Mark Lerner, principal owner of the Washington Nationals, spoke to the Washington Post on Monday about the status of his family’s potential sale of the MLB club. Lerner clarified that the Nationals are off the market and not for sale anymore.
The news comes after the Lerner family announced in early 2022 that they would begin an “exploratory process” to find a potential buyer. The resulting search proved futile as they found no takers at their rumored nearly $3 billion price tag.
“We have determined, our family has determined, that we are not going to sell the team,” Lerner said. “Nothing has really changed. We’ve just decided that it’s not the time or the place for it. We’re very happy owning the team and bringing us back a ring one day.”
According to prior reporting from the Post, the Lerners’ most serious inquiry likely came from Ted Leonsis, owner of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the parent company that holds the Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards, Washington Mystics, and others. Leonsis reportedly offered over $2 billion to buy the Nationals toward the end of 2022.
Leonsis’s interest in the Nationals first popped up in mid-April of 2022. The Monumental Sports & Entertainment leader formed a partnership with David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group for the eventual bid.
Rubenstein went on to lead the ownership group that started the process of buying the Baltimore Orioles from the Angelos family at the end of January. That sale process is expected to potentially allow the Nationals to retain local TV rights for the first time since the franchise was placed in DC back in 2005. One of the hurdles for the sale to Leonsis was likely the MASN dispute between the Nationals and Orioles.
Leonsis reportedly inquired about also purchasing MASN but was rebuffed by the network saying the company was not for sale. With the Nationals now not for sale, Leonsis’ Monumental Sports Network is still left without compelling summer programming that an MLB team could provide.
The Nationals won the World Series in 2019 but have almost entirely blown that roster up and started a rebuild. Per MASN’s Mark Zuckerman, the club has not signed a free agent to more than a two-year deal since Stephen Strasburg’s disastrous, seven-year, $245 million contract in December 2019.
