The Washington Nationals will be searching for a new home for their local games at the end of the season. This news comes after MLB announced in a statement that the Nationals and Baltimore Orioles have ended their Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) dispute. The Nationals, who have a 23% interest in MASN, are free agents after this season and are “free to explore alternatives for their rights for the 2026 season and beyond,” according to the statement.
“As part of the settlement, all disputes related to past media rights between the Nationals, Orioles, and MASN have been resolved, and all litigation will be dismissed,” the MLB said in a statement.
Currently, the regional sports networks (RSNs) MASN and MASN2 serve as the in-market home for both teams and provide coverage to millions of homes in a seven-state region that includes Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and parts of West Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
However, for many fans who live in their market, streaming the Orioles and Nationals has been a process, as DIRECTV STREAM and Fubo are the two major live TV streaming platforms that carry the RSN. To stream games in the MASN app, users must be subscribed to a paid TV service that carries the network, such as Comcast. With the cost of live TV subscriptions increasing and pay-TV providers placing the RSN in a higher tier, MASN is working on an upcoming direct-to-consumer streaming service to combat cord cutting.
MASN has felt the effects of its subscriber loss over the years, which has led to the Nationals taking a 20% decrease in revenue from its agreement with the MLB’s Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee. The Nationals signed a five-year agreement worth around $72.8 million per season from 2022 to 2026. However, that deal decreased to around $58.3 million per season from 2024 to 2026.
“It was foreseeable that, to minimize the risk of bankruptcy, MASN would have sought, and the Nationals would have agreed to, a reduction in rights fees for 2024-2026; and a 20% cut in rights fees is consistent with what the market expected in 2021,” the RSDC wrote in a 56-page decision.
Now that the Nationals will be free to sign a new deal elsewhere at the end of the season, the team could get a lucrative offer and recoup some of the money lost over the last few years instead of sharing with the Orioles, who have 77% controlling interest in MASN.
The Nationals could join the Washington Capitals and Wizards on the Monumental Sports Network, which already has a direct-to-consumer streaming platform. Or, take a swing at other options, including local TV networks, letting the MLB produce games in-house, producing their own games, or partnering with another RSN such as FanDuel Sports Network.