After years of animosity, Major League Baseball (MLB) franchises the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals have finally resolved a dispute over local media rights with their Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) regional sports network (RSN).
This latest, and final, settlement will see all Nationals games broadcast on MASN through the upcoming 2025 campaign on a new one-year deal, after which the franchise will be free to exit the joint-venture and look for its own local broadcast distribution.
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MASN is jointly owned by the two teams, with the Orioles positioned as the controlling partner with a 76% stake in the venture, while the Nationals hold the remaining 24%, with the original agreement in place specifying that from 2009 onward the respective stakes change by 1% each year until 2032 where the Orioles would hold 67% and the Nationals 33%.
When the Nationals (previously the Montreal Expos of Quebec, Canada) franchise was relocated to the US capital in 2005, MASN was created as a means of satisfying the Orioles’ then owner Peter Angelo as the franchise had previously held exclusive broadcast rights for the area.
Almost immediately disputes began due to the Orioles’ domination of the venture (it initially held a 90% stake in MASN).
This would get more bitter as the years went on, with the Nationals demanding higher broadcast rights fees from MASN while the Orioles disputed those values.
That resulted in tense legal battles concerning both the 2012-16 period, and the 2017-21 rights cycle, the latter of which was only resolved by MASN paying each franchise $304 million in media rights fees.
The settlement also confirms the dismissal of all prior litigation between the two teams regarding the dispute, although there is still an ongoing case, set to go to court in March, regarding media rights values from the 2022-26 period.
That contentious dispute, as with all the previous being arbitrated through the Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee, could see 2022 and 2023 season values set at $72.8 million per year, declining to $58.3 million for the remainder of the cycle owing to the similar decline in RSN value.
Now that the stake change will not come to pass, it frees up the Orioles to control their own RSN completely for the first time since 2005, although it will still not have exclusive broadcast rights for the area.
Monumental Sports Network, the RSN that holds local broadcast rights for basketball’s Washington Wizards, Washington Mystics, and ice hockey’s Washington Capitals, is one likely destination for the Nationals’ local rights for 2026 and beyond.
What this settlement also does is open the door for the Nationals’ ownership to sell the franchise, less than a year after the Orioles did the same.
Nationals owner Mark Lerner has reportedly been chasing a sale of the franchise for years, with Forbes in valuing the team at a steady $2 billion prior to the 2024 campaign, where it went on to finish third in the National League East division and failed to make the playoffs.
Lerner took the Nationals off the market in early 2024 after almost two years on the market, however, more clarity over the team’s long-term broadcast situation could prompt the team’s ownership to explore a sale once more.
The new Orioles ownership, a consortium led by US businessman David Rubenstein, purchased the team for a figure reported to be close to $1.72 billion, and in 2024 it made the playoffs, finishing second in the American League East before being knocked out in the Wild Card Series of the playoffs by the Kansas City Royals.
