salaries are estimated at around 43 million or so. So your 88 million figure is inaccurate
I answered this above. I read the wrong row on the Spotrac page. The number IS inaccurate. However, no matter how you calculate it the Orioles are in the bottom half or third (depending on which figure you cite) of payroll spending.
So, I made a mistake on the number but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still a team on the lower end of the payroll distribution.
The reason the Orioles are in the bottom half of payroll the last several years is their core players ( Rutschman, Henderson, Grayson Rodriguez, Jordan Westburg, Cowser) are all pre arbitration. This changes a little this year as Rutschman enters arbitration. Henderson next year and Cowser, Westburg and Rodriguez the year after that. And that doesn’t even include Kyle Bradish assuming he returns to his pre surgery form. So even if the Orioles can’t extend their core the arbitration numbers should move them to the upper ranks of payroll in the coming years. So that’s the real test for the new ownership. Burnes was always a long shot to stay based on his preference for the West Coast. People need to see what happens with Henderson and the rest before making a judgment on ownership
John Angelos left Rubenstein with a $93 million dollar payroll at the start of the 2024 season and the Burnes pursuit, had it been successful, would have put the Orioles payroll into the $160-170 million range.
RIP to the victims in New Orleans from the far right attack
Really?
SMH
I can’t tell if you’re trolling, ignorant, or if this is supposed to be satire.
explain
I know you’re just trolling, but Islamic fundamentalism is probably most accurately classifed as a far right ideology, just as the German National Socialist Workers Party, who held power from 1933-1945, are most accurately classified as far left.
The Nationals can screw right off out of Baltimore’s territory.
Washington isn’t Baltimore’s territory. It never has been and it never will be. If that were the case, how were the St. Louis Browns allowed to move to Baltimore in 1954 when the Washington Senators had been established there for years? Life didn’t begin in 1985. If your town is too small and poor to sustain an MLB team without looking for handouts from a more affluent city, it’s time to move.
” If your town is too small and poor to sustain an MLB team without looking for handouts from a more affluent city, it’s time to move.”
…and that’s why the Senators left DC, lol!
MLB moved the Senators because the O’s weren’t drawing much better than the Senators despite being the best team in the AL while the Senators were among the worst. In 1970 the O’s, coming off a WS appearance in 1969, having won the WS in 1966, and in a season where they won the WS (and won the AL pennant again in 1971) finished 15th in MLB in attendance. The woeful Senators, having completed their only winning season (86-76) in their franchise history, finished 17th.
MLB wasn’t going to move the best team in the AL. So the Senators moved.
Ownership groups decide to move franchises, not MLB. MLB just approves moves. The Senators were approved to move.
You still have them cherry-blossom-tinted-glass on, I see.
It was Baltimore’s territory because MLB said so. MLB markets do not match traditional media markets, they are defined by MLB. If the league unilaterally stripped the Orioles of the DC market MLB had defined as belonging to the Orioles when Angelos bought them, MLB would have faced the most substantial threat to it anti trust exemption it ever faced. Angelos made his money suing the Navy in a Navy town. You think hed have sat quietly if MLB stripped that kind of value from him? The whole reason the MASN agreement exists is Bud wanted a DC team, and didnt want to fight Pete over it.
Your last sentence is correct, and is the essential truth of the situation. But under the agreement between the MLB owners Angelos did NOT have the right to block the movement of the team. He could have blocked the movement of an AL team to DC, but he did not have the right to block the an NL team from moving to DC.
But prevailing on the merits would have been a pyrhhic victory for MLB, because a lot of dirty laundry could have been revealed around the shuffling of franchise ownership between the Expos, Marlins, and Red Sox. So they reached the MASN agreement. The Lerners have no kick coming on the MASN agreement itself. But all of the litigation over the years has been because the O’s have been trying to escape even their minimal obligations under the agreement.
JCC — They are arguing about which ‘model’ to use in calculating the Nats money. The Orioles have the final say on which ‘model’ to use and have used a model that the Nationals would not like.
The Nationals would like more. Who wouldn’t? But it’s not up to them.
What happened when you want more pie, but don’t hold the pie or the knife to cut the piece? Cry like a baby!!…for decades. Smh
Again, simply inaccurate. The O’s do NOT have the final say on the methodology. Even in overturning the initial RSDC decision because the Nats’ law firm (Proskauer Rose in DC) had an conflict of interest, the trial court rejected the O’s contention that their methodology (the “Bortz Methodology) had to be used. Again, which is why the nominal victor in that decision – the O’s – were the ones that appealed. They have lost on the issue of methodology over and over and over in the courts.
You keep asserting that the O’s get to make that call, but the agreement says no, and the courts have upheld the agreement. The legal standard for the RSDC decision is that it be reasonable. The RSDC decisions for the previous five year periods (2012-2017; 2018-2022) have all been upheld in court.
D.C. was and is in the market MLB has defined as belonging to the Orioles. It never specified league, just market area.
When Manfred wanted a team in D.C. he and the incoming owner of the D.C. franchise had to agree to compensate the Orioles for the loss of 70-75% of their market.
Orioles ticket sales have dropped 32% since the Nationals came in and that has held true even when they have been winning. We don’t know how much sponsorship money and other local revenue have dropped, but undoubtedly it has since that finite pool of money is being spilt by two teams now. As the Orioles and MLB knew would happen prior to moving a team into the Orioles market, the Orioles have had significant losses of revenue across the board.
