The forced brotherhood between the Nationals and Orioles that played out through the creation of the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network has reached its conclusion. After 21 seasons, the Nationals are departing the network ahead of the 2026 season, the club announced.
Washington will join MLB’s production and distribution model, becoming the seventh team to do so.
“Today’s announcement represents a new chapter for Washington Nationals baseball,” said managing principal owner Mark Lerner in a statement. “We are excited to have already begun work with the talented team at MLB, and the collaboration is off to a strong start as we work together to elevate the viewing experience with world-class broadcasts across television and streaming.
“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. We’re thrilled to be able to offer the kind of presentation that our dedicated fans across the entire Mid-Atlantic region deserve.”
Without the Nationals as part of MASN, it’s unclear how long the Orioles will operate the network. At the time of the Orioles’ sale from the Angelos family to the ownership group led by David Rubenstein in 2024, MASN held no equity value, according to Forbes.
The rights fees the network paid to the Nationals and Orioles took up much of MASN’s operating income, Forbes wrote.
In a statement, Greg Bader, the executive vice president and general manager of MASN said: “The past year marked a significant turning point in our relationship with the Nationals, and we had been optimistic about continuing this productive partnership. We respect their decision to move forward independently and will ensure a professional and coordinated transition. MASN will continue to operate as the Orioles’ rights holder throughout our seven-state region.”
A spokesperson for the network said MASN2 will no longer be available on TV guides and that the network will operate with one main channel.
Given the difficult period for regional sports networks, the breakup between the Nationals and Orioles leads to many questions. Among them: Will the Orioles, on their own, have enough customer base to support the long-term continuation of MASN?
Last week, during an appearance at The Economic Club of Washington, D.C., Orioles president of business operations Catie Griggs insinuated that there’s still a large Orioles audience in D.C.
“We still have a number of fans that are coming up from the Washington metropolitan area,” Griggs said. “When the team is good — frankly, even when they’re not as good as we hope they are, there are more people tuning in to watch us in D.C. than another club that may represent this area.”
A split became a possibility last March when Major League Baseball announced a resolution to over a decade of legal disputes between the Nationals and Orioles. The Nationals received an unspecified settlement, the league announced.
As part of that outcome, the Nationals became “free to explore alternatives for their television rights” after the 2025 season, MLB said. That didn’t preclude the Nationals from remaining on MASN for 2026 and beyond, but it allowed an exploration process that was prevented more than two decades ago, when MLB created MASN to ease the relocation of the Montreal Expos into Baltimore’s television market.
The network began with the Orioles initially receiving 90% of its profits while the Nationals received 10%, but the Orioles’ share decreased by 1% each year. The breakdown was scheduled to eventually settle at 67% to 33% in favor of the Orioles.
Disputes began almost immediately between the organizations regarding TV rights fees. The issues wound up in court for over a decade as the organizations quarreled over how much each team should be owed before the settlement arrived in March.
The Nationals’ deal with MASN wasn’t set to expire until the end of February, two sources said. But a decision on what came next occurred sooner.
Next month, fans in Washington’s local television market can buy a Nationals.TV subscription to stream games. The local market for the Nationals includes Washington, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and parts of North Carolina, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
For out-of-market fans, those games can be streamed through the ESPN app.
Information on cable and satellite providers, including specific channel locations, will be announced at a later date.
The Nationals are joining the Diamondbacks, Guardians, Mariners, Padres, Rockies and Twins as teams whose television broadcasts are under the direction of MLB. The rise of the league’s control of television production has been swift and comes at a time when there is significant uncertainty surrounding the future of regional sports networks.
MLB’s TV operation may expand further in the near future because nine teams terminated contracts with broadcasting company Main Street Sports this month, according to ESPN. Despite the company’s financial trouble, the nine MLB teams that terminated their contracts can renegotiate with Main Street or find an alternative.
Those teams are the Braves, Reds, Tigers, Royals, Angels, Marlins, Brewers, Cardinals and Rays.
