One of the Washington Nationals’ principal owners said the team’s protracted dispute with the Baltimore Orioles over television rights fees has “significantly” impaired its operations and ability to invest in efforts to improve the ballclub.

The remarks by Ed Cohen, in a sworn affidavit filed late last week in a New York Supreme Court, are the strongest public comments to date by the Nationals about the dispute, which involves the amount of money paid to the team by the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network. The Orioles have a majority ownership of the shared network.

“Without this added and steady income, the Nationals cannot bring full economic confidence to investments in multiyear player contracts to keep up with the fierce competition for top players — especially when such control over finances is in the hands of a neighboring club,” Cohen said. “Delay also hamstrings the Nationals’ ability to invest in stadium and related improvements which would generate additional income and help keep the Nationals competitive.”

Cohen’s affidavit did not contain supporting documents or offer specific examples to show how the Nationals were affected in their pursuit of top players or stadium-related improvements by the TV rights fees dispute. “The delay significantly impacts the Nationals’ finances,” Cohen said.

[The Nationals’ bleak winter on the free agent market.]

So far this offseason, the Nationals have given $65.5 million in guaranteed contracts to free agents, including infielder Daniel Murphy and reliever Shawn Kelley. They also tried to lure free agent outfielders Jason Heyward and Yoenis Cespedes, making reported offers in the $100 million to $200 million range with deferred money that lowered the present day value to each, but both signed elsewhere.

The Nationals are led by Ted Lerner, Cohen’s father-in-law. Lerner, whose net worth Forbes magazine estimates at $4.9 billion, is one of the richest owners in baseball. When the Lerner family purchased the team in 2006 for $450 million, it inherited a complicated television deal arranged by Major League Baseball with the Orioles, who were guaranteed majority control over MASN after arguing that MLB was moving the Nationals franchise from Montreal into the Orioles’ broadcast territory.

The Nationals, who moved into a new $693 million stadium built with public money in 2008, are now worth $1.28 billion, ninth highest in baseball, according to Forbes.

“While the Nationals have a strong business, with access to revolving credit lines, and maintain adequate cash reserves, the Nationals nevertheless have various cash flow needs necessitated by payroll and other ongoing expenses,” Cohen said. “MASN’s underpayment of rights fees has already required the Nationals to fund payroll and other expenses from its own reserves, and further delay could require the Nationals to seek further financing.

“This is not only burdensome in its own right, but it places the Nationals at a competitive disadvantage to other baseball clubs, which typically receive fair market value from their regional sports networks for their telecast rights.”

The Nationals are the only team in baseball whose television rights are controlled by another team.

The dispute moved into the courts in 2014, and each side is currently appealing a November decision by a New York Supreme Court justice that tossed out a decision by an MLB arbitration panel that would have required the Orioles’ TV network to pay tens of millions of dollars more per year to the Nationals for the right to show their games. The Nationals will earn about $40 million in TV rights fees from MASN per year, nearly $20 million less than the amount determined by the MLB panel.

The Orioles and MASN have refused to take part in a new MLB panel and have asked an appeals court to send the dispute to an outside arbitration panel, contending that the league’s arbitration process is tainted, court records show.

The Nationals have, in turn, asked the court to send the dispute back to an MLB panel.

Cohen said he thinks the Orioles are refusing to participate in a new MLB arbitration panel because they want to gain leverage in an effort to secure “a negotiated resolution that would leave the Nationals worse off” than under the current TV contract.

Former baseball commissioner Bud Selig tried to facilitate a sale of MASN to Comcast for more than $1 billion to help resolve the dispute but that effort failed, according to court filings.