Is Angelos quietly shopping the Orioles?

[brianod]

I've listened to the sports junkies for years. They can be highly entertaining, however, they would be the last place I would go to find hard sports news. They are entertainers, not sports journalists.

[BrunoCherrytown]

LA is the second biggest TV market in the country, and Baltimore is in the bottom quartile of MLB. Much, much less than the Dodgers. Just my swag, but I would guess somewhere between 400-500m.

Masn = Bmore + DC = #4 though. About +1 million more TV households than Boston alone and just behind Chicago.

Plus, MASN reaches all the way up and down the mid-atlantic into the south.

Dodgers don't own their RSN. I do believe they have a $100million+ annual deal. Or they have one in the works.

So O's + MASN i'd guess is at around $1 billion.

[TonySoprano]

This was brought up in the comments section of Roch's blog post about Britton. His response:

http://www.masnsports.com/school_of_roch/2012/02/dan-duquette-issues-statement-on-zach-britton.html

It does not shock me at all that this appears to be a false rumor. But at least it gave us a glimmer of hope and some wishful thinking for a few days.

If this was a "quiet rumor," would MASN publicly acknowledge it? I'm not saying that the rumor is or is not true, just that I wouldn't look to MASN for insight on this.

[Going Underground]

If this was a "quiet rumor," would MASN publicly acknowledge it? I'm not saying that the rumor is or is not true, just that I wouldn't look to MASN for insight on this.

Why just because the Britton story was broken by Jim Duquette. MASN is not exactly the place for breaking news,

[Birds of B'more]

Inefficiencies happen, illogic persists, but in the long run history tends towards common sense and progress. Even in baseball. And just like people finally found ways to not pay $22 at the mall for an album with that one Britney Spears song on it, eventually there will be ways to get TV shows they want without paying for 1000s they don't. It's clearly not in the general interest to have everyone inside of 200 miles of Baltimore pay $2 a month for MASN when 95% of them don't watch it. It will change, it's just a matter of how long it takes and whether baseball and the O's get ahead of the curve or (more likely) have a messy and counter-productive transition where they fight it to the bitter end.

Which goes back to my other post, that the time is right now (yesterday, to be honest) for MASN to offer in-market, online streaming of O's/Nats games via subscription. Hopefully there's someone inside the MASN offices who can get Angelos' ear and convince him this is the smart move. I don't know much about them, but maybe the Lerner family is a little more forward-thinking and can convince PA. I have had MLBTV.com for two seasons now and love it. Last season I was able to watch O's games on my phone. The video was sometimes choppy, but I'm thinking that had as much to do with my wireless carrier. I now have a 4G phone instead of 3G, so I'm hoping this season it's much better. Anyway, hopefully you all in the O's market will be able to enjoy the same thing soon.

[Rene88]

Please be true! Please sell the team! Pretty pretty please!

Frankly, MLB should have stepped in by now with this dysfunctional mess.

[BrunoCherrytown]

Why just because the Britton story was broken by Jim Duquette. MASN is not exactly the place for breaking news,

MASN is the place for the overly positive, on the border of delusional O's fans, to get their Angelos-approved, all Spin, O's news. I always like when the occasional poster over there brings up the fact that Angelos is your boss to Steve M and Roch and they have to act like they are completely free to write whatever they want.

The Orioles and MASN are as separate as a Presidential Candidate and the super PAC that is supporting said candidate. It's almost incomprehensible somebody would go there expecting to get an honest and open dialogue from the writers. The one whose writing seems to show the most juevos over there is sadly Amber.

[MrOrange82]

MASN is the place for the overly positive, on the border of delusional O's fans, to get their Angelos-approved, all Spin, O's news. I always like when the occasional poster over there brings up the fact that Angelos is your boss to Steve M and Roch and they have to act like they are completely free to write whatever they want.

The Orioles and MASN are as separate as a Presidential Candidate and the super PAC that is supporting said candidate. It's almost incomprehensible somebody would go there expecting to get an honest and open dialogue from the writers. The one whose writing seems to show the most juevos over there is sadly Amber.

Does anyone else think that Sadly Amber would be a great band name (for guys who wear nail polish)?

[BrunoCherrytown]

There goes that rumor...

An Orioles official said today there is “absolutely no truth” to fresh rumors that owner Peter Angelos is shopping the club.

Eric Bickel, a radio host on 106.7 The Fan in Washington, said Tuesday that he had heard Angelos was quietly discussing a sale of the Orioles. Bickel said Angelos was looking to sell the team but not his majority share in the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, which broadcasts Orioles and Washington Nationals games.

