It figures that one of the biggest pieces of franchise news hits at the exact moment I get into my car for a day and a half long business trip (I was in Tysons yesterday meeting with a client, then playing some pickleball at the new club off of Tyco road). So, apologies for being a little late to this.
Amazingly, in a news announcement that came out of complete left field, The Washington & Baltimore franchises have agreed to part ways after the 2025 season and end their MASN marriage.
Some salient details from the various announcements I’ve seen and some commentary:
- The teams have ripped up their 2022-2026 agreement, which was (of course) in dispute anyway, and have agreed on a one year 2025 MASN deal worth an undisclosed amount, but if they honor the terms of the agreement for 2024 it should be around $58.3M.
- There’s been so many hearings and appeals and what not that it’s not entirely clear what the Baltimore Franchise actually still owes the Nats: They only settled the 2012-2016 amount ($296M) in June of 2023. The implication is that the teams are still thus fighting about the amounts due for 2017-2021 and 2022-26, each of which is separately about a $300M payment.
- It’s important to know just how combative and argumentative Baltimore has been throughout this entire process. They were never supposed to go to court to dispute the agreement; they sued anyway. Then they whined about the law firm MLB used. Then they whined about the team reps involved. Then, after the law firm was replaced and three new team reps were included … the group came to the same conclusion, and Baltimore appealed again, refusing to pay. It took another four years before the team finally, begrudingly was forced to pay.
- While I find it tough to be sympathetic to multi-billionaire owners who clearly are not losing money on this team (why could they afford a $200M payroll 4 years ago but a third of that now?), the fact that they’ve had to fight over these figures for a decade is patently ridiculous, and MLB should have stepped in LONG, LONG ago.
- Selig should have forced this to completion more than a decade ago, but i think he was afraid of Angelos and his tendency to sue. He was right.
- I honestly thought MLB would force the divesture of this MASN partnership when the Baltimore team sold … and honestly i’m shocked this popped up now. What’s changed?
- This was a ridiculously one-sided deal from the get go, and never should have been agreed to. MLB certainly has learned its lesson with these bullsh*t territorial rights agreements, and with promised expansion coming I’ll bet you a dollar they’re already working on freeing areas like Charlotte (from Atlanta) and Portland (from Seattle) to avoid this nonsense in the future.
- Even in 2005, when this deal was struck, Anyone with a brain and a car KNEW there was not a real territorial control from Baltimore over the DC suburbs. Imagine today if I told you that you needed to be in Baltimore for a 7:05pm start time on a Tuesday, and you lived in, i dunno, Centreville. What time would you leave to avoid traffic to get to Baltimore on time? Noon? I mean seriously. If you left Centreville at 4pm, headed east on 66, around the beltway, then up 95 … you wouldn’t get there in three hours. You’d be better served taking a flight out of IAD to BWI and renting a car. So, Baltimore had no real fan base coming from huge swaths of the DC area for its games, and became a weekend touristy visit. Nobody’s buying season tickets to that team who lives in Virginia. So, I struggled with this from the get go.
- The cancellation of this deal now has basically robbed the Nationals of the golden years of RSN money. Again, hard to be completely sympathetic to the billionaire Lerners, but for years they’ve gotten nothing but legal bills while comparable markets got massive amounts of money to help run their franchise. The DC area is ranked amongst the top 10 markets in the US for all major factors (6th in MSA, 6th in DMA) and generally compares with the following markets from a size/wealth perspective: Philly, Dallas, and Houston. You want to know what those three teams get from their RSN deals? Philly=$125M. Texas Rangers = $110M. Houston = $73-$80M). DC has had to fight just to get around $60M a year. That’s real money, and has real impacts on a team.
- Now, of course, we’re seeing the collapse of RSNs, with half the teams around the league basically without a deal at all. I have to suspect this is what’s leading to the collapse of this deal altogether; Baltimore probably is looking at its RSN revenues and going white with shock, since its driven by a sh*tty Baltimore market and the complete underutilization of the Washington market (have you seen the MASN production values for Nats games? Its like Wayne’s World-quality sets and production value). And, of course, we’re in a new wave of streaming and cord cutting and the overall decline of conventional viewing patterns. Something likely gave, and even at a $50M clip the Baltimore owners probably balked and chose to walk away rather than continue to fight.
- Remind me again … how the hell is Baltimore considered a “small market team” and given comp draft picks year after year … when we are legally obligated to get the exact same amount of TV revenue as they are, yet DC is considered a major market??
- WP’s Barry Svrluga posted a scathing article basically calling out Lerner for the loss of “cover” for this deal going south, and he’s not wrong. This franchise no longer has any ‘excuses’ for not spending. Frankly, the last couple of years have been ridiculous, and they should have been more active to supplement the team. He also notes the patently ridiculous point that this team has yet to sell naming rights for the stadium (worth $20M a year usually) or jersey patches (worth $15M/year for some teams). Why?? We’re the ONLY DAMN TEAM in the league without either deal right now. Can you spell incompetent?
- This handcuff of a deal had to be a massive displeaser for potential buyers of this franchise, so bravo to Lerner’s for getting out of it. I’ll bet this increased their franchise value by hundreds of millions of dollars overnight.
- Speaking of selling, One has to think that this breakup was toasted with champagne by Ted Leonsis and his Monument network. I’ll bet Leonsis’ first call was to Lerner to basically say …. “so, you still interested in selling??” If the Lerner’s want out (and one has to think they do), then Leonsis is the way to go. He’ll immediately add to his two other pro franchises, immediately take the broadcasting in-house and get the “inventory” of an entire season of games for his network, and be able to do bundled/combo packages of Nats/Caps/Wizards players all cross-promoting. I mean, it makes too much sense not to happen right? Oh, and it’ll take Leonsis about 15 minutes to finally put a professional broadcasting studio together to do proper pre-game/post-game for the Nats, something that they’ve … never had.
Anyway, so that’s some stream of consciousness for today. Bravo for this happening, sorry it didn’t happen a decade ago when it should have, and no more excuses not to spend money.