New Cable Deal Gives Nats Home

Team Hopes For More Exposure, Fans

Brian Schneider's family had a hard time watching games under the team's old TV arrangement. (By Elsa -- Getty Images)

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 4 -- The most infamous story to come out of the dispute between the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, which produces Washington Nationals' games, and Comcast, the Washington area's largest cable provider, came last spring, when Mel Proctor served as the play-by-play man. Early in the season, unsure anyone was able to watch, Proctor gave out his cellphone number over the air, asking viewers to call. No one did.

"I just assumed that there were a lot of people watching," said Tom Paciorek, the color analyst on this year's telecasts, "whether it was five or five billion."

With Friday's announcement that the two companies have reached an agreement in which Comcast will make Nationals games available to its 1.6 million subscribers in the region, the Nationals' viewership will be increased significantly beginning in September, the final month of the team's second season in town. And although the players and coaches at Petco Park in San Diego were only vaguely aware of the dispute, they gladly greeted news of its resolution.

"Absolutely, it makes a difference," Manager Frank Robinson said. "That's the way you create new fans. That's the way you get your fan base to come out to the ballpark, get out of those easy chairs and come out. They say, 'Wow. Did you see that game last night? I'm going to go out and watch that.' "

The lack of a resolution between Comcast, which had a contract to broadcast Baltimore Orioles games, and MASN, a regional sports network developed by Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos, was one of a litany of problems that gave the team a run of negative publicity over the winter. But even as some of those difficulties were peeled away -- Major League Baseball finally completed the sale of the team to the family of Theodore Lerner last month -- the fact that the heart of the team's fan base couldn't watch the majority of its games on television hindered the franchise's development.

"I think it's crucial for the fans to experience the ebb and flow of a baseball season every day like we do," said Bob Carpenter, who serves as MASN's play-by-play man and partners with Paciorek. "The radio guys do a great job, and people always know radio's going to be there. But I think, as time goes on, people need to see the team and to become part of the team. I think TV helps them really get into it. . . . It takes fans to that next level of intimacy with a team so that they can really feel like they're with the club."

The players themselves heard more about the dispute from their families than from anyone else.

"It matters to us," said catcher Brian Schneider, who has Comcast as his cable provider at his Alexandria home. "We've got families, and if they don't make the road trips, they have to go out, go somewhere where there's DirecTV. This will be much better for them."

Some players pointed out that, because the games weren't available on the Comcast, agents had a difficult time getting them endorsement deals. Since the Nationals arrived in Washington for the 2005 season, only outfielder Brad Wilkerson -- since traded to Texas -- has been part of a prominent, regular ad campaign on television. Wilkerson was featured in a commercial for a local bank last season.

That could change now, and it's another way for players to become more prominent members of the community. Carpenter and Paciorek, should they stay on beyond this season, could become more recognizable, too. Both have worked in markets where baseball is well-established, Carpenter in St. Louis and Paciorek in Atlanta and Chicago (with the White Sox). Both said they approached the job the exact same way they would have otherwise. "If we have a million and a half people that can't see us," Carpenter said, "we're still going to do our best."

But they did find it amusing when they visited an Arlington sports bar after their broadcasts to watch games from the West Coast. Some fans didn't recognize them. Others did.

"And they'd come up and say, 'Hey, I love MASN. You guys are doing a great job,' " Carpenter said. "And then other people would come up and say, 'We want to see you, but we can't.' It'll be nice to have that changed."