All of the litigation over the years is because the Nationals have been valuing the worth of the TV broadcast rights of the D.C. portion of the market at nearly $200 million per year. The $58.3 million they want in 2025 and 2026 for 30% of the TV broadcast rights in the D.C. portion of the market places it’s value at $194 million.
Have you noticed that RSNs like MASN have been going bankrupt? Its because of actual contracts with valuations like that. There is no way the Nationals would get a TV deal of $194 million today. That is the central issue.
The issue was never really about “blocking” the Nats from moving in. He only could have prevented a park from being built in a handful of counties in Maryland.
It was always about the TV rights, which at the time, were awarded to him.
Without any agreement in place with Angelos, the Nationals could have moved into DC. Built a park, sold tickets, put up some billboards, etc. What they wouldn’t have been able to do is have their fans watch games on TV that weren’t Nationally Televised.
The Owners’ Executive Council could have voted to strip him of those territorial rights and then braced for some serious litigation. They probably should have. They chose this agreement instead.
The problem with this agreement, is it doesnt matter how MLB defines the Orioles and Nationals territorial television rights, regardless of how those rights are distributed, the Orioles have controlling interests in their broadcast.
Im mildly surprised Angelos didnt sell MASN back when this all began. Takes 75% of the sale and whatever rights fees Comcast or whomever bought MASN, paid him.
Orioles haven’t won anything in 42 years.
If they weren’t in Baltimore’s territory this whole situation would never have happened
Nat – in 1954, things were different
1. Baltimore much bigger than DC (6th largest city in US and the largest east coast city without a baseball team)
2. No TV
3. Not many people lived close enough to both to contend the issue with much of the population concentrated close/in cities.
in 1954, your reach was determined by your radio signal, not your TV markets.
Things have changed significantly since then. This is vaguely why St. Louis has rights to most of the entire midwest, since in the 50’s KMOX was able to be heard from St. Louis all the way to Colorado on a clear night as the most powerful AM radio station in the country for a very very long time. So they established that market, and then modernized it with local carriage on cable TV for their affiliate broadcasts and then the RSN so they could keep claiming places like Iowa and Arkansas in their blackout territory as the cable systems will offer the Cardinals TV network.
Whenever we talk about territory, we only mean media rights territory because that’s how the money comes in. People sitting in houses aren’t the factor, just the media reach and who has it based on their team and the channel they’re carried on.
By contract D.C. is and always will be part of the Orioles market.
If the Nationals are too poor to abide by the contract they signed maybe they should have stayed in Montreal.
MLB owned the Expos when they moved them to become the Nats – staying wasn’t really an option. The Lerners bought the media rights agreement along with the team, but the issue is the Orioles’ refusal to abide by the terms of that agreement in what they pay the Nats.
Objectively wrong and you know it.
DC was clearly Orioles territory for decades prior to the arrival of the not-Expos.
The difference between 1954 and 1985 is television and the revenue it brings to the teams. Please tell me that you are not that daft.
MLB forced the heavily-lopsided MASN deal on the Nats as a condition of birthing the team. This was meant to compensate the Orioles for having another team nearby to compete for revenue.
Peter Angelos was never satisfied to just accept the bounty of the lopsided deal. He insisted on constantly trying to cheat the Nats out of their pittance share of the MASN dollars, and lost lawsuits to the Nats time and again when he was sued over this.
All the Orioles need to do is to pay the Nats their unfair “fair share” of revenue, but they seemingly still can’t bring themselves to settle on the 70/30 split that they already have, Meanwhile, they continue to be stingy with player spending even as they have the most envious group of young talent in MLB.
It must be both frustrating and exhausting to be an Orioles fan these days.
“never satisfied” seems to be the Nationals who were in court almost before the ink on the deal was dry.
This argument has been about how you calculate the money owed. Nationals didn’t like the accounting, so they sued.
Buyers remorse is not a legal position.
There is no buyer’s remorse on the Nats’ part. They have not challenged the legal agreement that was forced on them as a precondition of ownership. What they have challenged over and over is the ridiculous accounting that the Oriole-controlled MASN cartel has used.
And every single time they have challenged the MASN accounting, the Nats have prevailed. All the Orioles need to do is fair accounting. They win the lion’s share of revenue in perpetuity. The Orioles just can’t seem to be satisfied with the cat bird’s seat.
I grew up in the DC area, and I was an Orioles full-season ticket holder for the Orioles from 1985 to 2005. Angelos ran me off as he ran the team into the ground.
I’d like to see the teams just get along, but I keep getting disappointed by the Orioles’ strongarm tactics over the years.
Bobbin — The teams are fighting over accounting. Unfortunately, one party gets the final say (as is always the case)…and the second party doesn’t like it.
There is no “fair” accounting in the deal, only the accounting that MASN decides (based on the parameters in the MASN deal) they want to use.
The deal is unfair. The money is not evenly split. It was never supposed to be. The Learner’s knew this, understood this, and signed the deal.
Buyers remorse is not a legal defense.
What is being litigated is not the deal itself, it is the operation of that deal. As you say, the accounting. But you are simply wrong about who decides. The O’s/MASN do not get to decide on the accounting method. They are not granted that right by the agreement, and their attempts to argue it have been consistently rejected by the courts. The only standard that the court applies is that the RSDC decision be “reasonable.” and the courts have consistently upheld their decisions over the O’s objections.
Yet you keep saying “MASN [meaning the O’s] get to decide.” Why do you say that, when the courts have consistently rejected that argument?
