Baltimore Orioles Finally Reach An Agreement On the world class player…
In a stark departure from the years of legal wrangling and appeals, the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals agreed with an MLB arbitration decision for rights fees owed to the Nationals for the 2017-2021 seasons.
Per Front Office Sports, both teams agreed with MLB’s ruling that MASN owned the Nationals a total of $304 million over that five-year period, which comes out to a shade under $61 million annually.
In the summer of 2019, a judge confirmed an MLB arbitration decision that MASN owed the Nationals $296.8 million in rights fees for the five-year period from 2012-2016.
Another appeal was ruled in favor of the Nationals in April, and the teams finally settled this past June. This latest agreement only pays the Nationals an average of $1.4 million more annually for their past rights fees.
A similar escalation for the 2022-2026 period would pay the Nationals roughly $311 million over those five years, or around $62 million annually.
Ted Leonsis, who owns the Wizards, Capitals, Mystics, and the newly rebranded Monumental Sports Network, has been rumored as a potential buyer for the team (and maybe MASN as well), but the uncertainty about the value of the team’s media rights prevented those talks from moving forward.
The Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals have agreed on the teams’ local media rights for the 2017-21 seasons, jointly telling the Supreme Court of the state of New York that they concur with a recent MLB arbitration decision that each club is due $304 million for those five years, amounting to nearly $61 million annually.
The agreement marks a massive change in tenor compared to the more than 12 years the clubs spent in an active and bitter legal dispute over the 2012-16 rights term, a situation resolved only this past summer when the Orioles-controlled MASN agreed to pay the Nationals some $100 million in incremental rights fees for that period.
The MASN situation has long been one of MLB’s thorniest issues, with the Nationals arguing they had been receiving below-market rights fees, while the Orioles and MASN contended that network profitability and long-term survival were at risk.
The creation of MASN — and the requirement to review rights fees payments due to the Nationals every five years — stemmed from a still-active MLB settlement with Orioles owner Peter Angelos following the Montreal Expos’ 2004 relocation to become the Nationals.
The Orioles, Nationals, and MASN will now move to determining the rights fees for the 2022-26 period, though those talks will be overshadowed by cord-cutting and accelerating disruption across the media landscape.
Still, the additional settlement could also help revive a lagging sale process for the Nationals, as they can now provide additional clarity on its revenue picture.
