FOX-Cablevision dispute and authentic frontier gibberish
Sunday, 17 October 2010 10:21
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/fox-cablevision-dispute-and-authentic-frontier-gibberish
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
Shortly after News Corp, Rupert Murdoch's Channels 5 and 9 in New York and Channel 29 in Philadelphia because of a contract dispute with Charles Dolan's Cablevision, the New York news radio station WINS featured some authentic frontier gibberish from Long Island Congressman Steve Israel about the battle between Murdoch and Dolan. Israel was either asked a question by someone at WINS or put out a statement about the unfortunate situation that could deprive Cablevision subscribers of the Major League Baseball playoffs and National Football League games along with FOX local newscasts, Glee and a plethora of afternoon judges shows on Channel 5 and Channel 29.
Israel, a Democrat was joined by his fellow Long Island Congressman, Republican Peter King and New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg in urging the two heavyweights Murdoch and Dolan to go to arbitration and settle the dispute on behalf of the little people — the cable TV subscribers, even though subscribers could pull Channel 5, Channel 9 and Channel 29 in with an antenna. Even Gabby Johnson, the character who gave a moving speech loaded with authentic frontier gibberish from the movie "Blazing Saddles," could have come up with a more coherent thought than the three elected officials.
What Israel (along with King and Lautenberg) should have said was that he and his 434 fellow members of the House of Representatives and the 100 members of the Senate should revisit the 1984 Cable TV Act and become pro-choice advocates and give consumers a chance to pick and choose what cable TV channels they want.
The 1984 legislation gave multiple systems operators (MSOs) like Cablevision the right to bundle failing networks like ESPN, the Weather Channel, CNN, CNN Headline News on an expanded basic tier as one entity (which might be a real violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act) and sell it to consumers for one price. The 1984 legislation was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan and was a real victory for small and struggling media companies.
The expanded basic tier is the real goldmine for news channels and sports networks. The cable TV socialism where everyone pays (on basic and basic expanded) has filled the pockets of Murdoch (FOX News Channel), Time Warner (CNN) and Microsoft-NBCUniversal (msnbc) and has allowed "news" channels to become nothing more than the equivalent of people screaming in the corner of the park (and those people being written off as kooks back in the days when they would shout to the sky and hope someone would listen to the diatribe). The cable TV socialism has also put billions into the pockets of sports owners who signed deals with multiple systems operators who had sports channels on the basic expanded or franchises that started networks like Madison Square Garden Network (owned by Charles Dolan — both a multiple systems operator and a program provider), the YES Network, SNY, and Comcast Sports Net Philadelphia (owned by Comcast, whose properties include the Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers).
The NFL Network has not been able to penetrate the basic expanded tier while the MLB Network is on basic expanded thanks to Major League Baseball owners being smarter than their football counterparts and selling off pieces of the baseball channel to multiple systems operators.
The MSO's think the NFL Network is too expensive and doesn't have enough NFL games for their customers. But the MSO's may have an alternative motive — the NFL signed an exclusive deal with the satellite provider, DirecTV, for their Sunday package of out of market games and shut them out.
Hell hath no fury like an MSO scorned.
What would happen if Congress found a spine and actually became pro-choice and gave consumers a chance to pick and choose what they really wanted to buy?
Well the sports industry might be vaporized and the carnival barkers at the FOX News Channel, CNN and msnbc (there is no news on those news channels just a bunch of people paid in six to seven figures letting off steam hoping to attract viewers who will stay long enough to watch the commercials) might have to become real journalists because very few people would pay a premium to watch the Becks, O'Reillys, Hannitys, Dooceys, Kilmeades, Roberts, Blitzers, John and Larry Kings, Spitzers, Parkers, Coopers, Scarboroughs, Matthews, Olbermanns, Maddows and O'Donnells of the world and without the Congressional protection the 95 million or so subscribers to the news channels would drop to maybe two to three million people.
That is the dirty secret in the cable industry that no sane cable network owner or programmer would ever want to reveal. They know that the Howard Stern jump from terrestrial radio to satellite rating was an absolute disaster as Stern's former listeners on free radio did not dig deep into their pockets to buy satellite radio. Stern got his money; the satellite radio business is struggling financially.
The buy rate for cable news channels which would be at a much higher price than the estimated buck per month per subscriber that Murdoch, Time Warner and Microsoft-NBCUniversal get would be in the low single digits.
FOX junkies can scream all they want about being the number one cable news network and msnbc lovers can extol the virtues of the so-called "liberal" network but the real numbers of people watching the cable news networks are abysmal and cable executives know it. Perhaps the only people who don't realize this are journalists who give credence to the cable TV news personalities.
But sports owners might come in for a real financial drubbing if Representatives Israel and King and Senator Lautenberg attempted to reign in cable costs by introducing a la carte legislation. It has been a number of years since a Georgia Congressman named Nathan Deal tried to put the genie back in the lamp. The Georgia House member failed to get his measure to the floor.
Cable TV is transforming the Texas Rangers franchise from bankruptcy to being flush in money. Rupert Murdoch, who had the regional cable TV sports monopoly is feeling heat from Comcast in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Comcast is looking at Texas and may set up a regional sports network in Houston. In a pre-emptive shot, Murdoch has given the new Texas owners, Chuck Greenberg and Nolan Ryan a $1.6 billion, 20-year deal which will give the Rangers ownership plenty of cash to pay off the debt on the team purchase and money for signing players. For Murdoch, the investment allows him to stay in Dallas and may keep Comcast out of the metroplex.
