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Washington Nationals fans, like me, are going to be watching their team on a different TV network this season; we just don’t know which one yet.
Multiple reports have the team moving on from its relationship with MASN, and joining the MLB Media package, which doesn’t mean much for you or me to know – all that matters to us is, again, where will we get our Nats?
Again, dunno.
Word is, the franchise is looking for a distribution partner in the DC media market, which would seem to point in an obvious direction – Ted Leonsis, the owner of Monumental Sports & Entertainment.
You may remember Leonsis from his bid in 2023 to get Glenn Youngkin to gift him billions to build a new arena for his NBA and NHL teams in Northern Virginia, which didn’t work out, but Leonsis did leverage Youngkin’s desire to help out into grifting money out of the locals in DC.
Leonsis, a former top AOL executive who made big money in venture capital, has also had interest in buying the Nationals from the Lerner family, which had been looking for a buyer, but took the franchise off the market in 2024, basically because they sensed the market wasn’t ripe for them to get back what they wanted.
I’m seeing estimates on the valuation of the Nats franchise at $2.1 billion, give or take.
Leonsis has a net worth in the $2.8 billion range.
His MSN TV network has a valuation in the $7.5 billion range.
All these billions; I just want to watch baseball.
I’d switch over to rooting for the Baltimore Orioles, except that it just came to my knowledge that the new local owner, David Rubenstein, beloved Baltimore-born and -bred billionaire, made his money skimming off federal contracts and jacking up rents on people in trailer parks, as private-equity quants are wont to do.
They’re all grifters, basically.
Why do we devote ourselves to this nonsense again?