The Monday morning news on the Washington Nationals was far from the mundane on the team’s scheduled day-off from games and practice. After over 20-years under the Orioles’ MASN-controlled ownership of the Nationals local TV rights, Major League Baseball announced this morning that after the end of the 2025 season, “The Nationals will be free to explore alternatives for their television rights for the 2026 season and beyond.” The press release also added that, “As part of the settlement, all disputes related to past media rights … have been resolved, and all litigation will be dismissed.”
Full financial terms of the settlement and agreement were not announced. Maybe there was cryptic foreshadowing that something was brewing when Nationals’ principal owner, Mark Lerner, spoke to the media two weeks ago when Spring Training camp opened and said:
“ … we’re in it for the long haul. … we’re working hard to work out all the issues — MASN, and everything else.”
— Lerner said as part of his overall message that they were not selling the team
Not even two weeks after Lerner’s remarks, many of the outstanding issues have been solved or clarified, and major sponsorships might actually be cashed-in for much needed new-found revenue. This is a giant step for … uh, the Nationals and their fans. This long MASN nightmare is close to over after the 2025 season — at least for the Nationals.
Clearly, the early favorite to air Nationals’ games in the future would be the Monumental Sports Network run by DC local, Ted Leonsis, whose Monumental Sports & Entertainment company also controls ownership of the Washington Capitals and Washington Wizards as the largest parts of their extensive sports portfolio. Leonsis was clear that he wanted baseball television rights to give his network full-year coverage. Other than Leonsis, the Nationals could join another network that could enter the region.
In response to MLB’s press release, the Orioles new principal owner, David Rubenstein, was quoted to say simply, “We are happy to have this longstanding issue resolved and look forward to the season ahead.” H/T to TheNatsReport. What we don’t know is if there were any further payments or financial incentives given to the Orioles to sever the relationship since no further details were disclosed.
Additionally, minutes after the MASN news broke, Forbes published an article breaking the news that the Nationals have finally agreed to sell their stadium naming rights as well as the jersey sleeve sponsorship that is expected to be announced by the end of the season. While no deals are in place, the Nationals hope this can be in-place during the summer.
Just selling the stadium naming rights and the jersey sleeve patch could bring in at least $20 million annually as we have written about in past articles on the subject. The Nationals were the only team in the NL East without both sponsorships.
The Forbes’ article had this, “Baseball’s only team without a deal in either partnership category hopes to have both by year’s end, potentially adding more than $20 million in annual revenue.”
According to Forbes, the Nationals has already contracted with New York City-based Excel Sports Management to spearhead a dual marketing push, targeting both their stadium naming rights and jersey patch sponsorship with initial talks with potential partners that actually kicked-off in January. The Nationals’ strategy is to treat the two sponsorship opportunities as separate but parallel pursuits, with Excel Sports Management leading the charge. While the processes are independent of each other, the team is optimistic about sealing deals in 2025—possibly even midseason. Forbes estimates that, combined, these sponsorships could inject over $20 million annually into the Nationals’ coffers. We looked at this a year ago with the hopes of matching the Atlanta Braves’ combined $22 million. Forbes writes, “That’s a significant boost for a franchise looking to elevate its financial game, especially in a league where sponsorship revenue is becoming as critical as a well-timed double play.”
With the Nationals making just $58 million from their annual TV rights, the team just has to beat that number to add much-needed revenue. Additive to that would be selling those lucrative sponsorships. Even if the Nationals could get to $75 million on their TV rights, and $20 million on the new sponsorships, that would add $37 million to the bottom-line and give general manager Mike Rizzo some much needed cash to play with to sign a big name player next offseason. The combination of added excitement, new marquee player(s), and winning — should increase attendance — and that is where the biggest payoff is. Large growth in attendance would be the team’s biggest revenue piece if they could get back to where they were just 10-years ago. The Phillies did just that for the 2019 season and parlayed that into 569,297 more fans after they signed Bryce Harper before that season. It can be done.
“Summertime is when the Nats are top of mind for our fan base, and we think that’s the perfect time to make an announcement. In that scenario, patches would begin appearing on jerseys almost immediately, and temporary signage would be installed on the stadium currently known as Nationals Park within a few weeks. More permanent signage would be in place for Opening Day next year.
— this exclusive quote to Forbes from Mike Carney, the Nationals’ chief revenue officer
A key from the Forbes article is this, “Carney isn’t offering specifics on how the team plans to put the extra money to use but suggests it could help boost the player payroll, which has ranked in the league’s bottom ten for the past couple of seasons.”
Editor’s Note: Source explained that when Ted Lerner ran the team that his theory was based on aggressively budgeting for the team to make the postseason and would balance their budget with that added postseason income to offset their overruns on player salaries. While breakeven was the goal, the Nats missed the playoffs in 2015, 2018, and the COVID seasons of 2020 into 2021 severely impacted every team financially. The Nationals ran that way from 2015 to 2021, until the rebuild began. That is where they rolled back to their rebuilding plan. Our source said that Nats’ ownership wants to run this “without losing money.” With increased revenue, you can expect “increased spending.” While we know Lerner won’t open up his books as John Angelos once promised and then failed to do, we just have to hope that Lerner gives Rizzo whatever he asks for. That is all we can do is hope.
“We want to win championships, and we are really excited about the team we have on the field today. We want to be that brand that is a consistent winner year in and year out, and [these new sponsorships] are going to help to do that.”
— this exclusive quote to Forbes from Mike Carney, the Nationals’ chief revenue officer
Timing is everything in business and life. If the Washington Nationals were in full-control of their TV rights back when they were an annual playoff contender, just think if they got a deal as good as or better than the Phillies received in 2014 when they inked a $5 billion, 25-year local television deal with Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia. That was in the boom years of regional sports networks (RSN). Philly cashed in at the right time even though they were in the second year of a long rebuild with a losing record.
The MASN dissolution comes at a time when cashing in on a huge long-term deal probably is not in the cards after declining cable subscription rates have changed the market due to cord-cutting having a direct effect on RSNs. Of course, commissioner Manfred might one day have a national TV contract for all games in every market similar to the NFL. Until then, the Nationals will be able to seek out a new TV deal. Anything over the $58 million that they were scheduled to have received from MASN for next year would be a financial improvement.
The future for the Washington Nationals looks much brighter today.