All Murdoch has to do is stay on basic expanded and up his fees and get 100 percent of the cable universe to pay for what just a few percent watch — Rangers baseball — thanks to socialism (the very kind of thing that the Becks, O'Reillys, Hannitys, Dooceys and Kilmeades rant against on a daily basis). Murdoch makes money from American socialism that was given to cable TV networks and MSO's by Congress and Ronald Reagan.
Murdoch lost the Chicago market a few years back when Jerry Reinsdorf (Bulls and White Sox), the Tribune Company (Cubs) and the Wirtz family (Blackhawks) signed a partnership with Comcast to launch their own network and left Murdoch's regional network in Chicago for dead. Owners in Major League Baseball, the NBA and NHL are looking to start new networks and get onto basic cable. It is just not pro sports. The Big Ten has a network and the University of Texas would like a network as well.
It makes sense when there is big money available. But what would happen with a la carte? No one wants to know. Disney has lobbyists in Washington to make sure that it will never happen as ESPN (which is a Disney cash cow) would go from the so-called "World Wide Leader in Sports" to begging people to buy their costly network. The Yankees franchise would not be able to spend money freely without the revenues from YES that presently come from non-YES watchers. The sports industry would be devastated.
The authentic frontier gibberish from Israel was followed by authentic frontier gibberish from both News Corp and Cablevision. In the end, cable TV consumers in the Cablevision systems will reach into their pockets again and both Murdoch and Dolan will continue to duke it out somewhere else or make love in an another area (they were partners in a complex TV deal which also included the Knicks, Rangers and Madison Square Garden). As long as Congress doesn't rewrite the 1984 cable TV legislation, they can go on with their faux fight because at the end of the day, neither will be unhappy with the outcome as they are playing with other people's money thanks to a federal law that protects cable TV and leaves consumers reaching into their pockets to pay for something that they might not necessarily watch.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio and TV commentator and speaker on the "Business and Politics of Sports. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label Charles Wang Charles Dolan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charles Wang Charles Dolan. Show all posts
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Cablevision-FOX fight is at bad time for N.Y. Giants and Philadelphia Eagles fans
Tuesday, 28 September 2010 11:51
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/cablevision-fox-fight-is-at-bad-time-for-ny-giants-and-philadelphia-eagles-fans
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There is nothing better than a fight between a cable television multiple systems operator and a television company when it comes to signing a new "carriage" deal. In New York and Philadelphia, News Corp-FOX Rupert Murdoch's boys (Channels 5 and 9 in New York, Channel 29 in Philadelphia and three of Murdoch's cable networks) are in the red trunks while Chuck Dolan's guys (Cablevision) are in the blue gym shorts. But neither will even get hit with a glancing blow. It will be the Cablevision consumer who will be the one who absorb the punches.
On October 16th, Murdoch's WNYW and WWOR in New York along with Philadelphia's WTXF could disappear from Cablevision's lineup which would deprive Cablevision subscribers of New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles and NFL games and would sadden the lives of daytime viewers in the New York area who need a daily fix of luminaries such as Wendy Williams, Dr. Oz and those staged for TV court shows featuring Nancy Grace, Jeanine Pirro, Joe Brown, Harvey Levin and Levin's journalistic effort, TMZ. In Philadelphia, Judge Judy, Judy Alex and Divorce Court aficionados would have to find something else to do along with Wendy Williams, Nancy Grace and Harvey Levin fans.
The subscribers in both areas would also lose the "news" (and miss seeing murder, mayhem, entertainment, sports and weather reports). If things get really sticky, Cablevision viewers will also lose the Major League Baseball Playoffs, the National League Championship Series and the World Series and prime time shows such as "The Simpsons," "24" and "Glee."
Cablevision isn't the only provider of FOX programming. A consumer can always buy an antenna and pull in the Channel 5 and 9 signals in the New York area and the Channel 29 signal in the Philadelphia area. There are also satellite and phone alternatives and for those worried about losing the NFL, there is always DirecTV's Sunday football package.
All is not lost for the over-the-air stations viewers of WNYW, WWOR and WTXF. Nor is it the end of the world for Cablevision subscribers who are fans of FOX Deportes, Nat Geo Wild and the FOX Business Channel. Cablevision subscribers who are so infuriated can look for a different delivery system and Murdoch's people are letting those people know that they have alternatives.
Murdoch's scare tactics for those who cannot remove themselves from their position in front of the TV includes having a website (just like the Disney propaganda sites against Cablevision and Time Warner earlier this year in carriage fights---Disney apparently got what they wanted from the multiple system operators and it will be reflected in higher cable TV fees) that asks people to sign a petition to keep FOX properties on Cablevision.
Keepfoxon.com also includes testimonies from people who are irate about the prospect of losing FOX programming on Cablevision and are telling stories about how they have switched to other sources in the titanic showdown.
To make a long story short, Murdoch and Dolan have been business partners — in 1997 Murdoch picked up 40 percent of Dolan's Rainbow Media Sports Holdings for $850 million. The deal gave Murdoch part ownership of Dolan's National Basketball Association's New York Knicks and the National Hockey League's New York Rangers and have a history of working together to make money for one another. Neither is really concerned about the consumer although Dolan always puts out some nonsense about protecting consumers. In 1998, Dolan's Cablevision "partnered" with Murdoch's News Corporation and Liberty Media and "rebranded" Sports Channel New York as Fox Sports New York (FSNY). Dolan's Madison Square Garden Network also became a part of the FOX Sports Network.
