bank? When is the last time you’ve heard him talk about a parade in Baltimore? When is the last time he faced the media the way Steve Bisciotti did on Thursday afternoon in Owings Mills?
The Angelos bank account continues to stockpile earnings from both the Orioles and MASN pie. According to Forbes, the Orioles had $31.4 million in operating income in 2014. According to The Washington Post and other sources, the Nationals received $7 million for their ownership share of MASN in 2011 and $8 million in 2013, when Lerner’s share was 12 and 14%.
This is easy math: MASN threw off a cool $58 million for Angelos in 2011 and $57 million in 2013.
Start doing the math on that kind of profit each year for a decade and who the hell cares whether the team wins 69 or 96 games. And who needs to give $154 million to Chris Davis when you don’t have to in order to field a team?
It’s very important to note that this pile of television money and any increase in revenue or profit is NOT going to the Baltimore Orioles.
Like the Nationals, the Orioles are on a “fixed income” in television revenue per the wishes of Angelos. This is literally what every aspect of the Angelos v. MLB and Nationals lawsuit in the New York Supreme Court is designed to do: funnel as little money as humanly possible from MASN to the baseball franchises.
And Angelos and his lads never have to answer any critics or any legitimate questions because they’re consistently doing business with the eunuchs within media organizations and the cowards waiting for a check who run them.
Ask yourself this: why, other than sheer laziness, incompetence or the fear of reporting the truth, would the local media not care to answer the “why” for the reluctance to raise payroll?
Anyone who is analyzing anything regarding offseason moves – and specifically the Chris Davis and Wei-Yen Chen negotiations or the acquisition of any established star MLB players – should be talking about the money.
It’s all about the money.
Over the past few months, I’ve brought a bevy of national experts and industry and media insiders on to WNST.net & AM 1570 via my radio conversations to confirm what I’ve known for a long time: the Baltimore Orioles and its media big brother, the Mid Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) are quietly throwing off tens of millions in profit for Mr. Angelos annually and have been for a decade.
And the money is not making its way onto the field.
Jonah Keri wrote about this length at Grantland two years ago.
Bob Nightengale of USA Today, who has covered baseball for three decades, told me two weeks ago that he thinks my numbers might actually be on the low end for Angelos’ total profits.
Not only is all of the money on Angelos’ side of the fence, he’s been patently obtuse in being unfair not only with the Washington Nationals, but he’s also been choking his own baseball team of money that was earmarked – by him – to improve the team with the best MLB players in the world.
If you want to hear John Ourand or Eric Fisher of Sports Business Journal, Maury Brown of Forbes, Jim Williams a multi-time Emmy Award winning television executive or former Baltimore Orioles & MLB executive and Georgetown professor Marty Conway discuss the MASN-Orioles-Nationals money tree, simply go to our WNST Audio Vault.
I’ve been asking the same (and very simple) question: “Where is all of the MASN money?”
And through a decade of research and observation, here’s the answer:
“Primarily, in the pockets of Peter G. Angelos.”
I will break down every year and every dollar later in this series but I think it’s important to understand how …
