Author Topic: WP: Nats MASN deal renegotations will have a huge impact  (Read 203549 times)

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Offline comish4lif

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If MASN is already extracting maximum $ from the markets, then fair market value is going to be some portion of that pie.  It's just like if you are looking to buy a building that already is under lease for the next 10 years, you are acquiring the lease stream as opposed to some esoteric appraiser's estimate of what the building ought to be worth.  The income stream determines the value.
Look at it this way, in a perfect world, the Nats could pick up and move their games to Fox, CSN, stay on MASN, etc. the revenue stream is only locked in by Masn's half ass job in broadcasting and selling the games.


Offline tomterp

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a- That's like saying the high bidder for a contract should still get it because it's not their fault they're locked into terrible deals with their subs

b- recent deals by teams in comparable media markets (the rangers seem very relevant here)
if CSN really is prepared to offer $100 million, give MASN right of first refusal and let the nats shop around

a - no, it's not an appropriate analogy.
b - I'm sure that the Nats will be making comparable deals a centerpiece of their proposal, but rumors of what CSN may or may not be willing to pay are of no value to this process.  It's easy to leak a $110m rumor to media members when you have no real skin in the game.

Offline Ben Goessling

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Man, this is fascinating stuff, for a bunch of reasons (both on the field and off). These TV deals are everything to franchises these days, which is obviously why Angelos fought so hard for the Nationals' rights (and why teams like the one I cover now, which is locked in a bad, bad TV deal, are watching this closely). MASN's biggest source of revenue has always been the size of its market area, and more of that obviously belongs to the Nationals than the Orioles. There's been a "what's good for the Nationals is good for MASN" mantra up there the last few years, but I don't know how true that held, and now, it could prove to be the opposite.

I've got to imagine there's a lot of animosity about this in the Warehouse these days. Just one of a half-dozen or so fascinating stories about this team this year.

Offline Nats113437

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Man, this is fascinating stuff, for a bunch of reasons (both on the field and off). These TV deals are everything to franchises these days, which is obviously why Angelos fought so hard for the Nationals' rights (and why teams like the one I cover now, which is locked in a bad, bad TV deal, are watching this closely). MASN's biggest source of revenue has always been the size of its market area, and more of that obviously belongs to the Nationals than the Orioles. There's been a "what's good for the Nationals is good for MASN" mantra up there the last few years, but I don't know how true that held, and now, it could prove to be the opposite.

I've got to imagine there's a lot of animosity about this in the Warehouse these days. Just one of a half-dozen or so fascinating stories about this team this year.

Hi Ben.  I hope the Nats aren't going to do what the Wild did this year.  :)  It is fascinating.

Offline OldChelsea

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Man, this is fascinating stuff, for a bunch of reasons (both on the field and off). These TV deals are everything to franchises these days, which is obviously why Angelos fought so hard for the Nationals' rights[...]

Angelos didn't fight hard because of the telly money...he fought hard because he didn't want the Nats relocating here at all and is fighting for the franchise's obliteration.

Here's the official take on the matter, from the MASN site (http://www.masnsports.com/masn_news_information/about-masn.html):

'Since at least 1981, the Orioles have had exclusive rights to the 7-state television territory. In 2004, Major League Baseball announced the relocation of the Montreal Expos to Washington, D.C. The Orioles objected to the relocation of the Expos to within 35 miles of Oriole Park in Baltimore. Among other things, the Expos/Nationals had no television territory within which to telecast its games. In today's world, no baseball franchise could viably exist without a television territory and television rights revenues. The Orioles, the Nationals and Major League Baseball all understood this reality.

'The Orioles appreciated that a baseball team in the nation's capital needed to be on television and agreed to share its exclusive television territory with the Nationals. Major League Baseball and the Nationals agreed to grant to TCR (MASN) the exclusive rights to telecast all of the available Nationals games. Since MASN already had the rights to certain Orioles games in 2005 and all available Orioles games in 2007, MASN became the home of the Washington Nationals and continues to be home to Orioles telecasts.

'MASN believes every fan in the region should be able to watch the Nationals and Orioles on MASN, which is why we have made fair offers to every cable and satellite distributor in the television territory. Currently you can find MASN on Antietam, Armstrong, Atlantic Broadband, Bay Country, Broadstripe, Charter, Comcast, Cox, DirecTV, Dish, Easton, Giles Craig, HarronMetrocast, KUHN, Mediacom, MI Connections, Ntelos, OpenBand, RCN, Reds Cable, Spruce Knob Seneca Rocks Telco, TriCounty Telecom, Verizon, WDCW-TV (Nationals) and WJZ-TV (Orioles).'

...so bloody magnanimous of them.

Offline Tyler Durden

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Hey Ben - thanks for stopping by.  Hope you are enjoying watch Willingham mashing - we miss him here but we do enjoy watching HRod pounding the backstop with his 100 mph fastballs.

We all think this will hugely impact the Nats going forward.  Part of me thinks that the O's have been getting shafted by Angelos as well through MASN, though not to as great a degree as the Nats. 

Offline comish4lif

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Man, this is fascinating stuff, for a bunch of reasons (both on the field and off). These TV deals are everything to franchises these days, which is obviously why Angelos fought so hard for the Nationals' rights (and why teams like the one I cover now, which is locked in a bad, bad TV deal, are watching this closely). MASN's biggest source of revenue has always been the size of its market area, and more of that obviously belongs to the Nationals than the Orioles. There's been a "what's good for the Nationals is good for MASN" mantra up there the last few years, but I don't know how true that held, and now, it could prove to be the opposite.

