WP: Nats MASN deal renegotations will have a huge impact

[Jordanz Meatballz]

Why is this dragging out so long? Whoever wrote the contract was short-sighted.

[PowerBoater69]

Why is this dragging out so long? Whoever wrote the contract was short-sighted.

No, MLB just delayed the Angelos train wreck until after the team was sold and the ballpark was built.

[rbw5t]

No, MLB just delayed the Angelos train wreck until after the team was sold and the ballpark was built.

I agree.  This is a fight that had to happen sometime, and MLB just kicked the problem down the road at least long enough to get the Expos moved to DC.  Still, there needs to be some kind of settlement so everyone can move forward with some sort of reasonable revenue estimates.  It's a shame it's not done in time for this year's free agency period (although maybe it gives Rizzo some help avoiding pressure to overpay for a big name).

By the way, did anyone else feel like Boswell's piece today seemed like a planted message directly from the team to lower expecatations about signing anyone.  Not that I necessarily disagree with the message (everything depends on price/value), but it really seemed like he was playing shill for Rizzo/Lerners.

[HalfSmokes]

I agree.  This is a fight that had to happen sometime, and MLB just kicked the problem down the road at least long enough to get the Expos moved to DC.  Still, there needs to be some kind of settlement so everyone can move forward with some sort of reasonable revenue estimates.  It's a shame it's not done in time for this year's free agency period (although maybe it gives Rizzo some help avoiding pressure to overpay for a big name).

By the way, did anyone else feel like Boswell's piece today seemed like a planted message directly from the team to lower expecatations about signing anyone.  Not that I necessarily disagree with the message (everything depends on price/value), but it really seemed like he was playing shill for Rizzo/Lerners.

the problem is, there is no way to move forward and leave everyone happy. They could probably settle and find a way to please Angelos and Lerner, but to give the nats close to fair market value would mean screwing the Os because the MASN deal supposedly insures that they get the same revenue as the Nats, which is absurd since 1) Baltimore isn't as valuable a market as DC and 2) MASN would go broke paying two teams fair market in the more valuable of the markets. So they could compromise and give the nats close to fair market, sever the equality and give the Os fair market in baltimore, and leave MASN with the difference between what they thought they would have to match to the Os and what they'd actually be paying the Os so Angelos (as owner of MASN) could still line his pockets

[mitlen]

By the way, did anyone else feel like Boswell's piece today seemed like a planted message directly from the team to lower expecatations about signing anyone.  Not that I necessarily disagree with the message (everything depends on price/value), but it really seemed like he was playing shill for Rizzo/Lerners.

Read the piece but don't think Boz played the shill.   He stated he talked to Rizzo and Johnson.   His intentions/connections are in the open.    That kind of clears him of the "shill" tag.     Some may call him a "dupe".   

[PowerBoater69]

I agree.  This is a fight that had to happen sometime, and MLB just kicked the problem down the road at least long enough to get the Expos moved to DC.  Still, there needs to be some kind of settlement so everyone can move forward with some sort of reasonable revenue estimates.  It's a shame it's not done in time for this year's free agency period (although maybe it gives Rizzo some help avoiding pressure to overpay for a big name).

By the way, did anyone else feel like Boswell's piece today seemed like a planted message directly from the team to lower expecatations about signing anyone.  Not that I necessarily disagree with the message (everything depends on price/value), but it really seemed like he was playing shill for Rizzo/Lerners.

Boz is on the Lerners jock like Elmo on a troubled teen.

[mitlen]

Boz is on the Lerners jock like Elmo on a troubled teen.

 

[cletusvandamme]

Boz also suggested that the Nats could be cut from MASN if the $$$ sitch isn't to Angelos's liking. Nothing is off the table.

Just start your own network. That's what I'd do.

[NJ Ave]

Angelos should have closed this deal earlier. Now the Dodgers are setting a new baseline that's even higher than the ones the Rangers and Padres have set. Maybe Angelos can drag it out until after next season when the Phillies and Rockies both get $100 million/year and the Lerners start asking for $125 million.

I wonder if this deal, with its 5 year resets, wasn't actually in the Nats' best interest, in retrospect. The Braves are caught in a 25-year below market deal, whereas we keep getting to reset to ever-more-favorable rates on a regular basis.

[PebbleBall]

I wonder if this deal, with its 5 year resets, wasn't actually in the Nats' best interest, in retrospect.

I wonder if it's become untenable.

[HalfSmokes]

It depends on how much more you're willing to pay for cable.  I'm glad I live in Virginia and won't have the big 10 network slapped on my cable bill every month

[WhiteWhale]

A break down of TV deals per FannGraphs

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/dodgers-send-shock-waves-through-local-tv-landscape/

[GMUTrkstar]

Not sure if this has already been posted but heres another fangraphs article concerning TV rights:

Now back to MASN. It was created as part of the deal that moved the Expos from Montreal to Washington, D.C. to become the Nationals. Orioles owner Peter Angelos opposed the move as an encroachment on the Orioles’ exclusive broadcast and commercial region. [This is different from the dispute between the Giants and the A's over the territorial rights to San Jose and Santa Clara County.] As part of the negotiated settlement between MLB (which then owned the Expos) and Angelos, MASN was created with the Orioles to own 90 percent and the Nationals to own ten percent. The deal also called for the Nationals to be paid $20 million/year in broadcast rights, although that figure would increase by $1 million every season. In 2011, MASN reportedly paid the Nationals $29 million in broadcast fees and $7 million for its now 13 percent share of the network.

