Some thoughts on Baltimore's claim that the Orioles may need to move if they don't win their appeal in the MASN case.
https://www.talknats.com/2023/02/02/orioles-long-term-viability-in-baltimore/#disqus_thread
One common complaint by Orioles fans throughout the court battles has been that the Nationals knew of the MASN contract before moving to DC, and therefore they should live up to the terms of the deal. Actually the Nats have as they accepted that original RSDC award even though it was much lower than they thought it should have been. The misconception is that the dispute is over the original contract as opposed to the contractually mandated MLB arbitration panel to determine the annual rights fees. Absolutely, the Nationals are not happy with the MASN deal, but they have 100 percent lived up to the terms of the contract as written.
This is a solid point, and goes both ways a bit too. This whole deal would have been ok for the Nats if the Orioles just lived up to the contract.
The spirit of the deal was an assumption that the combined market rates for the Nats/Os would come out somewhere around 50% of MASNs revenues, and O's would get a 66/33 share on the profits. Instead local media rights skyrocketed and RSN revenue trended downwards.
In hindsight, it wasn't a one sided deal in favor of the O's at all. It was a bad bet by the O's and they are trying to sleeze their way out of it.
If everyone wanted to settle on what the spirit of the agreement was supposed to be, it would probably look something like a 60/40 split of MASN revenue-expenses. If they hold the O's to their agreement, then the ownership of MASN is worthless at best, and both teams get equal rights fees and O's would be on the hook for growing losses.
There is a risk to the Nats here too in letting this go on for future years, as local media rights will likely crater in the next couple years which could cause the reset rates to go way down and favor the O's.
It's kind of amazing that both sides are killing their organizations and their fanbases with all of this when it they could probably just settle for something like a 55/45 split pegged to revenues of MASN.