O’s dont have “final say.” What they have is the right to choose the methodology. The agreement allows for the Nats to appeal their choice, which they repeatedly have. The Nats have won, in some capacity, in each and every round of arbitration. The O’s have taken this outside of MLB stating the arbiters are biased against them. They have had some nominal victories in the court system but have never got a court to rule their methodology is fair. Quite the opposite. Pretty much the courts have said the panels rulings against you haven’t been entirely fair, but your methodology is outdated and worthless. Go try again. Now the Nats are turning to the legal system to try and bring the situation to a head.
One of the things working against Baltimore is if the Nats get a larger rights fee, the O’s are paid the same to match. So, it’s hard to claim you are being harmed by a decision that makes you money.
Then the argument of “money being reinvested in MASN to grow the entity” is flawed because how can you really grow a regionally defined entity? its not like they can go buy the Athletics broadcast rights, nor can they expand into, say, Cleveland, nor would it be feasible for them to say, license and start broadcasting a german soccer team or classic movies. also the rsn model is dying.
this really does end with both teams collecting larger rights fees going forward. the model the o’s put forward will never be the standard used. noy going to happen. its going to come down to coming to an agreement on back pay, and a reasonable model for future years, and moving on. Im assuming Rubenstein will come to an agreement before the Nats complaint reaches a judge, and id bet the nats are so sick of this, they’ll take less than the 200 to walk away with something. My guess is 160. 20% less than the award, and matches the rights fee amounts determined for the next couple of seasons.
there will be no changes to the agreement itself. the o’s will continue to have controlling interest.
JCC — I hope by now you realize we’re saying the same thing, in different ways.
Yes, MASN uses a formula of accounting that the deal calls for. MASN decided on a model the Nationals (and others) say is outdated/unfair (by today’s standards).
The legal dispute/argument is about the methodology.
Just because the RSN model collapsed almost immediately after the MASN deal was signed, does not stop the methodology agreed to in the deal from being used.
Is it an outdated model, heck yeah. But MASN has the rights to use it based on the deal.
Wanna change that part of the deal…now we’re negotiating!
This is all deal making. But be assured, having the rights is on MASN’s side. No?
No. I mean, it just isn’t (MASN doesn’t have the right to set the FMV of the rights fees).. If the two parties cannot agree on the FMV, they both present to the RSDC. Which is allowed to accept all, some, or none of the methodologies presented. The O’s argued that the MASN agreement required the use of the “Bortz Methodology” in setting the fees. The courts have, over and over, pointed out that such a requirement is nowhere in the agreement. And therefore the RSDC is allowed to use any reasonable method to determine FMV.
FWIW, the RSDC has consistently chosed a number closer to the O’s number than to the Nats’ number. And the Nats live with it, and the O’s try to get out of it.
This. I should have read the rest of the comments before making this same point. One thing to add about the agreement is that the O’s are happy with the 70/30 split (actually currently about 75/25). What they are trying to do by low-balling the rights fees is to move revenue from the TV revenues (each club gets the same share) to MASN revenue (which mostly goes to the O’s).
Jcc, you still would have been wrong if you waited.
JCC: “Here is what the agreement says, and this is what the courts have repeatedly found.” [citations included]
Internet commenters: “Wrong.”
The internet is a beautiful thing.
Citations please with links. Otherwise you are just wrong.
I did a complete write up of the O’s “victory” in the initial litigation, and why I believed (correctly) that despite the nominal victory it would be the O’s to appeal the decision:
federalbaseball.com/2015/11/4/9672978/masn-decisio…
You can read the full court opinion here: iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/DocumentDisplayServl…
In 2023 a unanimous NY appeals court rejected the O’s contention that the dispute resolution mechanism under the MASN agreement was valid and binding and that the O’s had to pay up. nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decisions/2023/Apr23/13opn23-D…
Correction on the last link – the unanimous appeals court rejected the O’s contention that the dispute resolution mechanism under the agreement was INvalid, and thereby rejecting the O’s request that the dispute be moved to a different binding arbitration panel.
Shortly thereafter the O’s (finally) ponied up for the 2012-2017 rights fees period.
Jcc, even now you are getting it wrong. None of that is what is in question today.
Has the MASN agreement been altered since the 2023 court case? If so, I stand corrected. But I’d have to see citations for that not just some internet commenter’s say-so.
Did SF get part of Oakland’s revenue, LA get Anaheim’s, etc there’s plenty of teams sharing markets in MLB. It was silly to give Baltimore such a sweetheart deal when they’re not even in the same league as the Nats
The Nats did not make the deal, MLB did. And MLB has always sided with the Nats on the details of its implementation/accounting. As have the Courts. Every single time.
The Orioles simply can’t find a way to be satisfied with the massive win they were gifted by MLB 20 years ago. They have a 70/30 revenue split in perpetuity, but still try to use bogus (as defined by the courts and MLB) accounting every single year. It should be maddening to both Oriole and Nats fans, especially with the Orioles being so stingy on player spending.
Correct on substance. One minor, technical correction. The MASN deal isn’t for a 70/30 revenue split in perpetuity. It started out as an 89/11 split, with the Nats’ share increasing by 1% per year. As near as I can tell it’s at about 75/25 right now. But the Nats’ ownership interest in MASN is capped at 33%.
So it is bottoming out at 66/33. Point taken.
it may be silly, but its binding. blame Bud.