I've got to imagine there's a lot of animosity about this in the Warehouse these days. Just one of a half-dozen or so fascinating stories about this team this year.

Hey Ben, thanks for giving us your take on the issue. One thing we could use more of back here - is some real reporting on this issue. Any chance you could dial up some of your old contacts and do an article on this TV/Money thing with a Twins spin?

Offline HerndonNat

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Angelos didn't fight hard because of the telly money...he fought hard because he didn't want the Nats relocating here at all and is fighting for the franchise's obliteration.

Here's the official take on the matter, from the MASN site (http://www.masnsports.com/masn_news_information/about-masn.html):

In 2004, Major League Baseball announced the relocation of the Montreal Expos to Washington, D.C. The Orioles objected to the relocation of the Expos to within 35 miles of Oriole Park in Baltimore.

So I just google mapped it and OPACY is 38 miles from Nats Park fwiw.


Offline HalfSmokes

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citifield to yankees stadium is less than 10 miles- the mets and yankees still don't feel the need to share a television station

Offline HerndonNat

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citifield to yankees stadium is less than 10 miles- the mets and yankees still don't feel the need to share a television station

San Fran/Oakland and Cubs/Sox are probably closer then Nats/Orioles also.  Hell the Angels changed their name to try to sway fans away from the Dodgers!

Offline imref

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If masn goes under I'd expect snyder to launch a regional sports network with the redskins, nats, and go after csn for the wiz/caps.

Offline HalfSmokes

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I don't want the Nats and Wiz together if the Nats are the team getting bumped- getting banished to am 1500 still pisses me off

Offline Tyler Durden

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If masn goes under I'd expect snyder to launch a regional sports network with the redskins, nats, and go after csn for the wiz/caps.

Snyder would probably bury Nats coverage just as much Anglos.  How can a station talk football OTAs if they are covering a playoff contending baseball team?

Offline OldChelsea

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I don't want the Nats and Wiz together if the Nats are the team getting bumped- getting banished to am 1500 still pisses me off

You don't get FM-106.7 where you're at?

There isn't that much overlap between the MLB and NBA seasons - the regular seasons only overlap in April, and any further conflicts would stem from playoff runs by either the Nats (could happen soon) or the Wizards (not likely anytime soon). Which one would get seconded to AM-1500 on a conflict day would depend on the terms of the two clubs' contracts with Bonneville; one further factor is that the Wizards, unlike the Nats, don't play almost every day, and that would minimise conflicts. (There were more conflicts this past season because the post-lock-out 66-fixture schedule started and ended later than usual.)

Now as far as telly is concerned the Wizards are still on CSN, have been there for a long time and are likely to remain so - I think they'd fight to keep them if rival networks started bidding.

Offline OldChelsea

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Snyder would probably bury Nats coverage just as much Anglos.  How can a station talk football OTAs if they are covering a playoff contending baseball team?

Probably would be - Snyder-owned AM-980 used to carry the Caps and hardly covered them outside of the matchday broadcasts.

Offline comish4lif

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So I just google mapped it and OPACY is 38 miles from Nats Park fwiw.



It's probably closer to 35 miles if you map it from OPACY to the District line... is RFK 3 miles closer to OPACY?

Offline The Chief

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Why can't it just be "___($$$)___ field at Nats Park"?

Offline Kevrock

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Nats Field at Nats Park.

Offline HalfSmokes

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You don't get FM-106.7 where you're at?

There isn't that much overlap between the MLB and NBA seasons - the regular seasons only overlap in April, and any further conflicts would stem from playoff runs by either the Nats (could happen soon) or the Wizards (not likely anytime soon). Which one would get seconded to AM-1500 on a conflict day would depend on the terms of the two clubs' contracts with Bonneville; one further factor is that the Wizards, unlike the Nats, don't play almost every day, and that would minimise conflicts. (There were more conflicts this past season because the post-lock-out 66-fixture schedule started and ended later than usual.)


I get 106.7 and every april I have to switch to 1500 which doesn't come in clearly because the nats get bumped for a horrendous basketball team playing for lottery balls to waste

Offline HerndonNat

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Snyder would probably bury Nats coverage just as much Anglos.  How can a station talk football OTAs if they are covering a playoff contending baseball team?

It's funny during my drive time home the Snyder station talks way more Nats and other sports in general then 106.7.  Sports Reporters vs. Lavar and Dukes.

Offline OldChelsea

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I get 106.7 and every april I have to switch to 1500 which doesn't come in clearly because the nats get bumped for a horrendous basketball team playing for lottery balls to waste


Hopefully the next time the contracts come up they'll find a way to even out the conflict days - back when both the Caps and Wizards were on AM-980 they tended to even them out fairly well (although in this case the loser got seconded to AM-570 which can be very difficult to get in many areas - AM-1500 comes in decently where I reside in south Arlington but late in the evening becomes vulnerable to cross-talk).

Offline HalfSmokes

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my kitchen radio (I usually listen while I cook) get terrible reception for 1500, so it annoys me, hopefully they can get a better deal next time around

Offline tomterp

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So I just google mapped it and OPACY is 38 miles from Nats Park fwiw.

Expos relocated to RFK, which is closer by a few miles.

Offline RobDibblesGhost

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If masn goes under I'd expect snyder to launch a regional sports network with the redskins, nats, and go after csn for the wiz/caps.

Snyder could spend all he wants to start a station, but NFL television rights belong to NBC, CBS, FOX, and ESPN.  He wouldn't be able to carry anything except preseason games.

Offline PowerBoater69

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Can someone with a subscription to Baseball Prospectus and no respect for copyright laws please post the full article here?

 www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17468#commentMessage