Sources say there is a solution to the long-simmering disagreement between the Commanders and the Ravens over their commercial rights in the Maryland suburbs, a dispute that rose to the highest levels of the NFL.
As part of the solution, the teams will now have NFL-designated “home marketing areas” that overlap in places, meaning they will both share the right to sell sponsorships, promote the team and engage in community relations programming where no other NFL team is allowed. The exact geography of the newly shared territory is still unclear, but the disagreement centered on Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, the two densely populated, wealthy Maryland communities that border Washington.
Historically, those counties have been in the Commanders’ HMA, but a couple of years ago, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti proposed changes. He argued the limitations were limiting the Ravens’ business growth at a time of maximum popularity and on-field success.
Commanders owner Josh Harris fought that, arguing he had just bought the team at a price that reflected, on some small level, the lack of local competition on those regions. Harris rejected a preliminary league solution, fully overlapping territories in the same way the L.A. and N.Y. teams have.
The end result appears to be a partial victory for the Ravens, gaining more rights than they previously had. But it’s worth noting that this agreement came after the Commanders struck deals to build a new stadium in D.C. borders, nine miles to the west of Northwest Stadium. Sources said all parties agree on the final solution, which is coming to a vote of all 32 owners at the NFL annual meeting next week as part of a broader rewrite of various NFL commercial guidelines.
The debate raised interesting points in the unusual Baltimore-Washington corridor, where the Ravens and Commanders are the closest NFL neighbors that don’t actually share a stadium. On one hand, the Commanders have played in Prince George’s County for 29 years, and those two counties are economically and culturally more aligned with Washington than Baltimore. But parts of PG and Montgomery counties are fewer than 25 miles from the Ravens’ locker room, and no other team had such limited territory.