In 2005, Dolan and Murdoch ended their alliance because Dolan had some bills he could not pay. Dolan's Cablevision took full ownership of the Garden and the teams, including the Knicks, Rangers and the WNBA's Liberty, as well as MSG Network, Fox Sports New York, FSN Chicago and Radio City Entertainment and 50 percent of FSN New England. Murdoch's News Corp., which held a 40-percent stake in the joint venture, got full ownership of two Fox Sports Net regional sports channels in Ohio and Florida and the two network's advertising operations.
They are not really foes although Dolan beat out Murdoch to buy Long Island's Newsday a couple of years ago. But if there is to be a fight, Dolan and Murdoch are certainly in the heavyweight division.
Both have the right political connections and both can go the distance.
Dolan is a pesky opponent. After losing the New York Yankees cable TV rights, Dolan decided that the Yankees new YES Network was too pricey to be put on Cablevision in 2002. New York State elected officials stepped into the YES Network-Dolan dispute and arranged a temporary cease fire that put the YES Network on Cablevision systems in 2003. Dolan and the Yankees signed a long term agreement in 2004.
Earlier this year, Dolan and Scripps Network Interactive engaged in an 18-day scrap that kept the Food Network and HGTV off of Cablevision systems between January 3 and 21. Then there was the Cablevision-Disney contract battle in March when Disney pulled WABC TV off of Cablevision systems the day of the Oscar presentation show. Cablevision and Disney reached a deal and the Oscar program was restored some 15 minutes after the Academy Awards show started. Dolan and Disney faced some political scrutiny with New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg chided the two entertainment companies.
Disney extracted money from Dolan for the right to carry WABC on Cablevision systems. Dolan, of course, passed on the cost to consumers.
The high end News Corp/FOX-Cablevision drama will probably end with a whimper. Murdoch will get what he wants, Dolan will get what he wants and the consumer, the third party in this heavyweight face off will have to pay the price.
The consumer has little choice if they want cable TV. They are stuck in a system that gives them little choice in what they want to purchase thanks to the 1984 Cable TV Act passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate on Capitol Hill and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. The law allowed multiple system operators to bundle struggling networks such as ESPN, the Weather Channel, CNN and CNN Headline News onto a basic tier (which was anti-consumer and probably violates antitrust laws) and sell the package as one on a basic expanded tier. Cable TV is an all or nothing business. You buy basic, you buy basic and basic expanded and throw in digital. But you cannot buy an individual sports package or news package. Giants, Eagles, NFL fans along with baseball fans probably don't have to lose too much sleep over the Murdoch-Dolan spat. It will be resolved and if the two heavyweights can't agree, someone in Albany or Trenton or Harrisburg or Washington will get a solution in place very quickly. After all, it is election season and someone will probably want to claim victory for TV viewers.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Tuesday, 28 September 2010 11:51
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/cablevision-fox-fight-is-at-bad-time-for-ny-giants-and-philadelphia-eagles-fans
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There is nothing better than a fight between a cable television multiple systems operator and a television company when it comes to signing a new "carriage" deal. In New York and Philadelphia, News Corp-FOX Rupert Murdoch's boys (Channels 5 and 9 in New York, Channel 29 in Philadelphia and three of Murdoch's cable networks) are in the red trunks while Chuck Dolan's guys (Cablevision) are in the blue gym shorts. But neither will even get hit with a glancing blow. It will be the Cablevision consumer who will be the one who absorb the punches.
On October 16th, Murdoch's WNYW and WWOR in New York along with Philadelphia's WTXF could disappear from Cablevision's lineup which would deprive Cablevision subscribers of New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles and NFL games and would sadden the lives of daytime viewers in the New York area who need a daily fix of luminaries such as Wendy Williams, Dr. Oz and those staged for TV court shows featuring Nancy Grace, Jeanine Pirro, Joe Brown, Harvey Levin and Levin's journalistic effort, TMZ. In Philadelphia, Judge Judy, Judy Alex and Divorce Court aficionados would have to find something else to do along with Wendy Williams, Nancy Grace and Harvey Levin fans.
The subscribers in both areas would also lose the "news" (and miss seeing murder, mayhem, entertainment, sports and weather reports). If things get really sticky, Cablevision viewers will also lose the Major League Baseball Playoffs, the National League Championship Series and the World Series and prime time shows such as "The Simpsons," "24" and "Glee."
Cablevision isn't the only provider of FOX programming. A consumer can always buy an antenna and pull in the Channel 5 and 9 signals in the New York area and the Channel 29 signal in the Philadelphia area. There are also satellite and phone alternatives and for those worried about losing the NFL, there is always DirecTV's Sunday football package.
All is not lost for the over-the-air stations viewers of WNYW, WWOR and WTXF. Nor is it the end of the world for Cablevision subscribers who are fans of FOX Deportes, Nat Geo Wild and the FOX Business Channel. Cablevision subscribers who are so infuriated can look for a different delivery system and Murdoch's people are letting those people know that they have alternatives.
Murdoch's scare tactics for those who cannot remove themselves from their position in front of the TV includes having a website (just like the Disney propaganda sites against Cablevision and Time Warner earlier this year in carriage fights---Disney apparently got what they wanted from the multiple system operators and it will be reflected in higher cable TV fees) that asks people to sign a petition to keep FOX properties on Cablevision.
Keepfoxon.com also includes testimonies from people who are irate about the prospect of losing FOX programming on Cablevision and are telling stories about how they have switched to other sources in the titanic showdown.
