MASN dispute update

[NATTYBO's]

The biggest problem is the concept of a team's territory. It's baseball colonialism. No team should own any territory. It's the root of all baseball evil. If the Yanks and Dodgers and others didn't have control of "their" territory we wouldn't even care that much about revenue sharing and drafts and salary caps and all the rest. Alexandria and Richmond and Ocean City belong to a MLB team just like Persia belongs to Great Britain.

It's the same reason why Baltimore will never have a NBA or NhL team and why that the MLB had to make a deal

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ripken]

.

www.fangraphs.com/blogs/tv-dispute-might-be-hurting-nationals-in-free-agency/

It ain't exactly helping the Orioles.

[paulcoates]

I really haven't followed this whole debacle. Too much legal mumbo jumbo. Are the Nationals basically saying that they deserve a bigger cut of the MASN profits than the Orioles?

[Redskins Rick]

http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2016/01/27/the-nats-claim-their-bad-tv-deal-and-dispute-with-the-orioles-harms-their-ability-to-compete/

Nats are crying about the dispute.

[Frobby]

http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2016/01/27/...ty-to-compete/

Nats are crying about the dispute.

It's just another article quoting the Post article mentioned in the OP.

To be fair to the Nats, I am sure it never dawned on them that they'd still be fighting over their 2012-16 rights fees in 2016. One of the reasons parties choose arbitration is that it is supposed to be faster than a court proceeding. Instead, Bud delayed the RSDC from issuing arbitration decision by about two years, and now the court proceeding that followed has gone on for about 18 months. Whatever else Angelos may have accomplished, he has succeeded in slowing the process to a crawl.

[Br10n]

http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2016/01/27/the-nats-claim-their-bad-tv-deal-and-dispute-with-the-orioles-harms-their-ability-to-compete/

Nats are crying about the dispute.

The 6th highest payroll in baseball is crying poor. Lovely.

[hoosiers]

I have posted this several times, but the CBA calls for teams in the top 15 markets to forfeit their share of some revenue sharing $ and the teams in the bottom 15 saw their share double. I believe this is an extra $15M per year give or take for the Os (in the bottom half) and a loss of $15M per year for the Nats (in the top half).

I sure would like to see the MASN dispute settled. I don't think it should be this difficult to get some independent assessments done by a quality arbiter. I find it very difficult to believe the Commissioner was very involved that this couldn't get done somewhat rapidly. IMO, the biggest impediment would have been PA hanging onto the Bortz formula without budging much, but again, Selig thought they were not far from settling so PA must have budged off of Bortz at some point.

Anyway, even with Bortz, the Os should see $ ramping up and going into their pocket instead of MASN profits - plus the revenue sharing $ above. Don't forget the continued escalation of the new national tv contract either.

[GuidoSarducci]

The biggest problem is the concept of a team's territory. It's baseball colonialism. No team should own any territory. It's the root of all baseball evil. If the Yanks and Dodgers and others didn't have control of "their" territory we wouldn't even care that much about revenue sharing and drafts and salary caps and all the rest. Alexandria and Richmond and Ocean City belong to a MLB team just like Persia belongs to Great Britain.

Without a NFL style league-wide TV contract, there will be team territory.

And even the NFL has "primary markets" where the home team must be shown, its just that since revenue is divided up, it doesn't make much difference to teams bottom lines who gets shown (only in aggregate).

[Machado13]

The 6th highest payroll in baseball is crying poor. Lovely.

You noticed this too?!

[BradyBunch]

It seems reasonable that if MASN isn't paying the Nationals FMV for broadcast rights, the Orioles are not being paid FMV for their rights. It's seems reasonable that Angelos is sacrificing Orioles success for MASN success.

No, it's not reasonable because the Nats are claiming a market that wouldn't have existed. Say the market is 14m people. Nats are saying they have 7m possible viewers.. yet their TV ratings say otherwise. Or to put it this way.. Orioles draw double the viewers then the Nats.

