Who owns the Washington Nationals? Mark Lerner, explained

Mark D. Lerner is the principal owner and managing principal owner of the Washington Nationals, a position he has held since 2018. The Lerner family acquired the club in 2006 for $450 million, two years after the franchise relocated from Montreal. What sets this ownership apart is the family’s deep roots in Washington real estate and their refusal to sell despite a 20-year legal battle over broadcast rights that froze the team’s market value—a dispute that only ended in 2025.

🏟️ Ownership at a glance

Principal owner	Mark D. Lerner
Controlling group	Lerner family / Lerner Enterprises
Current group since	2006
Purchase price	$450M
Latest valuation	$2.15B
Owner’s net worth	$6.4B
Value multiple	4.8× the purchase price

Who is Mark Lerner

Mark D. Lerner was born in September 1953 to Ted and Annette Lerner and earned a degree in business administration from George Washington University in 1975. The family fortune is entirely rooted in Washington-area real estate. His father, Ted Lerner, started in 1952 with $250 borrowed from his wife and built Lerner Enterprises into one of the largest property owners in the capital region by selling approximately 22,000 homes for other developers before becoming a builder himself. Mark is a managing partner of that firm.

In January 2017, Mark was diagnosed with spindle cell sarcoma above his left knee. Complications from radiation therapy led to amputation of his leg in April 2017, but he recovered. He assumed the role of managing principal owner of the Nationals in 2018 and two years later, in 2019, the team won its first and only World Series championship. He is married to Judy Lenkin.

How they bought the team

The Lerner family purchased the Nationals in 2006 for $450 million, one year after MLB itself had acquired the franchise from Montreal for $120 million in 2002. Control passed to Mark D. Lerner as managing principal owner in 2018. In 2022, the family explored a sale but reversed course. On February 19, 2024, Mark Lerner closed the door: the family would never sell the Nationals.

Year	Buyer	Amount
2002	Major League Baseball (the other 29 franchises)	$120M
2006	Theodore N. ‘Ted’ Lerner and family	$450M
2018	Mark D. Lerner (assumes as managing principal owner)	—
2022	Sale attempt (not completed)	—

What else they own

Lerner Enterprises controls some of the largest shopping centers and mixed-use developments in the Washington metropolitan area, including Tysons Corner Center and Tysons Galleria in Virginia, Dulles Town Center, and White Flint Mall in Maryland. The company also owns office buildings and hotels across Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C. The family has given to Children’s National Hospital, George Washington University, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Where the games air

In 2026, the Nationals launched Nationals.TV, a direct-to-consumer streaming service produced and distributed by MLB’s local media department, with play-by-play from Dan Kolko, analysis from Kevin Frandsen and Alexa Datt, and supplemented by a minimum of ten regular-season games broadcast free over the air on WTTG Fox 5 Washington. This freedom came after the team spent 20 years trapped in MASN, the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network controlled by the Baltimore Orioles, a dispute that was finally resolved in March 2025.

Facts worth knowing

THE MASN DISPUTE, THE LONGEST LITIGATION IN MODERN MLB HISTORY. When the Expos moved to Washington in 2005, they invaded Peter Angelos’ Orioles market. To buy his consent, MLB created the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network: the Orioles started with 90% and the Nationals with just 10%, with a 1% annual increase capped at 33%. That is, the Nationals owned a minority stake in the network that broadcast their own games and that belonged to their rival.
The rights started at $20,000,000 per team (2005-2006) and rose to $25,000,000 in 2007. After 2011 the war exploded over what the ‘fair market value’ was and the case went through MLB’s arbitration committee (the RSDC) three times: $296,800,000 for the five-year period 2012-2016 (ruling in 2019), $304,100,000 for 2017-2021 (ruling in 2023) and about $320,500,000 for 2022-2026 (ruling in December 2024). Each ruling was litigated again in New York courts.
The lawsuit froze the sale of the team: no buyer wanted to pay $2 billion for a franchise without knowing how much its TV rights were worth. On March 3, 2025 MLB announced the final agreement: the Nationals would broadcast on MASN for one last season in 2025 under a one-year contract and would be free to negotiate their rights starting in 2026. Twenty years of litigation ended with a divorce.
The family said first that it was selling and then that it was not. April 2022: they explore the sale. 2023: Ted Leonsis offers at least $2,000,000,000. February 19, 2024: Mark Lerner closes the door with a blunt statement: they will never sell the Nationals, no one in the family is going to sell the team.
Ted Lerner started his empire in 1952 with $250 that his wife Annette lent him and died in 2023 at age 97, owning the 2019 World Series champions and the largest shopping centers in the capital of the United States.
Mark Lerner lost a leg in 2017 due to complications from treatment for a sarcoma and two years later he lifted the World Series trophy.
Forbes calculates that the Nationals lost $15,000,000 in operating income in 2025, one of the few MLB clubs in the red, in the midst of a rebuild and with the firing of Mike Rizzo and Dave Martinez in July 2025.

Where they stand among the 30 owners

List	Rank
By franchise value	#17 de 30
By purchase price	#13 de 27
By owner’s net worth	#7 de 21
By years in charge	#17 de 30

Amounts are nominal and not adjusted for inflation: comparing a decades-old purchase price with today’s valuation overstates the real gain.

The Nationals rank in the middle tier of MLB ownership by franchise valuation but stand out for the family’s unwavering commitment to the club despite years of legal and financial pressure. The team is valued at roughly 4.8 times what the Lerner family paid for it two decades ago. In 2025, the club reported an operating loss of $15 million as it rebuilt its roster, making it one of the few franchises in the red—a position the ownership has shown it is willing to endure.