This is why, when the Nationals are finally sold by the Lerners, it will be to a group not based in the DMV, that will move the franchise out of the area.
No team can survive when it’s unable to hold onto its fair share of TV revenue. And the Nats have had to exist under these limitations for 20 years.
Deferring to the Orioles and kicking that can down the road, instead of finding a fair solution, will leave DC without baseball for a third time — and the district with a Billion dollar boondoggle.
According to the contract the Nationals and MLB signed when they moved into the area, they will exist under those limitations in perpetuity.
No, RSN’s are dying. We’re getting to a point were MASN wont matter. The real battle will be over regional streaming rights, which MLB is slowly trying to bring in house. One of Angelos’ arguments was that MLB is not a neutral arbiter. They have an interest here.
An argument (that MLB is not a neutral arbiter) that the courts have directly and explicitly rejected. The courts have noted that this is the process to which the O’s agreed. If they wanted a different process (an independent arbitration panel) they should have negotiated for one.
Obviously BAL expected the MLB arbiter to be more neutral than it actually is. The disconnect is apparent. You arguing the courts are omnipotent at determining fact is absurd.
Not ruling in accordance with the way I want =/= biased.
If the RSDC is so biased towards the Nats, why have they consistently awarded rights fees payments closer to the submission by the O’s than the submission by the Nats?
Rogue, the broadcast rights regardless of media are what is held by the Orioles.
RsN $ wasn’t what it was when Nationals moved to DC that it is now. People should not view the Diamond bankruptcy as the death of the RSN. That was an over-leveraged buyout of RSN’S that had to be devested as a part of the Disney/Fix merger.
The deal struck by MLB has not aged well a lose lose lose for MLB, BAL, NATS. We get why prior BAL ownership was litigious, it’s in their blood. Rather than force these annual battles of rights come up with a new 3rd party mechanism that corrects the issues with the original language. Honestly MLB shouldn’t have approved this sale without this issue resolved
I hear that Montreal is looking for a team.
Great Googly Moogly…just bury the Hatchett and get on with it
Its been in the Orioles hands to just pay up the legally confirmed money owed to the Nationals…
No, incorrect. This is an entirely new set of years, get a clue.
As long as Kevin Fransden is doing Nats games they shouldn’t get a nickel
Bring back FP!
The original Orioles are now in New York, so I think the Yankees should be at the table in these discussions. They’ve been leaving far too much money on the table all these decades.
The Yankees (and Major League Baseball do not count the original Orioles team as being part of the Yankees franchise legacy, as they have come to accept that the Orioles went out of business and the New York team was an expansion team rather than a team that moved.
Another stupid and pointless Old York comment. When will it end!
Apropos of absolutely nothing important, we should note that New York is a State where “The Supreme Court” is not like the Federal “OMG It’s The Supreme Court”. There are higher state courts in New York., and this “Supreme Court” will not get a final word..
Yeah, the “Supreme Court” in NY is actually the trial court. Weird.
And people were wondering why they didn’t sign Burnes
They Yankees, Mets and Red Sox didn’t sign Burnes either. He wanted to play near home.
What will this potential money crunch do for the medical resources needed to put Tyler O’Neill back together again every 3 weeks?
We need more Bubble Wrap!
Don’t get why this has gone on so long. Maybe Manfred should stop with the stupid rule changes and force the Orioles to honor their contract.
No competitive balance picks or international bonus money for Orioles until this is resolved.
Something that gets lost here is this really isnt “the Orioles owe the Nationals…” its “MASN owes the Nationals AND the Orioles.”
Both teams are required by the agreement to receive the exact same rights fees.
You would think the Orioles would want the larger payment, too, because any money that sits with MASN the Nats have, i believes its currently, a 25% interest in. Both owners could borrow against their interests in the MASN entity. Any money paid out to the orioles in rights fees is 100% Baltimore’s.
Heres the catch:
The reason Angelos kept the money parked at MASN, and Im assuming Rubenstein sees the value in doing the same, is money parked at MASN doesnt count towards MLB revenue sharing.
It’s not just that, although the O’s do get revenue sharing and the Nats pay into revenue sharing, which is odd since apparently they have the same media market. The other advantage is that money paid to the teams for rights fees cuts into MASN profits. Since the rights fees go equally to the two teams and MASN profits go 75% to the O’s, the O’s try to minimize the right fees to maximize MASN.
JCC,. I didn’t think anyone could understand that contract so poorly until I read the garbage you are posting. You have everything wrong.
I mean, the MASN agreement provides that each team gets the same payout for the broadcasting rights. Which in its own way is a benefit to the O’s since even if you combine the markets DC makes up the majority of both the population and the affluence.
I’ve posted links in this thread to the court opinions that cover this, So if you’re going to tell me that is wrong I’m going to have to see come receipts. Simply because you don’t want something to be true doesn’t make it false.
More links establishing the equal payments.
From the WaPO in 2023: “MASN also will make a nearly $100 million payment to the Orioles because the terms of the original agreement required the network to pay equal rights fees to both teams.”
Link: washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/06/20/nationals-ori…
From ESPN: “When MLB purchased the Montreal Expos and moved them to Washington in 2005, the Orioles said another team nearby would harm them financially. MLB and the two teams negotiated an agreement under which MASN would televise both teams’ games, with the teams receiving equal rights fees.”
Link: espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/37892994/report-masn-agree…
That is not true rogue. The broadcast rights payments to each team are split by the contract in the percentage of ownership of MASN and paid annually. That was 75/25 though 2021 and 70/30 from 2022-2026 and into the 2030’s. In the next decade at some point that split goes to 67/33.