To make a long story short, Murdoch and Dolan have been business partners — in 1997 Murdoch picked up 40 percent of Dolan's Rainbow Media Sports Holdings for $850 million. The deal gave Murdoch part ownership of Dolan's National Basketball Association's New York Knicks and the National Hockey League's New York Rangers and have a history of working together to make money for one another. Neither is really concerned about the consumer although Dolan always puts out some nonsense about protecting consumers. In 1998, Dolan's Cablevision "partnered" with Murdoch's News Corporation and Liberty Media and "rebranded" Sports Channel New York as Fox Sports New York (FSNY). Dolan's Madison Square Garden Network also became a part of the FOX Sports Network.
In 2005, Dolan and Murdoch ended their alliance because Dolan had some bills he could not pay. Dolan's Cablevision took full ownership of the Garden and the teams, including the Knicks, Rangers and the WNBA's Liberty, as well as MSG Network, Fox Sports New York, FSN Chicago and Radio City Entertainment and 50 percent of FSN New England. Murdoch's News Corp., which held a 40-percent stake in the joint venture, got full ownership of two Fox Sports Net regional sports channels in Ohio and Florida and the two network's advertising operations.
They are not really foes although Dolan beat out Murdoch to buy Long Island's Newsday a couple of years ago. But if there is to be a fight, Dolan and Murdoch are certainly in the heavyweight division.
Both have the right political connections and both can go the distance.
Dolan is a pesky opponent. After losing the New York Yankees cable TV rights, Dolan decided that the Yankees new YES Network was too pricey to be put on Cablevision in 2002. New York State elected officials stepped into the YES Network-Dolan dispute and arranged a temporary cease fire that put the YES Network on Cablevision systems in 2003. Dolan and the Yankees signed a long term agreement in 2004.
Earlier this year, Dolan and Scripps Network Interactive engaged in an 18-day scrap that kept the Food Network and HGTV off of Cablevision systems between January 3 and 21. Then there was the Cablevision-Disney contract battle in March when Disney pulled WABC TV off of Cablevision systems the day of the Oscar presentation show. Cablevision and Disney reached a deal and the Oscar program was restored some 15 minutes after the Academy Awards show started. Dolan and Disney faced some political scrutiny with New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg chided the two entertainment companies.
Disney extracted money from Dolan for the right to carry WABC on Cablevision systems. Dolan, of course, passed on the cost to consumers.
The high end News Corp/FOX-Cablevision drama will probably end with a whimper. Murdoch will get what he wants, Dolan will get what he wants and the consumer, the third party in this heavyweight face off will have to pay the price.
The consumer has little choice if they want cable TV. They are stuck in a system that gives them little choice in what they want to purchase thanks to the 1984 Cable TV Act passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate on Capitol Hill and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. The law allowed multiple system operators to bundle struggling networks such as ESPN, the Weather Channel, CNN and CNN Headline News onto a basic tier (which was anti-consumer and probably violates antitrust laws) and sell the package as one on a basic expanded tier. Cable TV is an all or nothing business. You buy basic, you buy basic and basic expanded and throw in digital. But you cannot buy an individual sports package or news package. Giants, Eagles, NFL fans along with baseball fans probably don't have to lose too much sleep over the Murdoch-Dolan spat. It will be resolved and if the two heavyweights can't agree, someone in Albany or Trenton or Harrisburg or Washington will get a solution in place very quickly. After all, it is election season and someone will probably want to claim victory for TV viewers.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Friday, July 16, 2010
Islanders new arena may be the grand prize in Nassau County casino bid
Islanders new arena may be the grand prize in Nassau County casino bid
By Evan Weiner
July 16, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m7d16-Islanders-new-arena-may-be-the-grand-prize-in-Nassau-County-casino-bid
(New York, N. Y.) -- On April 16 of this year, former Hempstead Town Supervisor and former United States Senator from New York Al D'Amato told this reporter that there would be a resolution to the stalemate between New York Islanders owner Charles Wang and present Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray over the future of the Nassau Coliseum and the area around the nearly four decades old building.
On April 16, D'Amato didn't say exactly how the saga would end but it would end favorably. There would be something, whether it was a rebuilt arena or a new venue for Charles Wang and the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League.
A few days later came word from Nassau County Supervisor Edward Mangano that he thought that a casino could be built on the land that Wang wanted for a renovated Coliseum and what amounted to an arena-village plan on the 77 acres of property. The casino plan came seemingly out of nowhere but it really didn’t. Mangano announced the possibility of a casino arena and then D’Amato in his Long Island Herald newspaper a little while later took great pains to explain why a casino made more sense than Wang’s Lighthouse Project.
D’Amato has not been in the Senate since 1998, but Park Strategies, LLC has an office in Washington and the Park Strategies LLC business card lists Alfonse M. D’Amato as Managing Director. D’Amato also is the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Poker Players Alliance, a pro gaming group.
Murray never liked the Lighthouse Project plan even though Nassau County owned the land. (This would be a brilliant segue way in radio to change the subject to a how come the Hempstead Town Supervisor has the jurisdiction over county owned land but that is another issue for another day.)
Murray shot down Wang's proposal earlier this week but Mangano has again advanced the notion that the casino-arena plan is on the table.
There are many layers of analysis that should take place in examining the whole Nassau Coliseum issue including why Murray has been somewhat vague in her explanations as to why the Wang plan is unworkable.
No one knows if Wang and his partner Scott Rechler really have the $3.7 billion needed to fund the project and no one seems to know how the taxes will be collected from the property if it ever gets built.
