Washington Nationals

The Washington Nationals are an American professional baseball team based in Washington D.C., United States. The Nationals are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League. From 2005 to 2007, the Nationals played in Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium. The team began playing at a new stadium, Nationals Park, on March 30, 2008. In the inaugural game, Ryan Zimmerman hit a walk off home-run in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift the Nationals over the Atlanta Braves by a final score of 3-2.
The "Nationals" name originates from the two former Washington baseball teams who held the same name (used interchangeably with "Senators"). They are nicknamed "the Nats", a shortened version of the Nationals name that was also used by the old D.C. teams.
An expansion franchise, the club was founded in Montreal, Quebec in 1969. Then the Montreal Expos, the team was the first team in Canada, and played its home games at Jarry Park, then later, in Olympic Stadium. The team saw very little success, their most successful season coming in the strike-shortened season of 1994. They had the best record in baseball when the season was cut short, and were regarded by many to be the unofficial National League and world's champions. This was widely considered to be the death blow for baseball in Montreal, although the team did stay in Quebec for 10 more seasons. After the 2001 season, Major League Baseball even considered shutting the team down (along with either the Minnesota Twins or the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.) The team finally left before the 2005 season, moving to Washington to become the Nationals. This was the first complete relocation in Major League Baseball since 1972, when the Washington Senators left D.C. to become the Texas Rangers. They are one of four teams to have never played in a World Series, never having officially won a league championship. They have only made it to one league championship series, their only playoff appearance, which was under the strange circumstances of the 1981 season.
On Saturday, March 29, 2008, the team officially moved into their new ballpark, located in Southeast D.C. near the Anacostia River and with views of the Capitol.

Montreal Expos (1969-2004)
The Montreal Expos joined the National League in 1969, along with the San Diego Padres. After a decade of losses, the team became a winner in the early 1980s, winning their only division championship in the strike-shortened split season of 1981. That team lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-2 in the National League Championship Series. After several mediocre years in the late 1980s, the team rebounded in the early 1990s. In 1994 the Expos, led by a talented group of players including Larry Walker, Moisés Alou, Marquis Grissom and Pedro Martínez, had the best record in major league baseball when the 1994 Major League Baseball strike forced the cancellation of the remainder of the season. After the disappointment of 1994, the Expos began to lose players, money and fans. Ownership squabbles, the decimated fan base, a difficulty in selling broadcasting rights, and numerous other issues led to the team being bought by MLB in 2002.

Relocation to Washington
Washington is a city with a rich baseball history. The Washington Senators, a founding member of the American League, played in the nation's capital from 1901 to 1960. These Senators were founded and owned by Clark Griffith and played in Griffith Stadium. With notable stars including Walter Johnson and Joe Cronin, the Senators won the 1924 World Series and pennants in 1925 and 1933, but were more often unsuccessful and moved to Minnesota for the 1961 season. A second Washington Senators (1961-1971) had a winning record only once in their 11 years, though bright spots, such as slugger Frank Howard, earned the love of fans. The second Senators moved to Texas for the 1972 season, and Washington spent the next 33 years without a baseball team.
After several years in a holding pattern, MLB began actively looking for a relocation site for the Expos. Some of the choices included Oklahoma City; Washington, D.C.; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Monterrey, Mexico; Portland, Oregon; Northern Virginia; Norfolk, Virginia; New Jersey; and Charlotte, North Carolina. In the decision-making process, Commissioner Bud Selig added Las Vegas, Nevada to the list of potential Expos homes.
On September 29, 2004, MLB officially announced that the Expos would move to Washington, D.C. in 2005. The move was approved by the owners of the other teams in a 28–1 vote on December 3 (Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos cast the sole dissenting vote). In addition, on November 15, 2004, a lawsuit by the former team owners against MLB and former majority owner Jeffrey Loria was struck down by arbitrators, ending legal moves to keep the Expos in Montreal.
Although there was some sentiment to revive the name Senators, political considerations factored into the choice of Nationals, a revival of the first American League franchise's "official" nickname used from 1905 to 1956. Politicians in the District of Columbia objected to the name Senators because the District of Columbia does not have voting representation in Congress. Another reason was the Texas Rangers (the second Washington Senators team) still owned the rights to the "Senators" name.

Opposition from the Orioles
The move was announced despite opposition from Peter Angelos, owner of the nearby Baltimore Orioles. Since 1972, the Orioles had been the only MLB franchise in the Baltimore-Washington area, which he considered a single market in spite of vastly different cultures and populations in the two cities. Angelos contended that the Orioles would suffer financially if another team were allowed to enter the market. Critics objected that the Orioles and the Washington Senators had shared the market successfully from 1954 through 1971. This reasoning disturbed many in Washington who recalled that it was the Griffith family, owners of the Washington Senators, who allowed the St. Louis Browns to move to Baltimore in 1954 in the first place.
On March 31, 2005, Angelos and Major League Baseball struck a deal to protect the Orioles against any financial harm the Nationals might present.
Under the terms of the deal, television and radio broadcast rights to Nationals games are handled by the Orioles franchise, who formed a new network (the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network) to produce and distribute the games for both franchises on both local affiliates and cable/satellite systems. MASN was not, however, immediately available on all cable providers, adding to the frustration of Nationals fans. In fact, most in the DC area missed almost the entirety of the Nationals first two seasons. The deal with Angelos makes the Nationals the only major league baseball team which does not own their own broadcast rights.

