BALTIMORE _ The Orioles lost the latest round in the long-running Mid-Atlantic Sports Network television rights dispute Thursday when a New York judge upheld a second arbitration ruling ordering the network to pay the Washington Nationals $296.8 million in rights fees for the 2012 to 2016 seasons.
The Associated Press reported that judge Joel M. Cohen refused an Orioles request to reject the award based on a similar conflict-of-interest basis that led to the original award being overturned.
The new arbitration award is almost identical to the one that was thrown out and sent back to a new Major League Baseball arbitration panel, but the gross number is believed to include the reported $197.5 million the network already has paid the Nationals for the five seasons covered.
That would leave about $100 million still owed to the Nationals if the award survives another appeal, and the amount the Nats would actually receive likely would be reduced once MASN restates its profits from that period to reflect the higher rights fees. The judge also ruled the Orioles must pay the Nationals interest on the unpaid fees.
The Orioles have long contended the $197.5 million MASN paid the Nationals from 2012 to 2016 was consistent with the formula for determining the rights fees contained in the original contract agreed to by both clubs and MLB when the Montreal Expos moved to Washington in 2005.
The 2005 agreement was weighted toward the Orioles _ giving the team a bigger ownership stake in MASN and a proportionately larger share of the profits _ after the team argued the Nationals' arrival in the region deprived Baltimore of a third of its market.
Orioles attorneys have long contended in court documents that MLB has been trying to unravel the 2005 agreement, which allowed the Nationals to move from Montreal that year.
Thursday's ruling did not come as a surprise. The Baltimore Sun reported in May that the arbitration panel had made its decision in favor of the Nationals. The Sun, citing people familiar with the case, reported the Nats would net from $60 million to $70 million when all adjustments were made.
MASN is expected to exercise the "reserve appeal" included in the original court ruling to send the case to the New York Court of Appeals.
According to a person with knowledge of the litigation, the Orioles retained a right to appeal, but could not exercise it until this second arbitration process was complete.
The dispute appears to be far from over and the outcome hard to predict, but it's certain to restoke paranoia among Baltimore sports fans that the team might be sold or moved.
Public angst bubbled up last week when an unverified report surfaced that the club was in extensive talks to sell the franchise or move it to Nashville, Tenn.
Though a high-ranking club official characterized talk of a potential sale as "rank speculation" and renewed rumors about Nashville as "nonsense," it doesn't take much to keep the rumor mill churning in a town that has never gotten over the snowy night in 1984 when the beloved Colts skipped town and relocated to Indianapolis.
There is no reason to believe an unfavorable ruling in the MASN dispute would send the Orioles packing. Any move or sale would have to be approved by MLB, which is highly unlikely to allow the Orioles to jump to potential expansion cities.
The complicated deal between the Orioles, Nationals and MLB awarded a much larger percentage of the MASN profits to the Orioles in exchange for the franchise to drop its territorial claim to the Washington market and allow MLB to relocate the Montreal Expos to the nation's capital in 2005.
The Orioles got a much larger percentage of the MASN profits after an agreed-upon equal division of rights fees because studies showed the arrival of the Nationals would have a significant impact on Orioles attendance and revenue.
The Orioles and lawyers handling the case did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Thursday.
The Orioles have insisted the enlarged rights payment demanded by the Nationals _ which would also have to be paid to the Orioles _ would dramatically slash MASN profits, which are distributed to both teams on a percentage basis agreed upon in the original contract.
MASN lawyers told the court after the initial arbitration ruling that the amount granted to the Nationals would leave the network with "economically unsustainable 5 percent profit margin."