What is in question has never been that. Its the valuation of the broadcast rights for the combined market.
More links establishing the equal payments.
From the WaPO in 2023: “MASN also will make a nearly $100 million payment to the Orioles because the terms of the original agreement required the network to pay equal rights fees to both teams.”
Link: washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/06/20/nationals-ori…
From ESPN: “When MLB purchased the Montreal Expos and moved them to Washington in 2005, the Orioles said another team nearby would harm them financially. MLB and the two teams negotiated an agreement under which MASN would televise both teams’ games, with the teams receiving equal rights fees.”
Link: espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/37892994/report-masn-agree…
Rogue, both teams are required to receive the agreed upon share of the broadcast rights fees for the MLB defined market that is owned by the Orioles.
That split is is 70/30 Orioles today. Eventually it will go down to 67/33 Orioles and stay at that level in perpetuity.
In the most recent RSDC ruling they valued the market at $194.43 million with the Nationals to receive $58.3 million of that.
So you have a link to that RSDC ruling? That would be a change from the original MASN agreement, which calls for the rights fees to be equal.
Everyone here is ignoring the RSN models are losing money so both teams likely are not due what they may believe as cord cutting, etc has reduced masn revenue. Nats want the large payment so they can devolve a bankrupt masn. Os need this in compensation of Nats taking fans and revenue. Both teams own masn so it should be a mute point. Masn keeps x% of revenue for costs, development and a fixed profit % and both teams Divya up what’s left equally.
There are some bits of truth in the comments.
For one, the market has evolved over the years. The Orioles moving to Baltimore in 1954 was a truly separate market than DC, and back then Baltimore was bigger than DC (it was the 6th largest city in the US). You didn’t have TV and the radio stations are separate, plus there weren’t many people equidistant that made it an issue.
By 2005, obviously different. There were tons of Orioles fans in the DC area generating revenue for the club and from Angelos’ perspective, a significant hit to market when the Nats were forced upon him. Certainly a lot of people even from N VA always attending and watching Orioles fans who switched to a closer team.
The agreement was apparently poorly written to allow this aspect to drag on 20 years later and still be challenged.
I am certain the Orioles have built up a gigantic financial reserve over time to absorb the hit if they finally accept it. They would not have an impact to operations, though they’ll claim that and use it as an excuse to further being scrooge-ish on payroll.
Yes they have spent more in the last 11 months, but still not as much as the mid 2010s and still with the same refusal to invest in starting pitching still leaving deficiencies in the team. And no one is secured long term. It was inexcusable that they were LAST in the league – behind the A’s – in free agent spending 2018-23, and the A’s spent just as much this winter because they had to (the Orioles may still be last if you add 2024 but may have passed the 27th or 28th place team – can’t remember who they were offhand).
I agree with you. If the Texas Rangers didn’t exist and the only MLB team in the state of Texas was the Astros, the Astros would draw fans from all over the state, including Dallas, and the surrounding states. Then one day the Texas Rangers move to the Dallas area or are an expansion team, there’s no question they will develop their own fan base and a significant number of Astros fans from the Dallas area will sign on to become Rangers fans. That’s going to cause the Astros to lose a large number of their fanbase and the revenue that part of the fanbase generates. So I totally get why Peter Angelos did what he did. However, after a number of years, that argument no longer holds the same level of credence.
You are absolutely right. Even though, the deal,exists in perpetuity(if I am right), the real question is:should it. I mean, seriously, the Nationals have played 20 seasons, already.
With this filing the Nationals are saying that the 30% of the D.C. portion of the MASN TV deal is worth $194.43 million per year.
Does anyone think that the Nationals would get a TV deal that paid them $194 million annually if they hadn’t signed away 70% of their broadcast rights to the Orioles in exchange for being allowed to move there?
In other words, total MASN revenue is ¾ of a billion dollars. No way in hell I believe that.
Incorrect. You are confusing the ownership interest in MASN (of which the Nats currently hold ~25%, going up by 1% per year but capped at 33%) with the TV rights fees. Under the MASN agreement both teams receive equal rights fees. It’s in the Nats’ interest to maximize the rights fees and thus steer more money OUT of MASN, and it is in the interests of the O’s to reduce the rights fees and thus keep more money in MASN. The rights fees are reset every five years. If the parties can’t agree on the rights fees (and for the foregoing reason, they never have) the MASN agreement calls for the dispute to go before MLB’s RSDC to resolve. The RSDC is allowed to carve it up however they feel is appropriate and that decision is binding. For example, for the 2012-17 period the Nats argued that the rights fees should be $100M annually. The O’s argued that it should be about $30M. The RSDC said somewhere in the mid-60M range. The O’s challenged that decision and tried to get the dispute resolution moved to an outside arbitration panel, but lost.
TL;DR: the rights fees dispute has nothing to do with the MASN revenue split.
only thing id argue here is its in the orioles interests, as a baseball team, for there to be larger rights fees. its in the interests of a duplicitous, cheap skate owner, like Angelos, to hide funds from revenue sharing to both collect revenue sharing and just simply have more money.
we’ll see what kind of guy rubenstein is by the time this is resolved.
It is in the O’s financial interest to reduce the rights fees. The rights fees go equally to both teams, a 50/50 split. But if the O’s can reduce the rights fees to the two teams, then the money stays in MASN. And the MASN money is split 75/25 in their favor.
