LOVERRO: Baseball bet against Orioles owner Peter Angelos on MASN deal and lost

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Here’s what you won’t see in any legal briefs filed by Major League Baseball or the Washington Nationals in the fight with the Baltimore Orioles over the split between the two teams for the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network money.

“When we made this deal in 2004, we really didn’t think we would be dealing with Peter Angelos at this point.”

In other words, when baseball officials made the deal with Angelos to create MASN to avoid having the Orioles owner file a lawsuit opposing the Montreal Expos franchise relocation to the District, the contentious owner was 74 years old. The Nationals, under baseball’s control, took whatever they had to in order to get the deal done.

This is distasteful and crude, I know. No one would suggest anyone was wishing any ill will toward the Orioles owner. But if nature took its course, baseball officials went with the odds that by the time it came around for Washington to get a bigger piece of the MASN pie, they would be dealing with a new owner of the Baltimore Orioles who would have also likely signed any agreement to purchase the franchise to just roll over and take what MLB would give them — and not sue them.

Angelos, as one of the owners in the club, had basically made the same agreement. As a member of the club, he had agreed that the owners’ Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee would determine how much MASN money the Nationals would get when the deal was reopened for negotiations.

But he has refused, arguing in court that the system was flawed — “pervasive conflicts of interest” MASN said in a recent statement. They argued that they never agreed to let the committee set the rights fee however they saw fit, but instead had made a deal where the formula for splitting the regional television money pot of gold would be based on past practices.

“Regrettably, the Commissioner’s statement again makes it clear that MASN cannot receive a fair, objective and impartial hearing before MLB or the RSDC on these matters,” MASN said in its statement — responding to comments that commissioner Rob Manfred said after the owners meetings recently in New York.

“It is important to bear in mind the fundamentals,” Manfred told reporters. “The fundamentals are that the Orioles agreed that the RSDC would set the rights fees for MASN and the Orioles every five years. The Orioles have engaged in a pattern of conduct designed to avoid that agreement being effectuated.”

When baseball officials made the initial deal for MASN, they figured they would be working with someone with a different “pattern of conduct.”

Angelos is 85 years old now, and still a formidable opponent. He convinced a New York Supreme Court judge to set aside the decision by committee to give a much bigger chunk of money to the Nationals, and now the decision is before a private mediator. Nationals owner Ted Lerner, at the age of 90, is just as formidable.

The Nationals want more than $100 million a year from MASN in the new arrangement. The Orioles had a different figure in mind — $35 million. Baseball has determined that it should be around $60 million a year.

But right now, because of the dispute, the Orioles are giving the Nationals zilch. When this is finally decided, one way or another, the Nationals will be getting a lot of money. But MASN may not be able to write the check.

The network’s pot of gold is shrinking fast, as subscribers drop off in the cord-cutting movement. The money to divide has likely shrunk from when this dispute first started, and is probably growing smaller every day.

The end game in this is likely that someone other than MASN will have to write that check. Baseball will have to entice another entity to buy the network and pay the Washington Nationals.

The Orioles? They’ve been exiled, for all intents and purposes, from the owners club. They are being shut out of the All-Star Game bidding (Washington will host the game in 2018) and won’t be getting any favors in the future — at least until the franchise is sold, whenever that happens. And it will happen.