The appellate division of the New York Supreme Court today rendered a split decision in the ongoing MASN media rights case, leaving the Orioles-controlled RSN and the Nationals each claiming victory. The court ruled in a unanimous 5-0 vote to affirm a ’15 lower court ruling vacating a prior decision by MLB’s Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee in favor of the Nationals. That affirmation represents a win for MASN and fully and historically overturns the original RSDC arbitration ruling. The court also ruled by a 3-2 vote to allow the Nationals to take the dispute back to the RSDC, which has since been reconstituted with a new set of team owners and presidents.
The ruling to allow the Nationals to return to the league’s internal RSDC marks the first significant court win of any type since the dispute began more than five years ago. However, that decision will be appealed by MASN, still leaving the long-running dispute very far from a final resolution. "The trial court was correct in vacating the RSDC’s determination based on ‘evident partiality,’" the ruling reads in part. “However… the court correctly rejected MASN’s and the Orioles’ argument that the parties’ agreement should be disregarded and the matter remanded to an arbitral forum unaffiliated with MLB.”
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The ruling also cited the original agreement in '05 creating MASN in which the rights fees disputes would go before the RSDC while other disputes would go before the MLB Commissioner or American Arbitration Association. “That decision carve out telecast fee disputes for arbitration before the RSDC was a conscious choice,” the ruling said. That left the Nationals happy with the decision, and said more than $200M is in dispute between the ’12-16 rights fee period still being litigated, and another period yet to decided for ’17-21.
With the original ruling now gone, there is not any new money coming to the Nationals. “We look forward to finally having the rights fees determined in the forum the parties chose,” said Stephen Neuwirth, a Quinn Emanuel lawyer representing the Nationals. MASN intends to take this before the New York State Court of Appeals, and pointed to a strongly worded dissenting opinion from Presiding Justice Rolando Acosta, who said, “This case involves extraordinary circumstances that necessitate removing this particular matter from the RSDC and MLB’s purview.”