If the O’s make 75% of the money in MASN, would they not also pay 75% of its bills?
Its not that simple. Most of the money not spent isnt being paid out in checks, 3 to 1, to the O’s owners. Its sitting in a MASN account. Distributions are taxable. Taking out a loan against your interests in MASN, may not be. You can borrow more against MASN if it has a larger bank account. One of the underlying issues has been, how much does MASN really need to operate? How much should it grow?
The MLB Revenue Sharing committee valued the market’s broadcast rights at $242.6 million for 2022 and $194.4 million in 2023-2026.
Washington-Baltimore is considered one media market to MLB so that is split between the Nationals and the Orioles 30/70 starting in 2023.
The Washington-Baltimore area is also considered one MSA to the census bureau. Kind of like Chicagoland, which encompases parts of 3 states is considered one media market and one MSA even though it stretches from Gary Indiana to southern Wisconsin.
JCC, The RSDC is not allowed to carve it up any way they see fit. ALL they can decide is what the value of the broadcast rights of the combined market is set at and then award the Nationals the % proscribed in the contract.
Under the contract each team gets the same rights fee payment.
Best, they are saying that the broadcast rights for the entire market is worth $194.4 million. Not just the Nationals part.
Even if it was only one team in the area, there is no way they would get $194 million.
Jc does not care, he just wants to cry about bad Orioles and Nats being imaginarily victimized.
Outin, you are right. I worded that poorly.
I worded that poorly. The RSDC is saying the broadcast rights in the MLB defined market the Orioles own and in which the Nationals reside is worth $194 million annually.
Does anyone think the Nationals would get a broadcast deal for $194 million IF they had not signed away 70% of their broadcast rights for the ability to move into the Orioles owned market?
Rich people problems. Can’t relate, don’t give a damn. Go Rangers.
I work in an industry based on revenue splits (I’m a mortgage and real estate broker) and can’t relate to how difficult and contentious this is.
We all know the total revenue and our splits in my field. We take our cut and move on.
It reads like this agreement isn’t as clear cut as it should be and on top of that Baltimore’s previous owners acted in bad faith. Hopefully this gets resolved and both teams can do well.
Of course the previous O’s owners acted in bad faith. I know of no one who truly believes John Angelos (or his pops) is an honorable guy.
Not even his own brother thought that lol!
stwawk — Fans have never loved Angelo’s, and to be fair, he made quite a few mistakes (especially late 90’s).
However, as a fan (specifically a Baltimore sports fan) he did the Most important thing ..ensuring the Orioles were anchored to Maryland; a board that were all Marylanders, working with the state on the stadium (vs other owners who hold States hostage on ballparks).
And then sold to arguably the richest Local rather than for more money to the highest bidder.
((He was also the sole owner that fought against the rest of the owners during the 90’s Player Strikes. He’s been credited, by players, as the reason they were able play ball since the other 29 owners wanted scabs and to do away with the finer players (Like Ripken Jr.)))
The Angelos’ weren’t perfect, or great, but they were good. (With some serious Family drama thrown in for free)
So much gaslighting for two teams nobody else cares about.
That’s a lovely attitude. I suppose the same could be said about the Rays, Marlins, Pirates, Royals, Tigers, Brewers, Angels, Dbacks, Rox, etc. Following your logic, the only teams anyone cares about are the NYY, Phillies, Cubs, Mets, LAD … basically the behemoth market teams. To further extrapolate, since no one cares about these teams, they can be eliminated from the league through a round of contraction. That leaves MLB with about 7-10 teams. Is that better for you? You do realize the only reason your presumed prized teams that people do care about exist and are where they are today is because of the 17-20 other teams that no one allegedly cares about, right? If you were a true baseball fan, you’d never make such a silly comment.
The Lerners are no longer committed to fielding a WS team. For them, it is a “been there, done that” thing. Even if they get this back revenue from the O’s, don’t count on them making a run at some top tier free agents. In fact, I’d argue that when it comes to payroll and FA signings, the Nats have become worse than the Os. The only difference is with the Nats, it’s the ownership that’s the problem whereas with the Os, it seems to be the GM that’s the hinderance.
OK, well, like that your opinion, man.
I would say the Lerners were ready to sell after their WS win and had planned on doing just that. ANY team up for sale clears payroll so the new owner can build their own team as they see fit. For a variety of reasons including the dispute with BAL, Nationals did not get what they felt was a good offer. Like the LAA who were also available to be bought, both teams removed their for sale signs.
The trades of Max, Turner and especially Soto have set up the Nationals nicely, yes they still owe $$ to Max and Strasburg but otherwise have a good young core.
As for the Angelos family, they did more harm to the O’s franchise than the Nationals did coming to DC and it’s not even close. All that family does is sue everybody including each other, they are TRASH. Peter Angelos bought the team out of bankruptcy, bypassing normal MLB ownership vetting. It’s quite uncertain he would have in a normal transaction.
I like both teams but the consistent spin as if Baltimore is in the wrong to INSIST on a non-Manfred evaluation and pricing of TV rights is absurd.
Baltimore’s market was irreparably harmed by the Expos moving to DC.
DC was birdland for half a century. That is fact.
The Nats’ ownership agreed to the terms by buying the Expos. Baltimore has every right to ensure the fees paid are fair and not inflated.
Baltimore has every right to place a value on the TV rights fees. As do the Nationals. If the teams cannot agree, the contract (the MASN agreement) calls for the RSDC to settle on the rights fees.
