Comcast has negotiated another renewal of a regional sports network that relegates the channel to pricier program tiers. 

Xfinity TV subscribers in Baltimore and D.C. will no longer be able to access Mid-Atlantic Sports Network channels MASN and MASN 2 in the cable operator's basic plan, and will instead have to pay $20 a month more for the Ultimate TV package to see Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals games. 

With consumers not hooked on local sports teams rejecting the spiraling costs of pay TV and cord-cutting their way out of the ecosystem in increasingly large droves, this isn't the first time that the now No. 2 ranked pay TV operator has tried to make sports fans pay the freight for regional sports networks

In January, Comcast also kicked SportsNet Pittsburgh out of basic, making fans of MLB’s Pittsburgh Pirates and the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins pay more to see their teams play on television. 

And back in October, Comcast also relegated Seattle Mariners channel Root Sports Northwest to Xfinity Ultimate.

Also read: MASN Mess Meanders on: New York Appellate Court Is the Latest to Try to Sort Out the Decade-Old RSN Fee Dispute Between Baseball's Orioles and Nationals

Comcast will ease MASN's existing Xfinity base-tier users into the transition. They won't have to pay an additional premium to upgrade to Ultimate TV for the first three months, and they'll only take a $10-a-month hit the following three months. But starting in the seventh month, they'll be on the hook for the full $20-a-month upgrade. 

The change goes into effect on Tuesday. 

“We’re pleased to have reached an agreement with MASN to continue carrying its networks and making them available on our Ultimate TV level of service before MLB’s Opening Day,” Comcast said in a statement. “We appreciate MASN working with us to find a solution to maintain MASN and MASN2 on our platform that also provides our customers with a choice.”

Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles are 57-48 in the regular-season and playoffs against the Washington Nationals all-time.

But after more than a decade spent in courtrooms and arbitration hearings trying to figure out how to split TV rights fees from the regional sports network they share, the two franchises are still deadlocked in an extra-innings duel. 

On Tuesday, the New York Court of Appeals heard oral arguments from both sides, becoming the latest court or arbitrative body to try to determine how much in the way of TV rights money the Nationals should receive from Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) for the period of 2012-2016. 

Also read: MASN To Broadcast Orioles, Washington Nationals; Add HD

The conflict’s chasm remains wide. MASN, which is majority owned by the Orioles, already paid the Nationals what the Orioles proposed for that five-year period: $197.5 million. But the Nationals have argued they should be paid $475 million.

In 2012, an arbitration panel of executives from the Pittsburgh Pirates, Tampa Bay Rays and New York Mets heard the case. And in 2014, it ruled that the Nationals’ five-year total for 2012-2016 should come out to $298.1 million, or $60 million a season. 

The Orioles argued that paying the Nationals nearly $60 million a season would wipe out profitability for MASN, for which the Baltimore franchise is the primary beneficiary. 

All subsequent attempts to hammer out an agreement led to Tuesday's hearing nine years later. The Athletic has an in-depth summary of all that arbitration and litigation that's gone into this. 

And even if the New York court’s six-judge panel is able to come up with a number agreeable to both sides, the drama won't be over. There are still rights fees for the five-year periods of 2017-2021 and 2022-2026 to figure out. 

Curse of the Expos

The MASN mess started all the way back in 2005, when the financially failing Montreal Expos relocated to Washington, crowding into a Mid-Atlantic TV market that had been exclusively controlled by the Orioles since 1972.

To compensate the Orioles, Major League Baseball gave them majority ownership of MASN, the regional sports network that would show games for both Orioles and the Nationals. 

TV rights fees would be split between the two franchises. Initially, the Orioles would own 90% of the RSN, with the Nationals gradually growing their share every year, with 2032 designated to be the year that its ownership tops out at 33%. 

Since the Orioles had a greater interest in MASN’s profit, the franchise doesn’t benefit from high team rights fees as much as the Nationals, even though its TV rights fee would be equal under the way the deal is structured. In other words, the Orioles actually make more money when their RSN pays less in total rights fees. 

In any event, the 2012-2016 portion of the dispute could be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, if the New York appellant court can’t hash it out. ■

Dish Network added Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, home of the Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles major league baseball teams, to the list of regional sports networks that potentially could go dark to its customers on April 1.

Dish already has warned customers that three NBC Sports RSNs -- NBC Sports Washington, NBC Sports Bay Area and NBC Sports California -- could go dark on April 1. Dish had already dropped the remaining NBC Sports RSNs -- NBC Sports Chicago and networks in Philadelphia, Boston, and the Pacific Northwest -- in 2019.

News that MASN had been added to the list of potential drops was first reported by TV Answerman.com.

On its Dish Promise website, the satellite TV provider said that it has proposed to all RSNs that they be sold a la carte to Dish customers, a proposal that every pay TV operator would like, but none have.

Also Read: RSNs Scramble for Streaming Deals as Opening Day Approaches 

“Dish has made this consumer-friendly proposal to NBC and MASN, but they have been unwilling to accept, choosing instead to continue with the old, broken model,” Dish said on the Dish Promise site. “We continue to remain open that the Regional Sports Networks will work with us to offer their content in a way that provides choice and value to all customers.”

