The Dolan family made their money — the money used to buy the Knicks and Madison Square Garden — because Charles Dolan founded Cablevision, one of the nation’s largest cable television companies. The Knicks are owned by the Cablevision spin-off Madison Square Garden Company (MSG), where James Dolan is the CEO. That company spun off Sphere Entertainment, which owns the MSG Network, on which New York Knicks games are broadcast locally. Safe to say, Dolan is invested in the success of cable and the MSG Network.
That’s the background to understand why Dolan reportedly opposes the NBA’s operating budget for next season, something he announced to the other owners in a letter, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports.
In a letter sent to the NBA Board of Governors and obtained by ESPN, Knicks owner James Dolan continues to spar with the league office and tells teams he will vote no on the league’s proposed 2024-2025 operating budget and the selection of a new BOG chair. Dolan… pic.twitter.com/DJvuLS7Mdh
– Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) 9 September 2024
This will be Dolan’s latest hollow protest vote, the Knicks reportedly being the only no-vote on the massive new national television broadcast deal approved in July and going into effect for the 2025-26 season (not next, but a year from now).
That new TV deal furthers the league’s strategy of tilting its games, with some games exclusively on NBC’s Peacock and Amazon Prime, and it follows a strategy the NFL and MLB use as well. As consumers cut the cord and move away from traditional cable, sports leagues are moving to meet viewers where they are.
The TV deal isn’t Dolan’s only complaint, he’s also not a fan of the league’s revenue sharing, which siphons off some of the team’s local broadcast and sponsorship revenue. Dolan shared his opinion of the NBA world in letter to the other owners opposing the new television deal ESPN’s Wojnarowski obtained in July (when the broadcast plan was approved).
“The NBA has made the move to the NFL model – de-emphasizing and disempowering the local market. Soon your only revenue concern will be ticket sales and what color next year’s jersey will be. Don’t worry, because due to revenue pooling. , you are guaranteed to be neither success nor failure Of course, to get there, the league must remove the successful franchises and redistribute to the less successful ones.
Dolan sees the financial advantages he had as the team’s owner in the nation’s largest media market slipping away, as do the cable-based regional sports networks carrying NBA games (although that will continue this season where the league reaches an agreement with Diamond Sportswho is in bankruptcy). The other owners did not share his opinion. Dolan stepped down from several Board of Regents committees last November and has reportedly not attended any BOG events since, sending MSG general counsel Jamaal Lesane as his replacement.
The Knicks are also in the process of suing the Toronto Raptors over the alleged theft of intellectual property in an unusual case where New York says it needs to go to court because NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is not a neutral arbitrator.
The irony is that for several decades the Knicks – often because of Dolan’s decisions – did not make good use of their big market advantages and the team faltered. Now, as the league moves toward streaming and revenue sharing, Dolan has handed basketball decision making to former agent Leon Rose, who has turned the Knicks into a title contender behind Jalen Brunson.
