November 24, 2004
D.C. pols: Follow the TV money
Dissident D.C. councilmembers are opening a new front in the Washington Nationals stadium war, with five members asking the council's auditor to investigate the team's proposed TV deal. Under the much-rumored but as-yet-unfinalized plan, the Nats and Baltimore Orioles would form a regional cable network, with O's owner Peter Angelos getting 60% of the proceeds in exchange for waiving his nonexistent territorial rights to D.C.
"Just imagine what the Washington team could do if it had the $46 million a year that the five most valuable baseball teams receive on average in media revenue," the Gang of Five wrote to auditor Deborah Nichols. "The new team could contribute substantially to the financing of the new stadium, relieving the public of some of its financial burden." Of course, there's nothing stopping the new team from doing that anyway, but it is a weird footnote to this deal that the biggest winner from D.C.'s proposed stadium subsidies could end up being Peter Angelos.
Up in Montreal, meanwhile, where the Nationals were - in fact, still technically are, until baseball owners finally get around to voting on the move - the Expos, there's a 28-years-young debt-ridden stadium suddenly unwanted by either its tenants or its owners. The province of Quebec is scheduled to turn over Olympic Stadium to the city of Montreal in 2006, but the city wants no part of it: "Knowing that the government gives grants of $22 million per year to operate the stadium, well, we're not ready to put that kind of money into it, we just don't have it," Montreal executive committee Michel Prescott told the CBC. But surely such a thing would never happen to a new stadium, right?
