The Orioles have agreed to settle part of their dispute over payments owed to Washington regarding the team’s TV rights deal with MASN, sources briefed on the deal confirmed to The Athletic. The Washington Post first reported this news Tuesday.
Baltimore paid Washington around $100 million to cover rights fee payments from 2012 to 2016, sources said.
The Orioles, Nationals and MASN declined comment to The Athletic.
In 2014, MLB’s Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee ruled the Orioles owed roughly $100 million extra to the Nationals. That judgment eventually was vacated by the New York state courts, which ruled there was a conflict of interest between the law firm the Nationals used for representation and MLB and its teams, which also used the law firm’s services.
The courts ultimately sent the issue back to MLB, the Nationals obtained new legal council and new committee members were appointed by the league. The result was nearly the same, with the new committee ruling the Orioles owed an additional $100 million for the 2012 to 2016 period.
In April, the New York Court of Appeals rejected the Orioles’ argument that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred showed partiality to the Nationals when the committee ruled that Baltimore owed the money. The court opinion confirmed the committee’s determination of the fair market value of the television rights for the Nationals, but said that “the parties must resolve any disputes over nonpayment of those fees in accordance with their agreement.”
The franchises became intertwined in 2005 when the MLB-owned Montreal Expos moved into the Orioles’ market territory in Washington, D.C. To placate Orioles majority owner Peter Angelos, then-commissioner Bud Selig permitted the Orioles to create and own a vast majority of a new regional sports network that would air both franchises’ games. Initially, the Orioles owned 90 percent of the network, a percentage that drops annually until 2032, when the Nationals’ ownership of the network will be capped at 33 percent.
The network pays the teams. Starting in 2012, the two sides were supposed to negotiate a fair market value of rights fees for future five-year periods. The sides could not reach an agreement — falling nearly $400 million apart for the five-year period from 2012 to 2016. So, as determined in the original contract, the sides presented their arguments before MLB’s Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee.
No agreement has been reached for 2017 to 2021, the sources said, and the overall deal that sees the Orioles control the television rights for the Nationals is still intact.
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