MASN is probably worth more than the team, and the Orioles would be a significantly less appealing purchase if the network was not included, according to investment bankers familiar with the baseball industry.

Rumors that Angelos is considering a sale have become annual grist for Baltimore-area sports fans, desperate to see the Orioles end their streak of 14 straight losing seasons.

Here

Somewhere the Stockstills breathed a sigh of relief and went back to washing Angelos' cars.

[TonySoprano]

There goes that rumor...

Here

Somewhere the Stockstills breathed a sigh of relief and went back to washing Angelos' cars.

Do I have to say it again? If Angelos was doing this quietly, why would anyone connected with the Orioles confirm this, and face the wrath of Angelos? These rumors about Angelos selling come up from now and then, so maybe one day, one of them will come true. My uneducated guess is he'll pass the club down to his sons, and Orioles fans will wander in the desert for another forty years.

[JDubs]

There goes that rumor...

Here

Somewhere the Stockstills breathed a sigh of relief and went back to washing Angelos' cars.

I agree that it is likely an unfounded rumor, but this isn't really reliable evidence to prove that. Consider the source. I certainly don't expect them to say, "Yep, Angelos is trying to sell the team as we speak!"

I wouldn't be surprised if PA is looking to sell the Orioles like DD was looking to trade AJ. Not really looking but willing to listen to offers just in someone was stupid enough to offer great prospects/buy the O's without MASN.

EDIT: TS beat me to it!

[JDubs]

Angelos tried to buy the Redskins in 1998, arguing that Baltimore and Washington were the same market.

I never thought anyone could make me appreciate Dan Snyder. I really wish he wasn't the owner, but in comparison... **VOMIT**

[ShaneDawg85]

Please be true! Please sell the team! Pretty pretty please!

Frankly, MLB should have stepped in by now with this dysfunctional mess.

Not disagreeing with the spirit of this post, but why would/should MLB intervene? Unless Angelos were involved in criminal litigation, had done something illegal, or the team was hemorrhaging money out the wazoo, MLB doesn't care so long as the team is fiscally sound and at least somewhat profitable.

[BrunoCherrytown]

Not disagreeing with the spirit of this post, but why would/should MLB intervene? Unless Angelos were involved in criminal litigation, had done something illegal, or the team was hemorrhaging money out the wazoo, MLB doesn't care so long as the team is fiscally sound and at least somewhat profitable.

I think the Orioles work with the Federal Witness Relocation program to put important informants into front office positions at the Warehouse. Nobody will see them there since nobody comes to O's games. They don't have to be good at their jobs. And it's very secretive there.

[apollod]

Which goes back to my other post' date=' that the time is right now (yesterday, to be honest) for MASN to offer in-market, online streaming of O's/Nats games via subscription. Hopefully there's someone inside the MASN offices who can get Angelos' ear and convince him this is the smart move. I don't know much about them, but maybe the Lerner family is a little more forward-thinking and can convince PA. I have had MLBTV.com for two seasons now and love it. Last season I was able to watch O's games on my phone. The video was sometimes choppy, but I'm thinking that had as much to do with my wireless carrier. I now have a 4G phone instead of 3G, so I'm hoping this season it's much better. Anyway, hopefully you all in the O's market will be able to enjoy the same thing soon.[/quote']

Online streaming rights are owned by MLB Advanced Media; which is a corporation owned by MLB. MASN or the Orioles have no say in how their streaming rights are handled, other than via the usual owners controlling interest in MLB as a whole.

MASN/Whoever has to convince a majority of the owners to allow RSN's to control the online streaming rights instead of "selling" the whole of MLB streaming rights to a subsidiary of MLB. And quite frankly thats not going to happen, because the whole point of those blackouts is to prop up the RSN's to begin with; allowing "legal" online streaming in the same market as the RSN only further enhances cord-cutting and undercuts the main revenue stream of the RSN which is subscriptions. Lets face it, an RSN isn't going to get the same revenue by selling online subscriptions as they would via forced subscriptions. And they certainly wouldn't command as much money in forced subscriptions if the cable providers knew that users could pay $100 a year to view the games online. I'm sure RSN's already get a cut of the MLB.tv revenue anyway since they're the ones providing the footage. So basically they're getting forced subscription fees in the blacked out market, and usage fees in the rest of the country.

TLDR: There's no incentive for RSN's to handle online streaming.

Edit: Also.. because I've seen it mentioned elsewhere in this thread. NFL TV blackouts are meant to prop up attendance at games, not TV revenue. I think this is a pretty key difference as far as what people are pushing for on the NFL side of the house. Thank god the MLB doesn't operate in such a way, because we'd almost never see an O's game on tv.