Nationals’ negotiations with MASN will have huge impact on franchise

When the Lerner family bought the Washington Nationals from Major League Baseball in 2006, the team came with a unique television contract, one that intertwined them with Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos and the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network. To persuade Angelos to drop his firm stance against a team in Washington, the league struck a TV deal in which Angelos held the advantage.

Television contracts and the money generated from media rights fees have become a crucial factor in how baseball teams are run. Along with ticket sales, they are a team’s primary form of income, and in recent years the fees across sports have skyrocketed. The Lerners have never had a say on their arrangement with MASN.

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Until now.

This winter brought the first “reset period” in the Nationals’ contract with MASN, a window for the Nationals to renegotiate the rights fees they receive from MASN. To maximize their take, the Nationals hired a high-powered media consultant to argue for what constitutes fair-market value fees. If the Nationals and MASN cannot reach an agreement, the negotiation will be decided in an arbitration hearing.

The results could fundamentally change the scope of how the Nationals do business and spend to acquire players. One person familiar with the Nationals’ situation and the dynamics of baseball rights fees said the Nationals could hope to double or triple the $29 million they received from MASN in 2011.

The private nature of the negotiation means there are still more questions than definitive answers. Telephone messages left with three MASN executives and with Angelos were not returned. Nationals COO Andy Feffer said, through a team spokesperson, “We don’t comment about business negotiations.”

‘Impossible to overstate’

There is one certainty: It will have a profound impact on the Nationals’ business operations and, ultimately, their on-field success.

“It’s impossible to overstate just how important it is for a franchise to gets its media deal right,” former Texas Rangers managing partner Chuck Greenberg said. “The difference is material, and affects every element of a franchise operation.”

Greenberg knows from first-hand experience, as an architect of one of deals that will presumably color the Nationals’ case. In 2010, the Rangers reached a 20-year deal with Fox Sports worth $3 billion, according to a report in USA Today that cited two baseball officials who had seen the contract. The deal allowed the Rangers to operate with a financial assurance unrivaled in baseball outside of New York and Boston.

“It was transformational,” Greenberg said. “Media is one of the most essential [components] of the financial infrastructure of a franchise. To lock in a favorable deal, which also represents a significant competitive advantage against your peers, is one of the most favorable things a franchise can experience.”

The Nationals’ contract with MASN allows for the franchise to argue for rights fees in line with what they could receive in an open process. But “you wouldn’t necessarily be expecting them to get a fair market value for their fees,” said Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College and a sports business expert.