Murray has been shielded from real media scrutiny because there is no media watchdog questioning her motives in Nassau County because the owner of Madison Square Garden, Charles Dolan (who is paying hundreds of millions of dollars to Wang for Islanders cable TV rights) owns the area's two largest news organizations, the cash strapped Newsday and the journalist deficient News12.
The Wang plan should be major news in an everyday way because local residents are impacted whatever the decision. People like Murray have a get out of jail card from local media in virtually every community in the United States as news coverage has degenerated from covering facts to shouting sound bites with little meaning.
Journalists have ceded the profession to people screaming on radio or cable TV like former sportscasters, drug addicts, gamblers, political operatives and other people who would not be welcomed in most living rooms who set political agendas. These people pontificate yet know almost nothing about issues but Don Imus has always issued this proviso, saying “we are only entertainers.”
Politicians’ exhibit sheer arrogance and lack humility these days because journalists do not relentlessly pressure them in asking questions and never force them on the spot. When a politician gets questioned, a political appointee whose job it is to protect the politician from saying anything stupid or truthful in a bad way generally gets in the way of a questioner. The appointee worked on a campaign either as a spokesperson or stuffed envelopes or drove political people around.
The appointee takes public funds to protect the politician from the public who elected him or her in the event the politician says something stupid. It sort of validates the longtime television journalist David Brinkley's thought that people should not gush all over politicians since they are lucky to have a job.
Murray's luck may have started running out though on April 16 when D'Amato who is ever the power broker let it be known that there would be a solution. The casino idea is now in play because D'Amato wants it to be in play. D'Amato's partner in the endeavor besides the Nassau County Supervisor seems to be the Shinnecock Nation which is a federally recognized tribe on Long Island. The Shinnecocks have talked about opening about building a casino somewhere in Suffolk County in the past with the Ilitch Family.
Would the Shinnecocks, if the tribe got the land and built the casino, pay taxes to Murray’s Town of Hempstead? Possibly not and that might be a political problem for Murray.
A strange coincidence here or maybe not so strange. The Ilitch family owns Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers, the National Hockey League's Detroit Red Wings, the Motor City Casino in Detroit, Gateway Casino Resorts and other gaming interests. Mike Ilitch's wife Marian has divested herself of the sports teams so there is not a conflict of interest as sports organizations allegedly want to distance themselves from sports unless there is a need. (Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert has the licensee to run the new Cleveland casino which will open adjacent to the arena that houses his basketball team).
The new Pittsburgh arena, where the NHL's Penguins play, was funded by proceeds from a Pittsburgh-based casino.
Casinos and gambling have become the piggy bank for communities and municipalities that now depend on one armed bandits to bail them out of dire financial straits or as economic engines to drive jobs. The manufacturing base in the United States is a lot smaller as jobs went elsewhere and overseas but the gaming industry keeps growing and growing. Sports leagues claim they stay away from gaming but WNBA Commissioner David Stern has one WNBA owner, the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut, and all sports have marketing relationships with casinos these days.
Wang owns a National Hockey League team and while there are no details emerging from a possible arena-casino plan, it is a proposal that could work in Wang's favor.
Former Islanders Public Relations Director Chris Botta broke the latest twist of the Wang-Murray stare down in his Islanders Point Blank blog. He boiled it down to three key areas that makes the plan attractive to Wang and keeps Murray's hands off of the redevelopment of county property that is in her jurisdiction.
1) By partnering with the Islanders on the arena and the Shinnecock tribe on the entertainment complex, Mangano would not need any approvals from the Town of Hempstead.
2) After a decade of settling for a “transformed” arena and not the real thing at the insistence of politicians, the Islanders would have the genuine state-of-the-art facility they need to keep up in the NHL. If the team is competitive, free agents would have no more excuses not to sign on. (A new training facility, plus limited retail and office space, would be part of any new arena and also would not need Town of Hempstead approval).
3) If the entertainment complex can be fully realized in scope and profit margins on the level of the best in the East like Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, the revenue needs of the Islanders could be addressed without the Lighthouse battle over residential units. The new casino would include a hotel and would not fall under Kate Murray’s zoning jurisdiction.
Wang had Murray's approval for a rebuilt arena but wanted more and he could not be blamed. Nassau County was willing to give a developer the land. Murray felt that Wang's mixed use proposal was too big and would take away from the suburban atmosphere of the area which includes Hofstra University, a parkway and some nearby shopping malls. Actually it is a snapshot of most of America come to think of it. Strip malls and a parkway near a commercial zone.
One former Islanders defenseman said in June he Wang should have settled for the rebuilt arena and that Wang was too greedy. Murray and her backers agreed to that phase of the plan. Murray cut back the project significantly and one of her political appointees (the envelope stuffers, the drivers who don't have to take public service exams and yet end up on the public dole for doing nothing except being part of a winning political campaign) didn't stop her from sounding stupid when she said "these were serious numbers that were scenically arrived at" in an interview with Dolan's paper.
Murray sounded more like a Lucky Strike commercial on the radio version of The Jack Benny Program of the 1940s than a smart politician (LSMFT, Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco, was the tagline after some scientist or doctor spoke of the benefits of smoking even though cigarette companies knew that smoking was doing harm) in that interview.
