Right here’s a couple of issues that didn’t appear possible again in the summertime of 2006, when the Lerner household formally took possession of the Washington Nationals: The crew would win the primary of 4 division titles inside six years; the Lerner household would sooner or later ponder promoting a franchise household patriarch Ted spent half a life pursuing; and 16 years later, that franchise would nonetheless be in a dispute with the neighboring Baltimore Orioles over the rights charges from MASN.
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Perspective | MASN still hangs over the Nationals, but there might be cause for hope
Rank these when it comes to unlikeliness. Robust selection. However that final merchandise hangs over the franchise in a approach that is still crippling. It’s front-of-mind as a result of the Lerners are exploring a attainable sale, and the knee-jerk impulse is that the MASN entanglement with the Orioles is a possible snag. It’s front-of-mind, too, as a result of MASN’s broadcasters are outliers in baseball in not touring to any highway video games — a choice that reeks of economic limitations, regardless of the purported cause.
That is good for precisely nobody. Seventeen years after the Nationals arrived, the regional sports activities community entrusted with its broadcasts nonetheless isn’t offering the crew with the income it anticipated. Greater than that, it typically seems like a low-rent operation that may’t present the very best product for its clients.
That’s a disgrace for Bob Carpenter, the longtime play-by-play man occurring 40 years within the enterprise, and his new colour analyst Kevin Frandsen, who changed F.P. Santangelo this spring and is proving early on to be insightful and enthusiastic. It’s a disgrace for all of the individuals who have labored relentlessly through the years — in entrance of the digicam and behind it — to provide a satisfactory product. For 3 hours an evening, they’ve nearly at all times achieved that.
Todd Webster, a MASN spokesperson, issued a press release to my colleague Ben Strauss that stated: “The worldwide pandemic required all of us to be taught new classes in innovation, resourcefulness, and resilience. MASN is carrying ahead a few of these classes.”
How noble. Phrased in another way: “We’re prepared to avoid wasting money on the expense of the standard of the published. Sorry, viewers.”
Indicators of decay are all over the place, unimaginable to cover. There was once a studio past the left subject stands at Nationals Park, the spot from which Johnny Holliday and Ray Knight — and later Dan Kolko and Bo Porter — broadcast pre- and postgame exhibits. It has been dismantled. Kolko — the favored dugout reporter and backup play-by-play man — was let go by MASN in the course of the pandemic, as have been others, and is on the broadcasts solely as a result of the Nationals employed him again. He now hosts the pre- and postgame exhibits — solo — from a small nook of the Nats’ press field.
For a franchise that gained the World Sequence simply three seasons in the past, the community that carries its video games feels unnecessarily held collectively by duct tape. It’s all rooted within the chaos during which MASN was initially created. That historical past is related — and even amusing — so let’s go over it. But additionally, ultimately, get to this thought: What if, with the Lerners hanging out a “For Sale” signal on the Nationals, MASN isn’t a lot an albatross however a possibility?
First, a reminder concerning the origin story, as a result of it issues now and going ahead. In late 2004, when Main League Baseball moved the Montreal Expos to Washington, then-commissioner Bud Selig needed to lengthen some form of olive department to Orioles proprietor Peter Angelos. Baltimore’s proprietor felt — sorry, feels — that the Nationals’ mere existence infringes on his crew’s territory, in order that department was management of the Washington franchise’s broadcast rights. The Mid-Atlantic Sports activities Community was created swiftly and controversially.
This was a time, you may recall, when the Orioles had a storefront in downtown D.C., hawking orange-and-black gear; when District 12-year-olds grew up on Cal Ripken Jr. and Eddie Murray.
However as a result of Angelos had moved the Orioles’ broadcasts from Comcast SportsNet’s Baltimore-Washington community, father or mother firm Comcast prohibited Orioles and Nationals video games from being distributed on its cable methods, the dominant provider within the space. So the tone for MASN was set in these early days. Washington followers clamoring to develop into accustomed to their new crew and its gamers — who have been surprisingly in first place over the primary half of the 2005 season — couldn’t get the vast majority of video games on their TVs.
“Like this one night time I gave out my cellphone quantity on the air and stated, ‘If anyone’s watching wherever, name this quantity,’” Mel Proctor, MASN’s first play-by-play voice, advised me that June. “And the one one who known as was the tape operator from the truck.”
From a broadcast standpoint, it received higher — tons higher. However there wasn’t — and nonetheless isn’t — ancillary programming across the half-hour earlier than the sport, the sport itself and the half-hour after. “The Mid-Atlantic Sports activities Report” at all times felt extra like neighborhood cable entry tv than the sort of next-level roundtable present each Washington and Baltimore deserve.
And right here we are actually: with MLB’s income sharing committee twice ruling that the Nationals needs to be awarded $100 million, basically in again pay, by MASN. A New York appeals court docket upheld the award in 2020. MASN is, in fact, interesting. If it appears like this by no means ends, it’s as a result of it by no means ends.
However right here’s the place there may be some mild on the finish of a tunnel that for thus lengthy has appeared to increase to the earth’s core: We all know the Lerners are pursuing a minimum of new buyers and, much more probably, a purchaser for the Nationals. Individuals round baseball suspect that the Angelos household is getting ready to promote the Orioles. If the latter occurs, what turns into of the Nationals’ broadcast rights? They switch again to the Nationals.
Instantly, what had been a burden may develop into a boon. That is a very attention-grabbing time in sports activities media rights. Sure, there stays some nagging uncertainty right here, however take into consideration what a possible new Nationals proprietor who has expertise working sports activities franchises and would like to increase her or his media empire — taking a look at you, Ted Leonsis — may don’t solely with the baseball membership, however with the rights to stream and broadcast its content material. That’s not simply the video games, that are three-hour commercials on your product. That’s the programming round them — utilizing in-house media personalities to discover and develop the personalities on the crew.
Transcend that. There could possibly be methods to enhance the experiences each within the ballpark and on the sofa. Both approach, there are alternatives that might excite a brand new proprietor with imaginative and prescient and innovation. For 17 years, MASN has been held again to such a level that it hasn’t had a lot of both.
The potential for a Nationals’ sale issues to Nationals followers as a result of it would assist decide the route of the roster rebuild presently underway. However regulate a possible O’s sale, too, Nats followers. Bob Carpenter and Kevin Frandsen aren’t touring for highway video games, and that’s a symptom of a illness that has plagued the Washington franchise for its total existence. But there may simply be a path out — with unbelievable potential not only for a brand new proprietor, however for the crew’s followers, on the opposite facet.