http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/major-league-baseball-embroiled-explosive-721927
H/T to my friend Jason Amos who sent me this link, posted earlier today. Looks like nobody else has it yet. Makes me slightly wonder about the veracity.
Read the details. Apparently the eternal “committee” studying the MASN compensation issue reached a verdict that Peter Angelos didn’t like, and things are starting to get nasty in court filings.
Wow. Sounds like things are about to get dirty between Angelos, Ted Lerner and wishing-he-had-retired-already Bud Selig.
Wow indeed! This farce has been bound for court since day one, hasn’t it? If there is justice in the world, Angelos and Selig will be left with egg on their faces, and the Nats will recover tens of millions in lost income. Of course if it goes to court, it may take years to resolve.
And what a bombshell, albeit long suspected, that the league had been paying hush money to the Nats.
KW
29 Jul 14 at 5:15 pm
It seems remarkable that no one else has picked this up yet. Glad to see that (a) the initial ruling was in our favor, that is always the better place to start from, and (b) that things are finally moving towards resolution. I am sure that the Post will have something soon. Can’t wait to hear Boz take.
Wally
29 Jul 14 at 6:15 pm
Hush money: didn’t we find out that MLB was paying the Nats cash under the table earlier? Maybe not.
My ultimate wish is that MASN is dissolved, CSN negotiates with each team for the rights and we are divorced from that a-hole in Baltimore. MLB should have *known* not to make a deal with such iffy future requirements with a frigging career litigator.
Todd Boss
30 Jul 14 at 8:16 am
The reason for the original agreement was MLB was terrified of Angelos. The Expos could have come 2 years earlier if they wren’t.
I agree with Tom Boswell that if Selig leaves without settling the MASN mess and Oakland/Giants ballpark situation, he will leave a failure.
Mark L
30 Jul 14 at 8:56 am
Kilgore’s article on the topic today: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/in-debate-over-masn-rights-mlb-rules-for-washington-nationals-but-fight-continues/2014/07/29/65a3af4e-1774-11e4-9e3b-7f2f110c6265_story.html
not much new.
MLB made their own bed by allowing these teams to “claim” ownership of vast parts of the country in a gold-rush era “land grab” that was always going to be a bad idea. Why do the SF Giants get to “claim” San Jose when its nearly equidistant to SF as it is to Oakland? Washington DC was, by FAR, the largest market without baseball in the land for 30 years. I mean, by far. Based on various measures (population, wealth, TV households) DC is usually between 5th and 7th in the country, larger than Baltimore. Next closest is San Antonio, which supports one pro franchise. Nothing we don’t already know. But the situation is akin to the San Diego Chargers claiming ownership of the Los Angeles NFL market right now because there’s no team there. Its just ludicrous. We’ll eventually have the same argument if/when a team tries to move into North Carolina (currently claimed I believe by both Washington and Atlanta despite both teams being hundreds of miles from places like Charlotte or the Research Triangle. See the blackout map for more).
Its just frustrating to me. A classic example of what happens when you give unfettered monopolistic control in the form of an out-dated anti-trust policy to a bunch of selfish millionaires in a private old-boy’s club; they’re always going to do in their own best interests at the exact time of the decision without thought to the long term ramifications.
Todd Boss
30 Jul 14 at 9:19 am
Boz has hinted several times that MLB might be paying the Nats under the table to keep the Lerners from filing suit. But he also said that if it ever came out conclusively that the league had been doing it, that Selig would be in deep doodoo with some of the other owners who have their own less-than-favorable deals. (I believe Boz is on vacation right now, by the way.)
This was a ridiculous deal from the start, made (as Mark says) because MLB feared Angelos, and made before the Lerners and their considerable cash and clout owned the team. Selig had no spine then, and he has none now. His threats to Angelos and Lerner are childish and probably illegal. But if you get me started on a Selig rant, I might not stop . . .
It’s hard enough for the Nats (and everyone else) to compete with teams with TV deals like the Dodgers have, giving them almost unlimited cash, and cash that doesn’t have to come from the owner’s checkbook. That the MASN scam has been allowed to continue for so long is unbelieveable.
In the meantime, it’s almost impossible for the Nats to know what they will have available to them to re-sign guys like Desmond and Zimmermann, and Stras the following year, not to mention to fill the possible free-agent holes this year that could be left by LaRoche, Span, and Soriano.
KW
30 Jul 14 at 9:23 am
Jonah Keri “broke” the story that MLB was paying the Nats under the table in this Feb 2014 expose on the state of the Orioles. But he didn’t have specifics like this story has.
Todd Boss
30 Jul 14 at 4:24 pm
Keri’s piece was the first I read about the Nats being paid under the table. But Boswell made the useful point that such an arrangement puts players like Desmond at a negotiating disadvantage, because a brown bag payment like that is invisible revenue, and so players don’t know how much the team can afford (a relative term for the Lerners) to offer in salary. FWIW, the long term offer to Desi was clearly deficient in terms of what a SS with his range and power could get on the market, and he was shrewd to reject it.
clark17
30 Jul 14 at 6:54 pm
Clark: completely agree. This deal screws the Nats and (apparently) screws the Orioles too … who by Keri’s argument have been inactive in the FA market because they also have been uncertain just how much $$ they’ll have to put out. That’s the argument anyway; whether or not you believe it is up to you. Personally I think its BS; I think Angelos feels he got burned when he had the Orioles payroll high (in their late 90s hey day, they had the highest payroll in baseball), did his firesale and refuses to spend what he needs to spend to compete. Remember; Cleveland (aka a “small market”) used to have one of the highest payrolls in the game too; success breeds attendance, attendance drives revenues, revenues drive payroll. Maybe its not that simple in the RSN era but there has to be some relationship between success and revenues (well, unless you’re the Rays and your stadium sucks and is in an awful spot … Baltimore, Cleveland and DC can’t make that claim).
Desmond offer; i can’t help but think he has his eye on the Yankees job. I wouldn’t sign a contract if I was him that wasn’t the equal of Elvis Andrus deal.
Todd Boss
31 Jul 14 at 8:06 am