D'Amato has not gone away and the Shinnecock Casino Plan should not be dismissed when looking at the possible players that might line up behind Wang including D'Amato and Ilitch. D'Amato still runs things in the Republican Party in Nassau County and his vision for the Nassau Coliseum might be Kate Murray (and her envelope stuffers) worst nightmare.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio and TV commentator, and a speaking on the "Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
By Evan Weiner
July 16, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m7d16-Islanders-new-arena-may-be-the-grand-prize-in-Nassau-County-casino-bid
(New York, N. Y.) -- On April 16 of this year, former Hempstead Town Supervisor and former United States Senator from New York Al D'Amato told this reporter that there would be a resolution to the stalemate between New York Islanders owner Charles Wang and present Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray over the future of the Nassau Coliseum and the area around the nearly four decades old building.
On April 16, D'Amato didn't say exactly how the saga would end but it would end favorably. There would be something, whether it was a rebuilt arena or a new venue for Charles Wang and the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League.
A few days later came word from Nassau County Supervisor Edward Mangano that he thought that a casino could be built on the land that Wang wanted for a renovated Coliseum and what amounted to an arena-village plan on the 77 acres of property. The casino plan came seemingly out of nowhere but it really didn’t. Mangano announced the possibility of a casino arena and then D’Amato in his Long Island Herald newspaper a little while later took great pains to explain why a casino made more sense than Wang’s Lighthouse Project.
D’Amato has not been in the Senate since 1998, but Park Strategies, LLC has an office in Washington and the Park Strategies LLC business card lists Alfonse M. D’Amato as Managing Director. D’Amato also is the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Poker Players Alliance, a pro gaming group.
Murray never liked the Lighthouse Project plan even though Nassau County owned the land. (This would be a brilliant segue way in radio to change the subject to a how come the Hempstead Town Supervisor has the jurisdiction over county owned land but that is another issue for another day.)
Murray shot down Wang's proposal earlier this week but Mangano has again advanced the notion that the casino-arena plan is on the table.
There are many layers of analysis that should take place in examining the whole Nassau Coliseum issue including why Murray has been somewhat vague in her explanations as to why the Wang plan is unworkable.
No one knows if Wang and his partner Scott Rechler really have the $3.7 billion needed to fund the project and no one seems to know how the taxes will be collected from the property if it ever gets built.
Murray has been shielded from real media scrutiny because there is no media watchdog questioning her motives in Nassau County because the owner of Madison Square Garden, Charles Dolan (who is paying hundreds of millions of dollars to Wang for Islanders cable TV rights) owns the area's two largest news organizations, the cash strapped Newsday and the journalist deficient News12.
The Wang plan should be major news in an everyday way because local residents are impacted whatever the decision. People like Murray have a get out of jail card from local media in virtually every community in the United States as news coverage has degenerated from covering facts to shouting sound bites with little meaning.
Journalists have ceded the profession to people screaming on radio or cable TV like former sportscasters, drug addicts, gamblers, political operatives and other people who would not be welcomed in most living rooms who set political agendas. These people pontificate yet know almost nothing about issues but Don Imus has always issued this proviso, saying “we are only entertainers.”
Politicians’ exhibit sheer arrogance and lack humility these days because journalists do not relentlessly pressure them in asking questions and never force them on the spot. When a politician gets questioned, a political appointee whose job it is to protect the politician from saying anything stupid or truthful in a bad way generally gets in the way of a questioner. The appointee worked on a campaign either as a spokesperson or stuffed envelopes or drove political people around.
The appointee takes public funds to protect the politician from the public who elected him or her in the event the politician says something stupid. It sort of validates the longtime television journalist David Brinkley's thought that people should not gush all over politicians since they are lucky to have a job.
Murray's luck may have started running out though on April 16 when D'Amato who is ever the power broker let it be known that there would be a solution. The casino idea is now in play because D'Amato wants it to be in play. D'Amato's partner in the endeavor besides the Nassau County Supervisor seems to be the Shinnecock Nation which is a federally recognized tribe on Long Island. The Shinnecocks have talked about opening about building a casino somewhere in Suffolk County in the past with the Ilitch Family.
Would the Shinnecocks, if the tribe got the land and built the casino, pay taxes to Murray’s Town of Hempstead? Possibly not and that might be a political problem for Murray.
A strange coincidence here or maybe not so strange. The Ilitch family owns Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers, the National Hockey League's Detroit Red Wings, the Motor City Casino in Detroit, Gateway Casino Resorts and other gaming interests. Mike Ilitch's wife Marian has divested herself of the sports teams so there is not a conflict of interest as sports organizations allegedly want to distance themselves from sports unless there is a need. (Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert has the licensee to run the new Cleveland casino which will open adjacent to the arena that houses his basketball team).
The new Pittsburgh arena, where the NHL's Penguins play, was funded by proceeds from a Pittsburgh-based casino.
Casinos and gambling have become the piggy bank for communities and municipalities that now depend on one armed bandits to bail them out of dire financial straits or as economic engines to drive jobs. The manufacturing base in the United States is a lot smaller as jobs went elsewhere and overseas but the gaming industry keeps growing and growing. Sports leagues claim they stay away from gaming but WNBA Commissioner David Stern has one WNBA owner, the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut, and all sports have marketing relationships with casinos these days.
Wang owns a National Hockey League team and while there are no details emerging from a possible arena-casino plan, it is a proposal that could work in Wang's favor.
Former Islanders Public Relations Director Chris Botta broke the latest twist of the Wang-Murray stare down in his Islanders Point Blank blog. He boiled it down to three key areas that makes the plan attractive to Wang and keeps Murray's hands off of the redevelopment of county property that is in her jurisdiction.
