MLB Family Fight: The Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals Do Battle Off The Field

The chorus of a cultish song from musical artist Warren Zevon is the perfect descriptor for the off the field battle by two family Titans, the regional sports network that they battle over, and how it impacts baseball fans in several cities around Washington DC and Baltimore.

The dispute, which now as a result of an exclusive report from The Hollywood Reporter, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/major-league-baseball-embroiled-explosive-721927?mobile_redirect=false has jumped from the law firm conference rooms and zoomed into the media. For it’s part, via the turbocharged social media platforms, we now know more about just how important the regional sports networks have become for team owners in sports.

The Washington Nationals were created, when in 2005, Major League Baseball determined that baseball was no longer viable in Montreal, and they packed up the team and moved them to the nation’s capital. That move would have been made earlier, if not for the intransigence of Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos, who laid claim to the nationals capital, and surrounding communities as part of the “Orioles territory”, according to MLB’s broadcast agreements.

For more backstory on how Angelo’s became an owner, and how he views the business, you can read more about the man in a chapter from author Nestor Aparicio, in his book “The Peter Principles”. See a link below.

https://wnst.net/free-the-birds/the-peter-principles-chapter-1-so-just-how-did-angelos-become-king-of-baltimore-baseball/

The most recent chapter of this now 4 - year long saga, is about the document that gave birth to both the Nationals, and the broadcast agreement between the ballclub, and the regional sports network—MASN—majority owned by Angelos—that holds the rights to broadcast all of their games to fans. In it, there is a provision to review the payments that MASN is to make to the Nationals, currently reported to be around $35 million per year, every five years. This first of those triggers was in 2010.

The Nationals invested time and money to “value” the broadcast rights to their games, using outside consultants to look at what they believe was “fair value” for their telecasts. The only problem with that effort, is that the agreement that they signed with MASN already contained a provision for “resetting” the value of the rights. According to sources that have seen the agreement, that provision is referred to as “The Bortz Method”, named after media advisory consultant Paul Bortz, who leads Bortz Media and Sports Group, LLC. According to industry sources, using this method in other agreements to evaluate sports team rights fee’s has led to modest increases from time to time in the value of their broadcast rights. However, it does not take into account the recent explosion in the open market value of sports team cable television rights, which within the last five years, have seen teams such as the Los Angeles Angels, Texas Rangers, LA Lakers, Seattle Mariners, and others, grow payments to the clubs in excess of $50-150 million per season.

The Nationals and MASN have been at odds over the valuation and the methods used, since 2011. This “dispute” has recently been adjudicated in baseball’s internal version of arbitration, the MLB “Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee” a panel made up of other owners have reviewed the issues and materials, which led to a ‘decision’ that the Nationals should be awarded a higher rights fee than is determined in the agreement. Not surprisingly, MASN, and Angelos, disagreed, and the standoff continues. Only, now Commissioner Selig sent both owners a letter, in which he deried both for their lack of civility in this matter, as well as threats to file lawsuits against one another, or MLB, that could be damaging to the reputation of the sport.

So, what does this “Battle of the Titans” mean for the average fan in the Washington DC and Baltimore areas?

1. There will be no Major League Baseball All-Star Game awarded in the near future, to either the Orioles or the Nationals. The Orioles, and their local fans, are most impacted here, because the game was last held in Baltimore in 1993, one year after Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened. The team was looking to bring one of baseball’s jewel event back to the city for the the 25th anniversary of the opening of the ballpark. MLB regards events like the All Star Game as something of a "relief plane" that brings the best that MLB has to offer to certain geographic areas that can benefit, economically, from hosting the game. Currently, with this dispute ongoing, the Baltimore-Washington DC area is akin to a "war zone" in baseball. It's not safe, or even a good idea, to try and land a plane in a war zone.
2. The quality of the game telecasts will remain at the sub optimal levels they are today. Currently, while professionally delivered, there is almost zero personality or excitement around the broadcasts. For a sport that desperately wants to increase the following of younger fans, there is zero level of interactivity in the telecasts, and little connection to popular social networks, apart from one “share your photo” promotion each game.
3. No cooperation, on any level, between the ballclubs to infuse more interest in baseball throughout the region. With both clubs ownership locked in what amounts to a WWE style ‘Steel Cage Match”, you won’t see their executives working together to generate more interest in baseball throughout the area, which would be returned to each, in the form of more viewers, more attendance at games, and more goodwill toward the game.
4. Finally, when this is resolved, your cable bill will increase. As all owners of cable channels are want to do, any increase that MASN must pay to both, the Nationals and Orioles, will be passed along to the cable system that distributes the telecasts. They, in turn, will look at that increase in cost as something that will be passed along in the form of a few dollars a month to each cable customer. You will be paying, whether you recognize it immediately, or not.

It’s a battle of the Titans of the baseball industry. Well, in the Iliad (and in other mythological stories) what happened on Earth (your cable bill) was just a reflection of the Gods fighting each other in Heaven.