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2015/07/13/Media/MLB-RSNs.aspx

[Frobby]

No, it's not reasonable because the Nats are claiming a market that wouldn't have existed. Say the market is 14m people. Nats are saying they have 7m possible viewers.. yet their TV ratings say otherwise. Or to put it this way.. Orioles draw double the viewers then the Nats.

No they don't. They have double the ratings in their immediate viewing area, which is a little less than half the size of the Nats' viewing area, so total viewership is about the same (actually, the Nats have slightly more, 67,000 households vs. 62,000). http://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2015/07/17/prime-time-tv-ratings-for-all-29-u-s-mlb-teams-shows-baseball-ruling-summer-programming/2/#470dd8b74c04 How the two teams do in areas outside their immediate viewing area isn't publicly available information, so far as I know.

In any event, it is the Orioles who insisted that the rights fees for the two teams needed to be equal. They certainly didn't insist on that because they were interested in subsidizing the Nats.

[ReclaimTheCrown]

The 6th highest payroll in baseball is crying poor. Lovely.

Seriously. That's the bottom line to me. That was the price you paid in moving to DC. Get over it.

[Frobby]

Seriously. That's the bottom line to me. That was the price you paid in moving to DC. Get over it.

I don't think you really understand what they are crying about. The agreement by which the Nats moved to Washington (which preceded the Lerners buying the team) called for the rights fees to be "reset" every five years, with the parties to try to negotiate the fees, and if no agreement could be reached, then resolved by an arbitration before the RSDC to determine fair market value. The Nats' complaint is that MASN is refusing to proceed before the RSDC, which is what it had agreed to do. Meanwhile, the process has dragged on for four years, which is certainly not what was intended. I have little doubt that the delay and uncertainty is hurting the Nats' ability to make long range decisions. Frankly, it is not helping the Orioles' ability to do so, either, but MASN/the Orioles undoubtedly think that they will get a better outcome than they did the first time if they drag this process along. I am not so sure of that, but we'll see.

[thezeroes]

I do believe the initial suit brought by MASN and the reason they did not agree with the RSDC Finding was that the RSDC was flawed entity, it therefore had a Bias in the case.

This suit was won by MASN and the judge ordering the two plaintiffs to redo the proceedings. MASN has countered that it is still flawed (The RSDC) and should be done by an independent arbiter. MLB and the Nationals think otherwise. This is the proceeding that is in court now.

This what I had read through different sites.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/nationals-journal/wp/2015/12/11/masn-asks-appeals-court-to-send-tv-rights-dispute-with-nationals-to-an-outside-forum/

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-masn-court-20151211-story.html

[Frobby]

I do believe the initial suit brought by MASN and the reason they did not agree with the RSDC Finding was that the RSDC was flawed entity, it therefore had a Bias in the case.

This suit was won by MASN and the judge ordering the two plaintiffs to redo the proceedings. MASN has countered that it is still flawed (The RSDC) and should be done by an independent arbiter. MLB and the Nationals think otherwise. This is the proceeding that is in court now.

This what I had read through different sites.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/nationals-journal/wp/2015/12/11/masn-asks-appeals-court-to-send-tv-rights-dispute-with-nationals-to-an-outside-forum/

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-masn-court-20151211-story.html

That is all correct. But the contract says that the arbitration shall be before the RSDC, and Justice Marks already ruled that he does not have discretion to compel an arbitration before a different body than the one specified in the agreement. I think he is right, and will be extremely surprised if any appellate court overturns Justice Marks on that issue. And in the meantime, MASN did not ask for a stay of Justice Marks' decision while the appeal is being heard, so they are skating on very thin ice by refusing to appear before the RSDC just because they have appealed. I'll wait to see what MASN argues when its brief is due, but good chance they will lose the argument and be directed to appear before the RSDC or face sanctions from the Court.