1) By partnering with the Islanders on the arena and the Shinnecock tribe on the entertainment complex, Mangano would not need any approvals from the Town of Hempstead.
2) After a decade of settling for a “transformed” arena and not the real thing at the insistence of politicians, the Islanders would have the genuine state-of-the-art facility they need to keep up in the NHL. If the team is competitive, free agents would have no more excuses not to sign on. (A new training facility, plus limited retail and office space, would be part of any new arena and also would not need Town of Hempstead approval).
3) If the entertainment complex can be fully realized in scope and profit margins on the level of the best in the East like Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, the revenue needs of the Islanders could be addressed without the Lighthouse battle over residential units. The new casino would include a hotel and would not fall under Kate Murray’s zoning jurisdiction.
Wang had Murray's approval for a rebuilt arena but wanted more and he could not be blamed. Nassau County was willing to give a developer the land. Murray felt that Wang's mixed use proposal was too big and would take away from the suburban atmosphere of the area which includes Hofstra University, a parkway and some nearby shopping malls. Actually it is a snapshot of most of America come to think of it. Strip malls and a parkway near a commercial zone.
One former Islanders defenseman said in June he Wang should have settled for the rebuilt arena and that Wang was too greedy. Murray and her backers agreed to that phase of the plan. Murray cut back the project significantly and one of her political appointees (the envelope stuffers, the drivers who don't have to take public service exams and yet end up on the public dole for doing nothing except being part of a winning political campaign) didn't stop her from sounding stupid when she said "these were serious numbers that were scenically arrived at" in an interview with Dolan's paper.
Murray sounded more like a Lucky Strike commercial on the radio version of The Jack Benny Program of the 1940s than a smart politician (LSMFT, Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco, was the tagline after some scientist or doctor spoke of the benefits of smoking even though cigarette companies knew that smoking was doing harm) in that interview.
D'Amato has not gone away and the Shinnecock Casino Plan should not be dismissed when looking at the possible players that might line up behind Wang including D'Amato and Ilitch. D'Amato still runs things in the Republican Party in Nassau County and his vision for the Nassau Coliseum might be Kate Murray (and her envelope stuffers) worst nightmare.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio and TV commentator, and a speaking on the "Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Major League Baseball's cable TV problem
Major League Baseball's cable TV problem
Tuesday, 20 April 2010 23:12
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/major-league-baseballs-cable-tv-problem
COMMENTARY
It is not very often that anything that comes out of talk radio is worth a follow up discussion but a rare nugget of information came out of the Colin Cowherd show on New York's WEPN on Monday morning.
Cowherd was in a discussion with ESPN baseball reporter Tim Kirkjian about the economics of Major League Baseball and how that the discrepancy between "haves" (the Yankees) and "have nots" (Kansas City, Baltimore, Cleveland) was widening. Kirkjian agreed with the host and said Major League Baseball is trying to increase revenue sharing between the "haves" and have nots" but Major League Baseball would never have a salary cap because of the players union.
But, Kirkjian assured Cowherd that the owners and players will address the issue during the negotiations for the next Collective Bargaining Agreement which will begin presumably sometime in 2011 as the existing players/owners accord ends in December 2011.
There are a number of owners, men who live and die in their "real" businesses as free market capitalists, who would like to see more revenue sharing or wealth redistribution from the big market teams (i.e. the Yankees) to the game's financially weaker franchises (the soon to be renamed Florida Marlins, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Milwaukee and others) to level the financial playing field and allow teams like Cincinnati to bid on big ticket free agents.
The owners want more Major League Baseball socialism and that would start by forcing the Yankees franchise to pay an even larger percentage of "luxury" tax on the team's payroll than the Steinbrenner family does presently and those extra revenues would be sent to the most neediest in Major League Baseball.
Here is the rub with Major League Baseball financial parity plan. If baseball fans only were paying for a regional sports channel's bills like the YES Network or SNY, then Major League Baseball financial woes should be taken care of with baseball fans' money.
But, a lot of the dollars the Steinbrenner Yankees generate comes from people who have no interest in either the Yankees or Major League Baseball - about 95 percent of the subscribers - yet they have to pay for the channel anyway because of the 1984 Cable TV Act.
That leads to the following question.
Is it fair that cable money — which comes from non-interested subscribers from New Jersey, New York and Connecticut that should be going to the Yankees (and for that matter the Mets) and should stay in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut — ends up in the pocket of say the owners of the Florida Marlins, Kansas City Royals or the Baltimore Orioles?
The question of cable TV wealth distribution can be is easily answered.
In 1984, Congress passed the Cable TV Act, which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan and assured the survival of ESPN, the Weather Channel, MTV, WTBS and CNN. Multiple System Operators (MSOs) were able to sign deals with cable networks and then bunch the networks together in a package and sell the package as one to cable subscribers.
Consumers had no say in what networks were thrown into the basic expanded tier but if they wanted a special channel, say CNN or CNN Headline News, they would also have to take ESPN, the Weather Channel and MTV. The legislation gave cable consumers three options. They could take the entire package, basic and basic expanded, just basic ... or quit cable.
ESPN would not be the business as it is today without federal government intervention. Major League Baseball teams were slowly moving games to cable TV in the 1970s and by the 1980s, all sorts of regional sports networks were popping up nationally.
The Boston Red Sox became a more than just a New England franchise because of exposure on WSBK, Channel 38. The Mets and Yankees were also up on the "bird" as both teams were seen beyond the New York area on WOR and WPIX. The Chicago Cubs became a national team when the Cubs ownership, the Tribune Company, went national with WGN and Ted Turner had his Atlanta Braves on WTBS.
