This has been going on almost since the Nats moved to D.C.
When the Nationals moved to Washington from Montreal, they were more or less forced to take a broadcast deal sharing the Baltimore Orioles’ regional sports network, MASN. This happened because then-Orioles owner Peter Angelos felt the Nats were “invading” his market territory.
The terms were unfavorable to the Nationals and ever since, the teams have been trying to work out a deal.
Earlier this week, such a deal was reached, reported by Ben Strauss and Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post:
According to MLB’s announcement, MASN will air Nationals games for the 2025 season under the terms of a new agreement, after which the Nationals will be able to sell their rights to the highest bidder. Several people around the team speculated about an early front-runner: Monumental Sports Network, run by Ted Leonsis, the owner of the NHL’s Capitals, the NBA’s Wizards and the WNBA’s Mystics. Leonsis, who made a bid to buy the Nationals in 2022, has long coveted baseball broadcast rights to provide year-round programming on his network.
The article goes on to say that such a move would be good news for Nats fans:
Pre- and postgame coverage for Nationals games has been trimmed in recent years, as has the number of spring training games the network televises. After the coronavirus pandemic, MASN tried to cover games without sending announcers on the road, resulting in technical difficulties. Even this spring, broadcasters have provided commentary from the studio for Nationals games played in West Palm Beach, Florida.
If the Nationals end up on Monumental, the move probably would be welcomed by the team’s fans. Monumental has a linear channel available in the D.C. area and a direct-to-consumer streaming service that fans without a cable subscription can purchase.
While this is certainly a possibility, anyone who’s followed the broadcast/cable/satellite industry over the last several years knows that linear broadcasting is heading out, especially for sports teams. The Cubs’ Marquee Sports Network is a good example of this. While Marquee has done reasonably well, it has not provided the amount of revenue to the Cubs that they had hoped for when the channel was launched in 2020. The pandemic, along with the move by many to cut the cable cord and go to streaming, is responsible for most of that, and other RSNs have seen the same thing happen, which is why quite a number of teams have left linear broadcasting, as I detailed in this article here in January.
While it’s certainly possible for the Nats to wind up on Monumental, Commissioner Rob Manfred — who the Nats and Orioles both thanked for his efforts in making this deal — has made no secret that he’d like to see all teams’ broadcast rights brought under one umbrella so he could sell local and national rights at a higher price, potentially beginning after the current national Fox-TV and TBS deals expire after 2028.
Further, this Washington Post article by Barry Svrluga suggests that the Nats to Monumental is by no means a done deal, or will be easy:
… several people familiar with the Lerner family’s negotiating style describe the process as excruciating.
… linking Monday’s development to Nats games being on Monumental in 2026 is hasty, according to people with knowledge of the process. A deal certainly wasn’t in place as a prerequisite to resolving the MASN dispute.
So I’d think it’s entirely possible that the league might lobby the Nats to become part of MLB Local Media, which is carrying the games of seven teams in 2025.
As always, we await developments.