HD viewers in the mid-Atlantic who have quickly adopted the two-year old Washington Nationals as their home team, or who may be torn between the Nats and the nearby Baltimore Orioles (the D.C. region’s closest major league team for several decades), have complained loudly about cable’s lack of coverage of regular-season Washington games (both HD and otherwise).
A big part of the lack of televised Washington games had to do with owner of the nearby Orioles in the market (it gets complicated, don’t ask), but now there’s word the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) plans to carry a minimum of 60 games among both clubs in HD the upcoming 2008 season.
According to The Washington Post, which has seen an internal announcement MASN forwarded to cable providers in the Mid-Atlantic region, the affected games will be aired in 1080i starting in April. The memo notes the HD schedule will be divided evenly between the Orioles and Nationals. The memo goes on to say, “We are offering these games and future High Definition games on MASN at no additional charge.”
Each Major League Baseball franchise in both leagues typically plays 162 regular season games, evenly split between home and away contests.
