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. 

ESPN drew a record 4 million viewers for its New York Yankees-Washington Nationals Major League Baseball opening night telecast.

The game was the most watched regular season game on any network since 2011, and bested the previous record of 3.7 million viewers set by the St. Louis Cardinals-Chicago Cubs game in 2017, according to Nielsen. 

Last year’s Boston Red Sox-Seattle Mariners season opening night telecast drew 1.2 million viewers, said Nielsen.

ESPN’s San Francisco Giants-Los Angeles Dodgers telecast averaged 2.7 million viewers, making it the most watched ESPN late night game ever.

Both games opened baseball’s truncated 60-game regular season schedule after the coronavirus pandemic delayed baseball’s traditional season start by three months. 

Major League Baseball Thursday threw a post-season fastball prior to the first pitch of its truncated 2020 season, announcing that it is expanding the league’s playoff teams to 16 from eight.

The league, which Thursday launched its 60-game regular season three months after its scheduled start due to the coronavirus pandemic, will expand its playoff teams to include the champions and the second place finishers in each of the six divisions, as well as two wild card teams and two teams with the best record among the rest of the league, according to MLB officials.

League owners and the Major League Players Association hammered out the deal prior to the New York Yankees-Washington Nationals opening day game.

“This season will be a sprint to a new format that will allow more fans to experience playoff baseball,” said baseball commissioner Robert Manfred in a statement. 

In addition ESPN announced it will televise seven of the eight new first round series -- including exclusively all four National League first round series -- across a four-day period from Sept. 29 through Oct. 2.

“This is an exciting opportunity for ESPN and Major League Baseball to deliver a new, compelling live sports experience to fans. Innovation has been a cornerstone of our 30-plus year relationship with MLB, and that will be on display as we showcase these decisive games,” said Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN president and co-chair, Disney Media Networks in a statement. “We know fans have been craving live baseball and we’re proud to work with our friends at MLB to offer what will be a special four days this fall.” 

TBS scored big ratings numbers for last night’s Chicago Cubs-Washington Nationals National League Division Series deciding game.

The Game 5 telecast -- which saw the Cubs defeat the Nationals 9-8 to move on to the NL Championship Series -- averaged 7 million viewers, according to the network. Overall, TBS' NLDS coverage -- which also includes the three-game Arizona Dimondbacks-Los Angeles Dodgers series -- averaged 3.7 million viewers, up 29% over the network’s 2016 League Division Series coverage.

TBS’ 2017 NLDS coverage also garnered 28% growth in the adult 18-49 demo and increases of 27% in adults 25-54 and 12% in Men 18-34, said the network.

RELATED: FS1 Sets Ratings Record With Yankees-Indians ALDS Finale 

Further, live streaming coverage of the 2017 MLB Postseason across Turner’s TV Everywhere platforms averaged 6.2 million minutes of consumption through the NLDS, up 102% compared to last year, according to TBS. 

The network will telecast the Cubs-Los Angeles Dodgers NL Championship Series beginning Oct. 14.