The O’s agreed to a deal in which they do NOT get to define what constitutes “fair and not inflated.” Neither do the Nats. The RSDC awards have consistently been closer to what the O’s have submitted than to what the Nats have submitted. Courts have upheld the dispute resolution mechanism and endorsed the panel’s awards.
Jc, GFYS. Tired of reading your rants. The MLB arbitration process is not unbiased. Hence this dragging out every time. When one side (MLB & the Nats) share the same opinion (& lawyers!) and the other side is subject to arb from *gasp* one of the opposition, there will always be issues.
And contrary to your verbal vomit, the Nats do not have equal rights to their fees. The Orioles are supposed to be the significant beneficiary of the arrangement. That’s why it exists. It does not exist to make the teams equals.
Courts have considered the argument made by the O’s that the MLB arbitration process is biased. And directly and explicitly rejected it. It’s hard to argue that a high-powered attorney like Angelos didn’t understand the process that he was agreeing to. The courts have pointed out that, had Angelos wanted a different process, he could have insisted on it during the contract negotiations. This is the process to which he agreed, so this is the process that the parties have to live with.
That isn’t my “rant” or “verbal vomit.” That’s what the courts said in opinions that I linked to in this thread.
FWIW, the RSDC decisions have consistently been closer tot he valuation submitted by the O’s than to the valuation submitted by the Nationals. The Nats don’t like that, but they accept it.
Courts are not infallible, everyone knows that.
OK
“DC was birdland for half a century. That is fact.”
Fully agree. My aunt and uncle lived in Montgomery County 15 min outside DC…probably 35-40 min from OPACY without traffic…and raised kids there, who were born in the late 80s. They were all Orioles fans as were many from their neighborhood. Both worked in DC and their companies had fan groups which purchased Orioles tickets and went to Orioles games. These included people who lived even further away – in DC and even the northern VA suburbs. These people also followed the Redskins, Bullets, and Capitals – all DC teams – with the Orioles being the lone exception. I believe DC even had chapters of various Orioles fan clubs and organizations. Then the Nats came, all that went away. Before moving away a few years later my uncle said the only thing he saw was the games on MASN, the Orioles were made to vanish everywhere else in the area. But he and his family remained Orioles fans even though they are now scattered around the US as is my family. Many of their neighbors and coworkers converted to Nats fans.
I don’t think MLB-related arbitrator can rule on it without bias, it has to be in the court. Again, should have been more clearly written. They can tie this up in court another decade.
Courts have already ruled that the MLB arbitration process is the correct and binding process under the contract. The O’s dragged out the 2012-2016 rights fees for over ten years. But they ultimately lost, and quickly agreed to the RSDC findings on the rights fees for 2017-2021. The courts will almost certainly quickly ratify the RSDC’s findings for the 2022-2026 rights fees as well. Because the substantive issue (the RSDC as the proper dispute resolution mechanism) has already been litigated.
The courts can rule that, but it doesn’t make the MLB arb process fair or unbiased.
“Any decision that I don’t want/agree with is wrong.”
And, as the trial court pointed out, if Angelos had wanted a different dispute resolution process he could have negotiated for one.
Go ahead and just rule in favor of the Nats. Not like the cheap orioles are gonna use the money anyway. It’s just gonna line there owners pockets more. FYI I’m from Baltimore lol
Please tell me about the hundreds of millions of dollars that the Nats have spent on free agency this year.
Let’s roll this back a little farther. MLB wanted an MLB team in Washington because….powerful people (some you’ve probably heard of) live there. The Nationals used to be Les Expos, The Expos had a difficult situation and a worse ownership–and, baseball had the uber-manipulative Bud Selig as Commish, who decided to throw a little shade at the taxpayer by threatening to contract both the Expos and the Twins. Amazingly enough, a stadium agreement appeared, After bizarre ownership struggles, Jeff Loria (remember him?) Loria, after much histrionics, and a huge assist from that guy Bud something-or-other sold it to MLB–and he used the money to buy out…..Friend Of Bud John Henry, who owned the Marlins.. Then John Henry bought the Red Sox. So, as fun as all this is, MLB’s heavy hand should not be ignored.
That heavy hand is exactly why Selig did not want Angelos to sue to try to block the deal. He knew that it was pretty certain that MLB would ultimately win the litigation. But Selig did NOT want his machinations around the franchise shuffle to be subject to discovery. So he bought Angelos off with the MASN deal.
Someone explain to me, preferably in terms that make sense to people who aren’t blowhards that work/live in a Court of Law, why Baltimore and Washington DC are in a pissing contest in the Supreme Court of New York State?
I believe the commissioner’s office and mlb’s headquarters are in new york city.
Here is some context. The Washington/Baltimore area — semi-officially known as the “Washington/Baltimore combined statistical area” — is now the 3rd largest metro area in the country. It’s bigger than Chicago or the Bay Area. The reason it is thought of as a single area is obvious — the cities are less than 40 miles apart. The region should pretty easily be able to support two MLB teams.
Except Baltimore is 26th largest market and DC is 10th – so explain how the 10th largest market getting carved out of Baltimore’s previous reach and dropping Baltimore down to the bottom 5 market sizes in baseball is “supporting two teams.”