The MASN agreement also includes a re-set provision by which the Nationals can re-negotiate the broadcast fee structure every five years. Early in 2012, the Nationals proposed that MASN pay between $100 million and $120 million per year in broadcast fees. The Orioles countered at $34 million per year. The two sides have been in protracted negotiations ever since. Commissioner Selig asked representatives from the Pirates, Rays, and Mets to mediate the dispute. A resolution was expected over the summer but never materialized and the parties reportedly remain far apart.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/news-corp-to-buy-stake-in-the-yes-network/

[Tyler Durden]

There doesn't appear to be all that much room to mediate this.  Selig or this 3 team panel just needs to come down with a decision. 

What good does it do anyone to drag this out further?  The Nats aren't seeing their cash and Angelos keeps losing bargaining ground as other teams sign big money deals.

[HalfSmokes]

Selig is terrified of courts (isn't that why angelos got this deal in the first place).  Even splitting the difference is leaving the sides ~35 million per year (175 million over the five years) short of what they want,  that's money worth suing over and way too much for an all star game to make up for

[Tyler Durden]

Good thing we get to go through this every 5 years, then.  Ha.

[zimm_da_kid]

In case it hasn't been said enough, freak Angelos.

[lastobjective]

So how is the contract worded? Why can't the Nats start their own network?

[NationalHeat]

I wonder if this would have changed their offseason outlook had it been done. Of course, they can backload big contracts.

[Kevrock]

Selig has messed this up big time. He probably wants to fold MASN himself. A bad television contract is bad for all of MLB. He threw McCourt out of the league when McCourt tried to take a crappy television deal.

[welch]

I don't know the exact wording, but remember the essentials are as described in Fangraphs: Angelos had claimed for years that he owned DC. He blocked every attempt to put an expansion team in DC or to move an existing team. For a while in the '90s, we even had a group trying to put a team in Virginia, as the NoVa Rockets or something, pleading that the Potomac should be the border of Angelos-land.

Selig (= MLB) looked at the Redskins, one of the most valuable franchises in sports. MLB/Selig understood that the Washington area was not Baltimore, would never be Baltimore.

The compromise: Washington got the Expos, a National League team, but Angelos was to get most of the TV money. [For the record: Washington -- a founding city of the AL. Baltimore -- a good minor league town that got the St Louis Browns in 1954]

That's an unstable compromise -- a bit like giving the Jersey Devils the TV rights to both the Devils and the NY Rangers.

The Nats should have their own TV deal...MASN should fold or split. Sure, I like the commercials that support the Chesapeake, but otherwise Washington and Baltimore are distinct places. The Orioles and the Nats were rivals; the Colts and the Redskins were rivals.

[comish4lif]

Angelos "claimed" that he one's DC. But my understanding is tha the TV territories are assigned by MLB in the franchise agreement between MLB and a team, in this case, the Orioles. I believe that the territories are subject to change and they do change. When MLB expanded into Florida with the Marlins, then the Rays, that was Braves territory. MLB adjusted the territories for the Marlins, then split it again for the Devil Rays.

Additionally, a team only has exclusive rights to the city/county it is located in (Baltimore County) and the cities/counties that it touches. So, since Baltimore does not touch PG, Montgomery Counties, DC, Northern Vieginia, to, Angelos should not have had a "right" to those TV territories.

Furthermore, this opens MLB to lawsuit next time a team relocates or if MLB has another round of expansion and it has to "take away" some team's TV territory and they object on the MASN precedent.

But hey, that's just my 2 cents.

[blue911]

You have to understand MLB's revenue sharing in order to begin to understand why Angelos will fight any increase with every means at his disposal. I doubt this gets resolved soon or without a court case.

[GburgNatsFan]

I wonder how MLB will apply those rules to a city co-located with a U.S. District adjacent to counties in other states.

Angelos "claimed" that he one's DC. But my understanding is tha the TV territories are assigned by MLB in the franchise agreement between MLB and a team, in this case, the Orioles. I believe that the territories are subject to change and they do change. When MLB expanded into Florida with the Marlins, then the Rays, that was Braves territory. MLB adjusted the territories for the Marlins, then split it again for the Devil Rays.

Additionally, a team only has exclusive rights to the city/county it is located in (Baltimore County) and the cities/counties that it touches. So, since Baltimore does not touch PG, Montgomery Counties, DC, Northern Vieginia, to, Angelos should not have had a "right" to those TV territories.

Furthermore, this opens MLB to lawsuit next time a team relocates or if MLB has another round of expansion and it has to "take away" some team's TV territory and they object on the MASN precedent.

But hey, that's just my 2 cents.

[comish4lif]

As far as DC's "exclusive" territories, it should Be DC itself, PG and Montgomery counties in MD, and Fairfax, Arlington,  and Alexandria Cities/Counties in VA. Everything else should be at the discretion of/negotiation with MLB.

Here's a question, in the 50's DC had a TV territory (such as TV territories were then) and allowed the Browns to move to Baltimore into the DC territory. Then in 70, the Senators left. In theory, shouldn't MLB, the Orioles and the Nats have started with the 1970 TV territory breakout as a starting point?