....exactly....because Peter G. Angelos would NEVER CONSIDER doing something like that.
All of this was smart business on his part - ALL OF IT. Sure to the naked eye it might come across as incredibly petty and so forth, but when you're dealing with an asset the cost of a sports franchise, you have to protect yourself.
The only concern I have is if somehow the Nationals win their case. After all the legal battles and so forth are over, he'll still have to pay the Orioles the same thing he'd be paying the Nationals. That would bankrupt the network supposedly. So MASN ends up going belly-up, the Nats go to Comcast Sportsnet, and...what happens to the O's? No TV contract? I think that's all a risk that was worth taking for Angelos, but the fact is that you just never know. You could end up with some do-gooder arbitrator who ends up siding with them. If that scenario it would come across as Angelos out-smarting himself and in a sense losing everything he had worked so hard to protect BECAUSE of how he tried to protect it. I'd put that scenario as having about a .09% shot at happening, but you never know.