You must be talking about some generic market share that does not correlate to baseball. In 2023 the Orioles had a 4.23 rating on MASN while the Nationals had a rating of 0.85. Here’s the link to the Forbes article.
forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2023/10/05/mlb-regiona…
Only the Marlins and A’s had worse numbers than the Nats. So much for DC being a thriving TV market for the Nats. I bet the Yankees, Mets and Braves have almost as many viewers in the DC area as the Nats.
Why MLB didn’t get this worked out as a condition when the O’s got solid is maddening. Another f up by Manfred yet again.
Make it make sense – if the O’s “own” the DC market then why do they receive revenue and the Nats have to pay into it when the O’s get 75% of the tv deal?
Can’t wait for this horrendous network to go under
What are the Nats paying anybody here?
A tv network broadcasts games for two teams, and pays them both the same amount of money to do so. The issue at hand is the two teams own the network. One has controlling interest in it. That team is muting the payments to hide the money from MLB, within the network. The other would like more of the money paid out to the two clubs.
MLB should have set a standard for rights fee within the original agreement, and, you’re right, they should have made the Angeloses resolve the issue before the sale, or required Rubenstein to make an agreement as part of ratifying his purchase.
Honestly, 50/50 ownership of MASN would solve everything…except the horrible production values. Any honest person would have to admit the Orioles have not been particularly good stewards of MASN. Have to give Rubenstein a chance, though.
Whether it would, or wouldnt, wont happen. it ends at 66.67/33.33, Nats are fighting that. They just want more money to be paid out.
You want to solve it in one fell swoop? Sell the rights to MLB. The Orioles get 75% of the sale, or whatever their current interest is. Going forward MLB decides their rights fees.
aren’t*
That’s actually not a bad idea.
Why should it be 50/50? The MASN deal is specifically compensation for MLB robbing Baltimore of more than half their market
Define “get this worked out”.
Because you are basically asking the owners of the O’s to give a lot of wealth to the owners of the Nats for the sake of simplicity and I doubt they want to do that.
Fun Fact: both Baltimore teams had previously been named the Browns.
A “quick resolution?” Chances of that are slim to none.
Here’s a fun wrinkle to DC versus Baltimore-
Is anyone old enough to remember in 1979 and 1980 the big angst in Baltimore that for a while it appeared that the change in ownership to Edward Bennett Williams, a DC attorney, could result in the Orioles playing as many as half their home games in 1980 in DC? This was despite the fact the Orioles were running away with the AL East and went to the WS that year (yes they COULD win playoff games once upon a time, and had a deep rotation!)
I think they worked it out and announced at the start of the playoffs that all 1980 games would be in Baltimore, then that issue didn’t come up again. The Colts skipping town for Indianapolis in the middle of the night kind of turned things around and a few years later they came up with the Camden Yards project (I think they announced it in 1988).
I was really young for this, anyone know the background?
How about baseball take the total TV revenue from all 30 teams and divide amongst them equally? Would go a long way towards evening the playing field.
The Yankees and Dodgers will squeal like stuck pigs.
I need the cliff notes on this entire history. Is the MASN contract available on Audible?
Without televised events teams suffer period. Players exposure. Branding. Everything. Who wants to play for a team nobody sees. Nobody comes to the stadium. The damned stadium is empty. Your girlfriend in Tampa can’t see your games. Your other girlfriend in Chicago can’t see your games. Your mom can’t see your games. Your endorsements don’t happen. Move on trade me. Get me the F out of here. You get my point.
Tell one of these teams to relocate to another market. In Lieu of this monstrosity of an upheaval put a 10 year moratorium on the CBT and let em rip on signing all the players they want without the damned penalty. Re-establish and build a new market.
And for the love of god get more of this of local television and contract with more national television, Apple TV. And streaming services. More languages and variety announcers.
Everytime I read comments about the dispute, Orioles Fans keep talking about Nats owe Orioles because they moved into Orioles territary. But they never had a dispute about that since they signed an agreement about compensating Orioles. The dispute is about how the compensation should be calculated and excecuted today because they interpret their agreement differently. That is why they went to lawsuit and the result favored the NATS. So they should just solve the dispute accordingly. Just that simple. I don’t understand what you guys are arguing about when the formal channel to resolve issues has given you the result.
Because the formal channel is biased
So are you.
Y’all keep saying that, but the courts reviewing the dispute say that it’s not.
Whoever is on that MLB Revenue Sharing committee valued the market’s broadcast rights at $242.6 million for 2022 and $194.4 million in 2023-2026. That seems to be the reason that MASN is fighting this.
DC and Baltimore have less TV households combined than Chicago and that market is valued at $138 million between the $84 million the Cubs made in 2024 and the $54 million the White Sox are getting from the new Chicago Sports Network next season.
Other than the baseball, MASN programming is an absolute wasteland. A lot of people don’t even turn the channel on even once in the off-season.
Agreed. MASN has nothing on other then baseball.
Which is why the Orioles have an argument about Fees costing an RSN too much and thus bankrupting the MASN entity.
With the model of RSNs getting hammered, keeping the entity both solvent and healthy should be a concern for both parties.
It may be the Nats long term strategy to get their broadcasting rights back by bankrupting MASN.
That’s an interesting point. If (some say when) MASN dies, some dominos may fall. Leonsis probably buys the Nationals and puts them on Monumental, and his buddy Rubinstein might join him with the Orioles. With the two baseball teams, Caps, and Wizards(such as they are), that RSN could have a better chance of surviving, at least in the short term. In this scenario, the irony is not lost on me. However, at present, you will have to pry MASN from the Orioles cold dead hands,