Seemingly as often as the Orioles and Nationals have met on the diamond, their attorneys have faced off in court or in sometimes tense and accusatory legal filings.

That protracted, inharmonious dispute, however, is coming to a close.

After 14 years of litigation and an untold amount in legal fees, the agreement that positioned the two teams as unlikely business partners in the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network will no longer bind them. The Nationals will be able to pursue their own television deal for the 2026 season and beyond, according to a Monday news release from Major League Baseball.

MASN will continue to broadcast games for the Nationals and Orioles in 2025, just as it has since 2005, but afterward, Washington will be “free to explore alternatives for their television rights,” MLB said.

That could result in changes — including the potential for direct-to-consumer streaming — to how fans watch both teams as soon as next year.

All disputes related to past media rights have been resolved and litigation has been dismissed, per MLB’s release. In a court filing dated Sunday, the dismissal is reliant on the Nationals receiving an unspecified “settlement amount.” (The Orioles and Nationals declined to comment on the value of that settlement.)

“We are excited to have this longstanding issue resolved and look forward to the season ahead,” said David Rubenstein, the Orioles’ owner and control person, in a statement.

The Orioles and Nationals extended “their gratitude” to MLB and commissioner Rob Manfred in a news release Monday for “their efforts in bringing this matter to a successful conclusion.”

The economic landscape of regional sports networks — where fans watch their favorite local teams — has become increasingly thorny in recent years as more consumers cut the cord on their cable packages. The RSN giant Main Street Sports Group, a subsidiary of Hunt Valley-based Sinclair previously known as Diamond Sports Group, recently emerged from a 20-month bankruptcy.

While some teams have developed direct-to-consumer models, where fans can pay about $20 or $30 a month to watch all games, others have stuck with the traditional cable model.

The only way to watch MASN, for example, is to buy a bundled TV package with many channels, costing upward of $100 a month. Fans have hoped, without luck, for a direct-to-consumer avenue to watch the Orioles or Nationals.

“Particularly for the last half-a-dozen years, the loser in this has been the fan because they’ve not been able to watch the games in the way and the method and on the platform and at the price they choose,” said Marty Conway, a former vice president of marketing with the Orioles, in an interview Monday.

That has also hurt MLB and its teams, as the sport has struggled to reach its audience.

“If your fans can’t see the games, if they’re behind regional paywalls or other things, it hurts you,” said Conway, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

The number of MASN subscribers has fallen in recent years, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, from 5.6 million in 2018 to 3.3 million in 2023. Still, the TV ratings for the Orioles have increased as the team has grown more competitive. Last year, Nielsen data distributed by MASN showed that viewership numbers for the first half of 2024 were 35% higher than they were in the first half of 2023.

MASN has said for at least a year that it is considering a direct-to-consumer option. By 2026, that could finally become a reality for Orioles and Nationals fans, in addition to having games available on cable, Conway predicted.

In some markets, various regional sports networks have teamed up to form a package. For example, fans can pay $20 a month for access to Monumental Sports Network, which includes games for the NBA’s Washington Wizards, the NHL’s Capitals and the WNBA’s Mystics. Other possible packages for RSNs include bundling a group of MLB teams together.

Decoupling the Orioles and Nationals comes after years of animosity. The two clubs have clashed over MASN for the bulk of the Washington club’s existence.

When the Montreal Expos moved to Washington in 2005, they encroached upon the Orioles’ mid-Atlantic media market. As a consolation, the Nationals, Orioles and MLB came to a unique agreement: The Orioles would own the vast majority of MASN, which would air both teams’ games, and receive the bulk of its profits. At the time, television rights were particularly lucrative, setting up a substantial revenue stream for the Orioles, who were then owned by Peter Angelos.

Initially, the Orioles received 90% of the network’s profits, while the Nationals received 10%, but the Orioles’ cut began to decrease by 1% per year. The breakdown was scheduled to eventually settle at 67% to 33%.

The teams were required to negotiate the value of TV rights fees (how much MASN would pay each team for the right to broadcast its games) in five-year increments. Crucially, those fees affected how much MASN’s profits were, which in turn affected how much more the Orioles would receive in revenue as compared to the Nationals.

It behooved the Nationals for the rights fees to be high, and it behooved the Orioles for those figures to be low.

If there were any disputes, per the agreement, Major League Baseball’s Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee, a group of MLB executives, would resolve them.

Almost immediately, there were disputes. The Nationals contended the rights fees should be higher; the Orioles thought those fees should be lower. Again and again, they disagreed and, for over a decade, they quarreled in court.

An argument about the fees for 2012 to 2016 reached the highest court in New York. In a 6-0 decision released in April 2023, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that the lower courts had properly upheld an arbitration decision from the Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee that awarded the Nationals roughly $60 million annually for the 2012-2016 rights.

Baltimore’s attorneys argued that MLB was biased against the Orioles, while Washington’s attorneys accused the Orioles of “sniping about” the process “to which they agreed.”

The Nationals, Orioles and MASN in December 2023 asked a judge to confirm a decision from the Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee that the fair market value of the TV rights fees for 2017 to 2021 was about $61 million annually, after adjusting for the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the most recent chapter of the saga, the Nationals took legal action in December 2024 to confirm a decision that would require MASN to pay the team an average of more than $64 million per year in TV rights fees for 2022 to 2026.

The Orioles had until Monday to file an opposition to the request. Instead, the teams agreed to settle the dispute.

While the MASN deal giving the Orioles a majority stake was expected to last indefinitely when signed, Manfred hinted one year ago at a potential change. After a group led by Rubenstein bought the Orioles from the Angelos family, Manfred told reporters of the MASN agreement: “Change always produces an opportunity.”

Baltimore Banner reporter Dylan Segelbaum contributed to this story.