Puck News: Orioles sold to Rubenstein

[Sports Guy]

Manfred is the worst.

[Il BuonO]

6 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Manfred is the worst.

Absolutely the worst.

Edited February 8 by Il BuonO

[Frobby]

7 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Manfred is the worst.

To me, that would be grounds to sue MLB into the Stone Age.  The whole MASN deal expressly contemplated that it would remain binding in case of a change in ownership.   

[Just Regular]

Imagine how balance-positive it would be for the league if the Rubenstein Group bid based on that component, and the component could be deployed again to an Ownership Consortium to be Named Later buying off the Lerners!!

Who else can we trade Joey Ortiz and DL Hall for??

[interloper]

Please get this done before Manfred goads John into doing something insane.

[Hallas]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

To me, that would be grounds to sue MLB into the Stone Age.  The whole MASN deal expressly contemplated that it would remain binding in case of a change in ownership.   

 

Maybe MLB would try to find a buyout option to waive this provision?

[ThisIsBirdland]

Nightengale drops a line near the end of his around the league notes saying the owners should approve the sale to Rubenstein before the all star break. Given what we’ve heard elsewhere it’ll be disappointing if it stretches anywhere near that long, even though I doubt anything else changes between now and then regardless of when the deal goes through. 

[Frobby]

As I understand it, the owners meet quarterly.  I’d imagine they will try to have this teed up for their next meeting, which I assume will be late April/early May.  

[LookinUp]

On 2/8/2024 at 6:23 PM, Frobby said:

To me, that would be grounds to sue MLB into the Stone Age.  The whole MASN deal expressly contemplated that it would remain binding in case of a change in ownership.   

Yeah, I don’t think Manfred is raising the MASN issue out of the blue. I assume Angelos and Rubinstein entered into their agreement with a future state of TV rights contemplated. 

Basically, I’m not saying MASN won’t hold up an ownership change, I’m saying those negotiations are way farther along than the report indicates.

[Frobby]

9 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

Yeah, I don’t think Manfred is raising the MASN issue out of the blue. I assume Angelos and Rubinstein entered into their agreement with a future state of TV rights contemplated. 

Basically, I’m not saying MASN won’t hold up an ownership change, I’m saying those negotiations are way farther along than the report indicates.

Oh, I think Rubenstein has a pretty firm idea of what he wants to do with MASN.  He may well have talked with the Lerners and Ted Leonsis about it.  I just don’t think MLB would dare to require that the MASN issue be resolved, or for the Orioles/MASN to give up their rights, as a condition for approving a sale.  That would result in a completely meritorious lawsuit.  

By the way, the MASN issue isn’t that complicated anymore.  It’s been finally resolved in court that the RSDC can continue to be the arbitral body, and the two arbitrations have pretty much resolved all the difficult questions about the methodology for determining what the rights fees are.   It should not even be necessary to have any more future arbitrations; the decisions are clear enough where the parties ought to be able to agree on the future fees without needing a third party to decide it for them.  

The bigger question for the future is not about what the rights fees should be, it’s about whether an RSN owned by both teams, and run by them, is the best vehicle for maximizing revenue streams from the broadcast rights.  We all agree that MASN is a shoddy network and that the cable market is shrinking.  So someone needs to be creative about coming up with a plan that increases revenue for both teams.  I trust the successful businessman Rubenstein to figure that out much more than I trust John Angelos.  

 

[Satyr3206]

I hope Rubenstein has a solution. Getting tired of lawsuits. On a side note, it is sort of scummy if MLB tries to force the Orioles to give up something designed to compensate them.

[Warehouse]

5 hours ago, Frobby said:

The bigger question for the future is not about what the rights fees should be, it’s about whether an RSN owned by both teams, and run by them, is the best vehicle for maximizing revenue streams from the broadcast rights.  We all agree that MASN is a shoddy network and that the cable market is shrinking.  So someone needs to be creative about coming up with a plan that increases revenue for both teams.  I trust the successful businessman Rubenstein to figure that out much more than I trust John Angelos.  

 

Yes. And MASN’s carriage agreement with Comcast expires at the end of the month.  

MASN lost ~25% of its subscriber base between 2017 and 2021 (see footnote 27 on page 35).  Cord cutting has reduced cable subscribers in general.  MASN has also been dropped from RCN Astound in DC metro, DISH network, and Charter Spectrum in the Outer Banks.  Most of North Carolina doesn’t have access despite being blacked out from MLB At Bat streaming.  MVPD’s are pushing to lower penetration guarantees so that they can offer cheaper “skinny bundles” without RSNs to stem cord cutting.  I’m not a sports media expert, but it doesn’t look pretty.

By the way, the Orioles have been crushing the Nats in ratings the last couple years, and we were ~5x higher in 2023.

Despite making the original deal, the Commisioner’s Office views it as a bad situation that a team’s broadcast rights are owned by a competing team.  I don’t think they could take away the O’s ownership of the Nat’s tv rights without compensation, but could they strong-arm Rubenstein into taking a buyout?  Whatever happens, I hope the original principle of effectively rebalancing the respective market sizes of the O’s and Nats doesn’t get lost.

[Ohfan67]

The RSN model is clearly dying. The national streaming rights are held by MLB, not the local teams (as I understand it). Seems that in less than ten years almost all MLB will be streamed and there’s a good chance the revenue will be split equally or maybe on some prorated basis based on viewership. It will be interesting to see how it plays out as current RSN deals run out.  But obviously a lot of RSN’s are doing poorly. 

[btdart20]

5 minutes ago, Ohfan67 said:

The RSN model is clearly dying. The national streaming rights are held by MLB, not the local teams (as I understand it). Seems that in less than ten years almost all MLB will be streamed and there’s a good chance the revenue will be split equally or maybe on some prorated basis based on viewership. It will be interesting to see how it plays out as current RSN deals run out.  But obviously a lot of RSN’s are doing poorly. 

Agreed.  X factor is how long it takes the big, legacy markets to fold.  Or what the buyout will be on them.

[waroriole]

On 2/8/2024 at 6:23 PM, Frobby said:

To me, that would be grounds to sue MLB into the Stone Age.  The whole MASN deal expressly contemplated that it would remain binding in case of a change in ownership.   

If we could bring Peter back for just one thing.