We found out Tuesday that the Orioles and Nationals have come to a settlement on at least part of the MASN dispute, a “half-settlement” as John-Paul Flaim called it on Wednesday morning – so the Junkies had WaPo’s Chelsea Janes come on to try to explain it!
“So, for the last 10 years or so, the Nats and Orioles have been fighting over how much MASN should pay the Nationals for TV rights from 2012-16; the agreement they signed when the Nats moved here said every five years, you figure out how much the Nats are owed, and pay them,” Janes explained. “They’ve been fighting over this period for a very long time, as the Orioles kept appealing saying $300 million was too high, but they finally gave up recently and paid what they hadn’t paid of that $300 million.”
So, the Nats get the $100 million they were owed, but soon enough, they’ll have to go back to MLB’s committee to argue the 2017-21 total, and so on every five years…but perhaps those will go a little smoother?
“What I think with the Orioles did with this time period is test all possible legal arguments, and sort of say this MLB committee isn’t neutral and other things the courts shooed away,” Janes said. “The thinking is they won’t have as many legal options going forward, so there is some optimism that the worst is behind us – but we all know better than to assume that any of this is ever over.”
So now with that settled, does this help the potential sale of the Nationals?
“I think that has long been the hope, that if they got through this and cleared the way for future agreements to be easier, then whoever is interested in buying the team would have a little more info on how much they’d be making down the line,” Janes said. “I think there’s optimism it cleared one roadblock, but there are some other roadblocks if it’s Ted Leonsis trying to buy the team. This might help, but is it going to happen tomorrow? Probably not.
Leonsis would have to go through a similar process to buy the Nationals that Josh Harris is going through with the Commanders, as MLB owners (as well as the NBA and NHL) would have to be comfortable with how much debt he is taking on and so forth.
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However, what about the notion that regional sports networks may be dying, so MASN payments may not be as large to worry about anyway?
“I think everyone kind of things the worst is over because the cable money is dropping off the table – so the payments the Orioles would have to send the Nationals’ way won’t be as big,” Janes said. “The numbers were still pretty robust in 2017-21, but they won’t be that. I know MLB would love to grab streaming rights to all the teams and market them that way, which would further diminish how much TV rights matter, but even as is, it’s never going to matter as much as it has.”
Listen to Janes’ entire convo with the Junkies above, which also includes some thoughts on the Angelos family’s situation in owning the Orioles and some big-picture perspective on the Nationals' future!
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