The most interesting part is what happens next
In a major move that may lead to a long-expected ownership change in DC, the Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles have agreed to end their legal battle over the Nats broadcast rights. The teams announced that the Nationals will remain on MASN for this upcoming 2025 season. After that, the team can pursue their own TV rights deal.
This ends a 13-year legal odyssey between the two neighboring MLB franchises. The origins of the dispute stretches back to the founding on the Nationals 20 years ago. The then-Montreal Expos moved into the DC market, which at the time had been part of the Orioles broadcast territory for decades.
To appease the Orioles owner, the late Peter Angelos, the Baltimore franchise was given control over the Nationals TV rights. As part of that agreement, the Orioles were to pay ‘fair market value’ for those rights to the Nationals. The ambiguous definition of ‘fair market value’ led to, what the Nationals considered to be a vast underpayment of their value.
During the 2010’s when other MLB franchises were cashing in on the regional sports networks (RSNs) gold rush, the Nationals were receiving significantly less per a year than their competitors. An example, in 2011 the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim signed a 20 year $3 billion dollar TV rights deal, equating to $150 million per year. At the time, the Nationals were receiving $29 million from MASN/the Orioles with no hope of getting a competitive market to greatly increase that value.
We don’t know yet what led to the Nationals and Orioles to settle this dispute. But the fallout is significant for the future of baseball for both teams. For the Orioles, MASN the network they own and broadcast games on, will lose a major source of programming via the Nationals games. For the most part, outside of the Baltimore and Washington games during the season, MASN shows lower-level college sports and programs like World Chase Tag and sports gambling content.
For the Nationals, this opens the door to the franchise being sold. The Lerner family, who have owned the team since their move to DC, have tried to build interest in selling the Nationals. Billionaire David Rubenstein was once a potential bidder for the Nationals, but instead looked north on I-95 and bought the Orioles from the Angelos family.
The biggest contender to buy the team is the Wizards, Mystics and Capitals owner Ted Leonsis. For years multiple news organizations have reported Leonsis’s interest in buying the Nationals, but of course it hasn’t happened yet.
Core to his family’s business strategy of late is to own the network his teams’ games are broadcast on. In 2022, he bought local RSN NBC Sports Washington and turned it into the Monumental Sports Network. Now with the Nationals free to control their own TV rights, it increases the likelihood that Leonsis takes another look at the Nationals (to put it lightly) with an eye towards programming 162 baseball games in the summer on Monumental to bridge the gap between the fall to spring schedule of the basketball and hockey seasons.
