The Orioles and Nationals introduced Monday morning that their yearslong dispute concerning tv rights charges from the Mid-Atlantic Sports activities Community (MASN) has reached a last decision.
Per this morning’s press launch, MASN and the Nationals have come to phrases on a one-year settlement for the group’s 2025 tv broadcasts. The Nats are free to discover various broadcast alternatives for the 2026 season and past. Additional, this morning’s announcement plainly lays out that “all disputes associated to previous media rights between the Nationals, Orioles, and MASN have been resolved, and all litigation shall be dismissed.”
The dispute between the 2 franchises spans practically twenty years, relationship again to the community’s institution in 2005. Whereas MASN is technically co-owned by the Orioles and Nationals, the Baltimore franchise has had the controlling stake within the community for the reason that community was established in 2005.
As a part of the then-Expos’ relocation to Washington D.C., the franchise agreed to tie its tv rights to the newly created MASN, with the Orioles controlling 77% of the community to the Nationals’ 23%. That association was brokered as compensation for the Expos/Nationals franchise shifting into the Orioles’ geographic territory. The 2 events have by no means seen eye to eye on how rights charges needs to be divided, resulting in a number of rounds of litigation over the previous decade-plus. Beneath the relocation settlement, the Nationals have been barred from promoting their broadcast rights to a different regional community. That’s now not the case.
That ugly authorized battle and the fiscal uncertainty inherently tied to negotiations loomed massive over the sale course of for each the Nationals and the Orioles. The Angelos household ultimately got here to phrases on a $1.725 billion sale of the Orioles to a bunch led by Baltimore native and billionaire David Rubenstein anyhow. The Lerner household, who personal the Nationals, explored a sale of the group for greater than a yr however by no means got here to phrases with a possible purchaser. Uncertainty concerning the group’s broadcast future was reportedly an obstacle within the Lerner household’s sale efforts — understandably so.
Extra to return.
