Rich Tandler's Nationals blog.

Monday, March 28, 2005

TV Deal is in Angelos' court

It's time for Peter Angelos to fish or cut bait. The following information comes to us from Jim Williams, columnist for The Examiner:
  • Four owners of Major League Baseball teams told me that if this thing is not put to bed by mid week they are going to tell Angelos to walk and sue them. Calls to owners and other members of baseball community are mad at Angelos for his not accepting a once in a lifetime deal.
  • This is the single biggest league give - away in sports history and many owners see no reason to give Peter everything. So it comes to an end this week.
  • People forget that the Nationals are owned by all 30 teams including Angelos. In a vote as you may recall back in December they voted 29-1 to move the team to DC - before then MLB wanted to work out a fair compensation package - which they did not have to do...the lawsuit was a concern but now they don't care because MLB is convinced and most lawyers I have spoken to -- say that the Orioles should take the money because IF he sues he will lose. Why? Baseball has given Angelos ALL of what he wanted except the TV deal that he wanted which was to own the Nationals TV rights.
  • So now it is time to take the deal or walk and either way CSN will be involved either the managing partner of the Nats- O's and CSN regional cable network, or they will sign the Nats to a deal that will be worth as much if not more than the O's.
  • Many owners said at this point they don't care if Angelos walks. The team will sell over 2.5 million tickets or more so MLB can jack up the franchise price to a low point of $375 million to $450 dollars and a huge part of that is TV deal. So it is over for Peter, he either takes the amazing deal on the table or risk getting nothing.
You can read Williams' new Examiner article on the subject here.

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