In the Angelos world view, it makes good business sense to block a trade with Washington. Theoretically a trade should help both teams equally. But anything the Orioles do to help the Nationals is going to hurt the Orioles financially far more than what we do to help the Orioles will hurt us.
Correct
It gets downplayed a lot, but it's crazy what the Nationals have done to attendance numbers at Camden Yards. The O's drew over 3 million fans to Camden Yards to see a 98-loss team play in 2001. In 2004, the last year of only one team in the DMV area, the Birds drew over 2.7 million fans.
Since the Nationals came to town in 2005, the Orioles have never once matched the total attendance of their 2004 season and that includes their AL East crown in 2014. The same team that never once finished outside of the top-5 in AL attendance at Camden Yards before 2005, has never finished in the top-5 since.
Helping the Nationals win a World Series would probably be a death blow to the Orioles