At long last, baseball fans in the DMV will have a direct-to-consumer option to watch their local teams. According to multiple reports, MASN, the regional sports network carrying Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals games, has launched a streaming service called MASN+ to stream all games and studio programming from both teams starting Monday. The Orioles and Nationals were two of three MLB franchises without a direct-to-consumer offering for live games this season, leaving only the Houston Astros without a streaming service for fans.
MASN+ will be competitively priced compared to other regional sports networks, with a subscription costing $19.99 per month or $89.99 for the remainder of the season—slightly lower than its peers due to the later launch. “We are well aware that fans of both clubs have been clamoring for this, and we are thrilled to be in a position, coming out of some of the agreements with the Nationals, to move this over the line,” said Orioles President of Business Operations Catie Griggs. “We’ve been working diligently on this for the last 4-6 weeks to ensure we could get something out for fans as soon as possible, without rushing a product that wouldn’t work well.”
Earlier this year, the Orioles and Nationals settled a decades-long dispute regarding their local media rights. MASN, which is majority-owned by the Orioles, has held exclusive broadcast rights to the Nationals since their relocation from Montreal to Washington, D.C. in 2005. For the first time ever, the Nationals will be able to take their local media rights to the open market next season. Griggs stated, “There is not an annual pass, and that was intentional because we recognize the uncertainty about what next year may bring. We don’t want fans to feel inadvertently locked into a product that may not hold the same value next year.”
Ted Leonsis’ Monumental Sports Network, which broadcasts the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals locally, is viewed as a front-runner to secure the Nationals’ rights next year, although this arrangement is complicated by Leonsis’s ongoing efforts to purchase the team.
