The Nationals announced Wednesday that they’re stepping away from their local broadcasting deal with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network. Major League Baseball will handle in-market distribution via streaming on the league’s MLB.tv platform and through yet to be announced cable/satellite partnerships. Chelsea Janes of The Washington Post and Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com were among those to cover the news.
“Today’s announcement represents a new chapter for Washington Nationals baseball,” owner Mark Lerner said in a press release. “Partnering with MLB offers us several new opportunities that will greatly improve the on-air product, including technological enhancements, the ability to work more closely with our broadcasters, and create added opportunities for our valued corporate partners.”
It officially concludes a fraught relationship with MASN, the network which had been jointly owned by the Nationals and Orioles since the former relocated to D.C. in 2005. Those two decades were marred by disputes over rights fees. The Orioles held a majority stake in the network as a condition of the Nationals relocating into their geographic territory. The sides went to arbitration to resolve calculations over rights fees, and the uncertainty was reportedly a stumbling block in the Lerner family’s efforts to sell the Nationals in 2022. The enmity also kept the teams from making any trades with one another.
David Rubenstein purchased the Orioles from the Angelos family two years later. That allowed for a fresh start in negotiations that resulted in a deal last March resolving all past disputes and settling on fees for the 2025 season. The agreement provided that the Nats could explore other opportunities in ’26.
This comes as the RSN model continues its decline around the league. The Nationals are the seventh team to turn broadcasts over to MLB. The Diamondbacks, Padres, Twins, Guardians, Rockies and Mariners have also done so. Those clubs don’t have the certainty of fixed rights fees because their previous providers were unable to meet their contractual obligations. Most of those organizations had agreements with Main Street Sports, the corporation that operates the FanDuel Sports (formerly Bally Sports) Networks.
Main Street Sports is back in hot water. The company recently missed payments to the Marlins and Cardinals. That led all nine teams that had agreements with Main Street to pull out of their contracts last week. Main Street is seeking a buyer and has otherwise said it plans to shutter operations at the end of the NBA and NHL seasons, which would leave the nine MLB teams in limbo. Evan Drellich of The Athletic writes that Main Street is hoping to renegotiate three-year deals with MLB clubs that would run through the 2028 season. Those could involve a hybrid arrangement that includes some fixed fees and a revenue sharing agreement that responds to the broadcaster’s loss of profits as consumers continue to move away from cable.
They also got Alexa Datt. Probably their best move this winter.
“Alexa, where’s my Nationals games?”
“The MLB national game of the week between the Cubs and Yankees is Friday, on Apple TV”
I had to google. After meticulous research, I heartily agree.
Alexa? Who Datt?
Interesting, wonder if that means O’s viewers will be paying more or less, or merely what they had been paying.
Hopefully this means Kevin Fransden is off the air.
This means the whole thing is heading for a national deal.
Huh, I think most assumed they would move to the Monumental Sports Network (operated by the Wizards/Capitals ownership). Monumental has much more original programming than MASN and appears to be much better funded.
Another team getting bitten by the RSN fiasco and less money for those middle guys looking to sign with anyone.
Wasn’t there a big lawsuit involving TV rights when the Nationals came to town? Didn’t MLB assure everyone things were fine and not to worry?
Good luck in the Wild West of cord-cutting/revenue-cutting that is streaming. — Bird-in-the-hand.
Worth noting: TalkNats broke this story almost two weeks ago.
talknats.com/2026/01/02/breaking-nats-broadcasting…
Thanks be to God. The end of Bob Carpenter’s horrible broadcast and the end of the Nats on MASN is a symphony of glory.
So when they say they’re switching over to MLB, does that mean MLB is responsible for all of the production for each team? When two of these teams face each other, will MLB be producing two separate shows, one for each home audience?
Does this mean it will end blackouts for the Nats? I live in Charlotte and have the Nats and Os blacked out (400 miles away), the Reds blacked out (700 miles away) and the Braves blacked out (that one is understandable being 200 miles away). Paying for MLB.tv as a Mets fan in Charlotte I am missing around 25% of all the games. I use a VPN to try to get around it but that’s an additional expense
I agree, the blackouts are ridiculous. I lived in Vegas and had blackouts for Dodgers, Angels, Padres, Giants, A’s and DBacks. Hopefully the A’s moving there will solve that issue for the fans in that market since no one cares if the A’s are blacked out.
I guess that means the Orioles will no longer get any National TV Games!