For the first time ever, the Washington Nationals will have control over where its local broadcasts are shown beginning next season.
According to a report by Ben Strauss and Chelsea Janes in the Washington Post, Major League Baseball has successfully mediated a years-long dispute between the Nationals and nearby Baltimore Orioles over the former’s local broadcast rights, which have long been controlled by the Orioles-owned Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) as a result of an agreement reached when the Montreal Expos moved to Washington D.C. in 2005.
MLB issued a press release announcing the agreement on Monday morning.
After the 2025 season, the Nationals will fully own the media rights for their local broadcasts and can sell them to the highest bidder. Per the Post, Ted Leonsis’ Monumental Sports Network, which currently airs Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards, and Washington Mystics games, is the front-runner to secure Nats broadcasts.
Leonsis, who owns all three of the aforementioned D.C.-area sports teams, submitted a bid for the Nationals when the Lerner family put the team up for sale in 2022. Securing Nationals broadcasts would round out a full calendar of local sports rights for Monumental Sports Network and its streaming service, Monumental+.
No financial details of the new agreement were reported.
When the Nationals moved to Washington D.C. in 2005, encroaching on the Orioles’ exclusive broadcast territory, the two teams struck a unique deal that gave Baltimore a 90% stake in MASN, while the Nats were sold a 10% stake for $75 million. The Nationals’ stake would increase by 1% annually following the 2009 season, with a cap of 33% equity in the regional sports network.
In layman’s terms, that means that since the Nationals have moved to D.C., the Orioles have received the majority of the local media rights revenue generated by the team.
Recently, the Orioles were ordered by a court to pay over $300 million to the Nationals in fair market value disputes stemming from the arrangement for the years 2022-2026; the third such decision the courts have levied on the club since 2019.
MLB’s announcement is an objective win for the Nationals. While the economics of the regional sports network business are crumbling, the Nats already have an interested buyer for their rights in Monumental. For the first time, the franchise will receive a fair market value for its local rights.
As for the Orioles, it seems like new owner David Rubenstein was finally ready to cut bait and end the acrimony stemming from the MASN contract. Baltimore faced several unfavorable court rulings in recent years, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars owed to the Nationals; far more than the team is generating in local media rights revenue in a diminished environment for regional sports networks.
Without the Nationals, MASN will become very light on live sports programming, with the Orioles being the network’s only major professional franchise. This could make the Orioles a prime candidate to join MLB’s cohort of teams when the league wants to take a nationalized local media rights package to market in 2028.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.