Media-rights resolution will net a near-$320.5 million windfall for MLB team: report

Within the small niche of sports business news that involves media rights valuations, this nugget was easy to miss when the Washington Post reported it in January: the Washington Nationals were "asking the New York Supreme Court to affirm the decision by an MLB committee to award the Nats $320.49 million in rights fees to cover 2022-2026."

In a vacuum, that's a big number. A closer look reveals why it might hold the key to Monday's big news: that the Nationals and Baltimore Orioles had resolved their decades-long legal fight around their regional sports network, MASN.

The two teams reportedly settled on a payout Feb. 28. As part of the resolution, the Nats will get "most of" the $320.49 million they sought, according to the Post's Chelsea Janes. To understand why that might have appealed to their C-suite executives, context is key.

The valuation of baseball's regional sports networks is dwindling along with the size of their audiences. Cord-cutting has already forced Major League Baseball to produce and distribute the regional broadcasts for six teams: the Cleveland Guardians, Milwaukee Brewers, San Diego Padres, Colorado Rockies, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Minnesota Twins.

According to the Post, the Nats and O's "have ended up in court to determine what revenue [tied to the MASN agreement] the Nationals were due in five-year chunks, first from 2012 to 2016, then from 2017 to 2021." The Nats were asking $320.49 million for the 2022-26 chunk but didn't get it — perhaps because RSN revenues aren't what they were in 2005, when the Nationals relocated from Montreal and were tied to the Orioles-controlled network to begin with.

In theory, the Nationals and Orioles could have gone on litigating their revenue claims every five years. So why stop now? Perhaps the Nats saw the "sinking ship" of RSN revenues for what they are: a trend unlikely to abate.

As Dave Scarangella of DullesDistrict.com notes on Twitter/X, "typically, what happens is one side says instead of $320 million, we'll give you 'X' in return for agreeing to dismiss all litigation."

My biggest curiosity is about the "all disputes related to past media rights between the Nationals, Orioles and MASN have been resolved, and all litigation will be dismissed." An MLB committee previously awarded the Nationals $320.49 million in rights fees to cover the period… https://t.co/rtc0ipGhTk
— Dave Scarangella (@DaveScarangella) March 3, 2025

X, in this case, equals most of the $320.49 million and the Nationals relinquishing their ownership stake in MASN of "around 30 percent," according to the Post.

Above all else, the news marks a win for the Nats — even if it came 20 years later than they hoped, and it took a sharp decline in RSN revenues across the industry to bring it about.

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