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M.L.B. Decision on Washington Nationals’ Rights Fees Is Overturned

A Major League Baseball committee’s decision to award the Washington Nationals five years of annual rights fees from the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, which would have peaked at about $66 million in 2016, was thrown out Wednesday by a New York State Supreme Court judge.

In his ruling, Judge Lawrence K. Marks said the committee’s arbitration process had been compromised by a conflict of interest.

MASN carries the games of both the Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles, but the Orioles are the network’s majority owner. The Orioles challenged the award of baseball’s Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee on several grounds, including the Proskauer Rose law firm’s representation of the Nationals in the arbitration and in other matters for M.