The ballpark controversy
The team's relocation to Washington was contingent on a financing plan for the Nationals' new stadium — this plan quickly became the subject of much debate on the D.C. Council.
Three Council members who supported Mayor Anthony Williams's plan were ousted in September 2004's Democratic party primary. In addition, an opinion poll conducted by the Washington Post during the peak of the controversy found that approximately two-thirds of District residents opposed the mayor's stadium plan.
Much of the controversy centered on the fact that the city would be helping finance a $581 million stadium without state or county support, despite the fact that a large portion of the team's fan base would be drawn from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs.
During December 2004, the move to Washington itself was called into doubt when the D.C. Council sought to change details of the stadium's financing. When the Council voted on December 14 to require 50 percent private financing for any new stadium, MLB ceased promotional activities for the Nationals and announced that they would consider looking for a new market.
Eventually, the council passed an amended plan on December 21, 2004 that proved slightly more financially favorable to the city, while remaining acceptable to MLB. Mayor Williams signed the stadium financing package on December 30.
During the 2005 season, a private financing plan for construction of the stadium was negotiated between the city and a syndicate of bankers led by Deutsche Bank. The negotiations of the details ran into another problem in November 2005. The bankers requested a letter of credit or other financial guarantee of $24 million US, $6 million for each of four years, ensuring payment of lease revenues against various risks including poor attendance and terrorism. The city requested that Major League Baseball provide this guarantee, which they were unwilling to do.
On December 22, 2005, the Post reported that Major League Baseball had specifically instructed prospective owners not to offer to pay cost overruns on the stadium if they were selected as the owners. Bidders were also told not to communicate with the press about these issues.
In February 2006, the DC City Council imposed a $611 million cap on the stadium.
Finally, on March 5, Major League Baseball signed a lease for a new ballpark, agreeing to the city's $611 million cap. MLB also agreed to contribute $20 million toward the cost of the stadium, although it did not agree to cover stadium overruns. Further, MLB added the condition that excess ballpark tax revenue earmarked for debt service for the bonds to be available for cost overruns. Two days later, on March 7 the DC City Council, by a vote of 9 to 4, approved a construction contract for a state-of-the-art stadium with a contemporary glass-and-stone facade, seats for 41,000 fans and a view of the U.S. Capitol, and affirmed its demand that public spending on the project be limited to $611 million. The votes were the final actions needed to satisfy the terms of the deal struck in September 2004, paving the way for the sale of the team.
Major League Baseball had agreed at the time that the franchise was moved to Washington, DC, to sell the team to an owner or ownership syndicate. Several dates for sale of the team were set and missed due to the legal wrangling regarding the building of the stadium. The delay was harshly criticized by city residents and leaders as reported in the Washington Post.
Selecting from a finalized group of three potential ownership syndicates, Major League Baseball announced in July 2006 that it had chosen the Lerner Enterprises group, led by billionaire real-estate developer Theodore N. Lerner. The final sale price of the team was $450 million and the transfer of ownership was completed July 24, 2006. In late September 2006, Comcast finally agreed to broadcast the Nationals games.

Viability of the Washington baseball market
Due to the history of Washington franchises, there are doubts about whether Washington will actually be a better market for a major league team than Montreal in the long term. Major League Baseball does not express such doubts, and proponents of the move argue that the failure of previous franchises has more to do with poor business decisions and financial management on the part of their owners than with any lack of popular support in the region itself.
Writers in The Economist have pointed out that Washington may be less suited than some other cities to support baseball because it is primarily an African-American city (59%), and that African-Americans generally support baseball less than whites. Past Washington Senators teams have blamed poor attendance partially on lack of attendance by African-Americans. Washington has larger suburbs than it did in the '60s, so some analysts believe this will be a less important factor than in the past. Still, both versions of the Senators only finished in the first half of the American League in attendance in 9 out of 71 seasons; the worst percentage of any team in Major League Baseball history that played for more than two seasons, including the Expos. The only season the Senators finished with more than one million in attendance was 1946.
Though partially a product of the team's surprising 2005 first half showing, the Nationals' midseason attendance totals exceeded the Expos' 2004 total attendance. The final attendance for the 2005 season was 2,731,993; the 2005 total in Washington, D.C. exceeded the previous three seasons in Montreal combined (2002-2004) and was 11th in MLB. Nevertheless, Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf - MLB's point-man on the Nationals - later expressed disappointment in the first season's attendance, noting that it compared unfavorably with the first seasons of recent expansion teams. The counterargument to Mr. Reinsdorf is that the Nationals did not have a good local radio contract (broadcasting on a station with a weak signal which could not be heard in most of the region), did not have a good local TV contract (most cable users did not have access to the games), and spent little or no money on advertising. Another contributing factor may have been the aging RFK Stadium itself, and its lack of quality concessions. Attendance numbers dipped considerably in the 2006 season to 2,153,150 total and 26,582 per game, which was well below the MLB-average of 31,381 fans per game. The team also finished last in their division, which probably contributed to the poor attendance.
In the 2006 annual estimates made by Forbes Magazine, the Nationals were the 6th most valuable franchise in Major League Baseball at $440 million. That number had dropped to 10th most valuable in 2007

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