RSNs usually require carriage on the most popular video tier of distributors, enabling them to capture the most advertising dollars. But high fees of RSNs and claims by distributors that the majority of their customers don’t watch them, have put the two at loggerheads for years. 

The news of the potential Dish blackout comes weeks after MASN said it had reached a multi-year carriage deal with Comcast. In announcing that deal, MASN said it had agreements with 24 cable, satellite, telco and digital distributors in 17 Nielsen markets in its seven-state exclusive home television territory, spanning Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Major League baseball took the first hit to its regular season start on Monday as two games were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Florida Marlins’ July 27 home opener against the Orioles was postponed after at least 14 Marlins players and staff tested positive for the virus, according to reports.

 The Marlins played a weekend series in Philadelphia against the Phillies. The team currently remains in its Philadelphia hotel pending further tests.

RELATED: Marlins Game Canceled as Players Test Positive 

Monday night's New York Yankees-Philadelphia Phillies game was also postponed after the league decided not to bring another club into the visiting clubhouse at Citizens Bank Park following the Marlins, according to reports.

The news puts a damper on an otherwise successful start of the season for baseball. Thursday night’s opening game between the Yankees and the Washington Nationals set a record ratings record for ESPN, averaging 4 million viewers. 

Fox News was the most watched cable network for the Oct. 4 Vice Presidential Debate, although viewership was far lower than for last month's Presidential debate.

Fox News averaged 6.1 million total viewers to lead all cable networks providing live coverage of the Mike Pence-Tim Kaine debate, according to Nielsen. CNN was second with 4.1 million viewers and MSNBC was third with 3.1 million watchers.

SEE MORE: Veep Debate Audience Half That of Palin-Biden's.

CNN topped all cable news nets in key demos including adults 25-54 (1.6 million viewers) and adults 18-34 (561,000 viewers), according to Nielsen.

Overall, 35.6 million viewers watched the debate across eight broadcast and cable channels, according to Nielsen. Those numbers fell well short of the 84 million viewers that tuned into the Sept. 26 Presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. 

Most Watched Shows On Cable For Oct. 4

Show                                                   Network                                 Total viewers

VP Debate                                          Fox News                                6.1 million

VP Debate Analysis                           Fox News                                5.2 million

MLB Wild Card (Balt/Tor)                   TBS                                         4.1 million

VP Debate                                          CNN                                        4.1 million

The Kelly File                                     Fox News                                3.2 million

VP Debate                                          MSNBC                                   3.1 million

The O’Reilly Factor                            Fox News                                3.0 million

Debate Night In America                   CNN                                        3.0 million

WWE SmackDown                           USA Network                           2.3 million

MSNBC Debate Analysis                  MSNBC                                   2.2 million

Source: Nielsen                     

The Kansas City Royals put away the Baltimore Orioles in the American League Championship Series to reach their first World Series 1985, ending TBS’s exclusive coverage of the 2014 junior circuit postseason action in the process.

Despite the ALCS sweep by the smallest market pairings ever – KC is Nielsen market No. 31, while the Baltimore DMA ranks 26th -- and similar on-field outcomes during the two AL Division Series, TBS closed the Nielsen books on the 2014 postseason by averaging 4.3 million viewers, its most-viewed MLB playoffs since 2010.  According to Nielsen data, TBS’s delivery for its 10-game schedule, including the Wild Card game, was up 3% from the 4.16 million watchers it registered in 2013, when it had all four Division Series and the National League Championship Series under the contract that expired last season.

TBS won the night across cable television six times during the 2014 MLB postseason and delivered growth across all key demos.

However, the numbers figured to have been much higher, as 2014 marked the first time in postseason history all three American League series ended in sweeps. Additionally, approximately only half of TBS’s postseason games aired in primetime compared with two-thirds of the network’s 24 telecasts running in primetime during the 2013 MLB playoffs.

With 4 million tuning in the Royals’ clincher on Wednesday afternoon, the ALCS averaged 5.07 viewers for four game telecasts, up 2% over the network’s six-game NLCS series in 2013 in which the St. Louis Cardinals took out the Los Angeles Dodgers. Game 4 was up 8% from the 3.7 million for Game 5 of the 2013 NLCS in the corresponding Wednesday afternoon window .

TBS’s ALCS primetime pair of games this year averaged 5.96 million viewers and a 3.7 U.S. household rating, up 8% and 6% respectively over TBS’ primetime telecasts in 2013. The network’s two afternoon telecasts during the ALCS averaged 4.14 million total viewers and a 2.6 rating, up 15% and 8% over the network’s afternoon windows in 2013.  Last year’s NLCS had four primetime contests and two afternoon affairs.

All told, TBS’s ALCS coverage averaged a 3.2 rating and the network’s overall 2014 MLB postseason telecasts averaged a 2.7 U.S. mark, both even with last year.