MASN yesterday petitioned to the N.Y. Supreme Court to have an MLB award for the Nationals in its ongoing TV rights fee dispute vacated and the issue moved to a neutral, third-party arbitrator. The move was part of a massive batch of documents the RSN filed with the court in preparation for a trial scheduled for Dec. 15. MASN previously obtained an injunction preventing a league award for the Nationals in the long-running fight from happening while the case is litigated. The RSN again laid out many of the arguments it successfully used to obtain that injunction, namely the league’s Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee used an improper methodology to set that award and an alleged conflict of interest involving Proskauer Rose, the law firm representing the league, the Nationals and some members of the RSDC. The latest batch of documents seek to lay out a paper trail documenting long-running objections on those grounds by MASN and its majority owner, the Orioles, and how the RSDC award deviates from an ’05 settlement deal between MLB and Orioles Owner Peter Angelos. The latest petition also alleges MLB is having “buyers remorse” in the deal that grants Angelos majority control of the net in perpetuity and that the league “let it be known to prospective purchasers of the Nationals that Baseball would use its powers to restructure the economics of the MASN partnership to the benefit of the Nationals, by and through the arbitration process." MASN then claims it used that promise to fuel the then-record $450M sale of the Nationals to Ted Lerner and his family in ’06, and later faced repeated threats from MLB execs to restructure the settlement or face adverse RSDC rulings.
MISTRUST OF MLB, MANFRED: A supporting filing from the Orioles, while also arguing for a referral of the case to a neutral third-party, outlines a specific mistrust of MLB and Commissioner-elect Rob Manfred to handle the issue internally. “The actions that Manfred personally took, or failed to take, in these proceedings are at the heart of this dispute,” the club’s filing reads. “In order to oversee a fair process here, Manfred would have to reverse positions he has personally taken…and would have to reverse the positions taken by the previous Commissioner.” Another filing, representing minutes from a March '05 meeting of MLB’s Exec Council, shows several club owners, including White Sox' Jerry Reinsdorf, Cardinals' Bill DeWitt and Mets' Fred Wilpon, wanted some sort of expiration on MLB’s settlement with Angelos rather than a deal in perpetuity. But Commissioner Bud Selig essentially overruled them, “emphasizing that it was indeed his job to focus on the damage to the Orioles.” The Nationals and MLB have until Oct. 20 to file a cross petition disputing MASN’s claims, with reply briefs due in November.
