Rubenstein isn't making any money off the Nats rights anymore, and it may become a liability. I guess if he let the Nats out of MASN, MASN may not be able to keep the carriage it has with just one team. He'd probably be happy offloading MASN to Ted in exchange for some guarantee of tv rights fees paid to the Os.
I have a hard time envisioning how Ted thinks he's going to make money off of Nats broadcast rights though. The cable portion is spiraling down the drain. It seems like he might have this vision of a Nats/Capitals/Wizards streaming service. That doesn't seem like a very lucrative business model though. If they charge $20/month, there are probably 100,000, or very optimistically 200,000 willing to pay that. 40-50 million a year for 3 teams is not really that exciting.
Reading the tea leaves from what Manfred said during the Os sale, he wants to include the Nats/Os local rights in a package with other teams to sell to someone like Amazon/Apple/etc starting in 2025. Bidding wars between established streamers is where the money is right now. I can't see where Ted's plan makes any sense, unless he just feels the need to blow through the Saudi money and have a shiny sports streaming app to show for it.