Those teams started pocketing extra revenue and MSOs snapped up the stations has the games brought more subscribers.
(Major League Baseball denied the sale of the Texas Rangers from Eddie Chiles to Edwin Gaylord in 1986 and in 1988 because Gaylord planned to put Rangers games on KTVT, Channel 11 because there were too many games on national cable TV with the Braves, Mets, Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs. Eventually Major League Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth worked with George W. Bush and put together an ownership group that would buy the Rangers in 1989. Major League Baseball has never figured out how to deal with television.)
It was George Steinbrenner who changed the game when he signed a 12-year deal worth nearly $500 million with Charles Dolan's Madison Square Garden Network in 1988. Dolan's network went from about 2.3 million to 7.5 million subscribers thanks to the Yankees deal and gave MSG a summer's worth of programming. Steinbrenner was able to use that money to spend on players and player development.
That cable TV deal put the Steinbrenner Yankees into a different economic class than the rest of Major League Baseball and MLB officials have spent the better part of two decades trying to devise a scheme that would somehow penalize first George Steinbrenner and his partners and now the Steinbrenner family for being in the right place at the right time and agreeing to the MSG deal.
Steinbrenner's Yankees lived up to the MSG agreement and then the team decided it would be so much better to own a network than have a rights deal with MSG. The result was the YES Network and virtually every cable TV subscriber in the tri-state area is paying for the YES Network whether they watch it or not because the YES Network made it to the basic expanded tier. There was one holdout for a while – Charles Dolan's Cablevision – but eventually YES was added to Dolan's MSOs.
Steinbrenner was just following a path blazed by Gulf and Western, an owner of Madison Square Garden back in the early 1970s. Gulf and Western established a hybrid sports and entertainment channel, the MSG Network in the formative days of cable TV networks.
Dolan started SportsChannel after the MSG Network debuted. There were other networks as well. In Philadelphia, there was PRISM, also a sports-entertainment hybrid and an entity that gave the Philadelphia Phillies some additional money in 1979 to sign Pete Rose. The Z-Channel in Los Angeles also played around with a sports-entertainment format.
The cable TV-sports teams nexus slowly took shape in the mid 1980s with virtually all of the teams in Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and the National Basketball hooking up with small cable networks that planned to grown expediently. In some cases that happened and in other cases, the regional cable TV network struggled and was swallowed up by another entity.
Steinbrenner's Yankees just cashed checks in the heavily populated New York City area while the owners of the Montreal Expos failed. The Steinbrenners, the Wilpon Mets and Arte Moreno's Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are raking in cable TV cash.
Philadelphia, Boston and Seattle are doing quite well and neither of the Chicago teams is hurting financially from their cable TV deals. Kansas City, Cincinnati and Milwaukee are not sharing in the wealth.
In the next collective bargaining negotiations, the "have nots" will go after the Yankees' TV money and for those who are unaware of just where their cable TV fees go, it might be worth checking with their local municipalities and find out if there are any clauses in the municipality-MSO contract that addresses the issue of whether local subscribers be distributed in other areas.
Cowherd and Kirkjian never did tackle the cable TV revenue issue. Nobody ever does, nobody ever thinks about it in Major League Baseball because they are entitled to that money under United States laws. The negotiators probably have no idea why they get the cable TV money they just know it is there.
Major League Baseball wants "parity" which really means socialism where are the teams are on an even financial playing field. The small market teams have been after Yankees TV money for two decades and the only legitimate argument those teams have is that they are half the TV show and that you cannot have a game which has only one team.
It is understandable that those teams want to share stadium revenues from attendance but there is something wrong when the owners of the lesser revenue markets want Yankees cable TV money when that money is coming from people who are totally unaware that they cable TV fees are being sent to owners in a different area under the guise of revenue sharing. That money should stay in the metropolitan area.
Evan Weiner is an author, columnist, radio-TV commentator and lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Tuesday, 20 April 2010 23:12
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/major-league-baseballs-cable-tv-problem
COMMENTARY
It is not very often that anything that comes out of talk radio is worth a follow up discussion but a rare nugget of information came out of the Colin Cowherd show on New York's WEPN on Monday morning.
Cowherd was in a discussion with ESPN baseball reporter Tim Kirkjian about the economics of Major League Baseball and how that the discrepancy between "haves" (the Yankees) and "have nots" (Kansas City, Baltimore, Cleveland) was widening. Kirkjian agreed with the host and said Major League Baseball is trying to increase revenue sharing between the "haves" and have nots" but Major League Baseball would never have a salary cap because of the players union.
But, Kirkjian assured Cowherd that the owners and players will address the issue during the negotiations for the next Collective Bargaining Agreement which will begin presumably sometime in 2011 as the existing players/owners accord ends in December 2011.
There are a number of owners, men who live and die in their "real" businesses as free market capitalists, who would like to see more revenue sharing or wealth redistribution from the big market teams (i.e. the Yankees) to the game's financially weaker franchises (the soon to be renamed Florida Marlins, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Milwaukee and others) to level the financial playing field and allow teams like Cincinnati to bid on big ticket free agents.
The owners want more Major League Baseball socialism and that would start by forcing the Yankees franchise to pay an even larger percentage of "luxury" tax on the team's payroll than the Steinbrenner family does presently and those extra revenues would be sent to the most neediest in Major League Baseball.
Here is the rub with Major League Baseball financial parity plan. If baseball fans only were paying for a regional sports channel's bills like the YES Network or SNY, then Major League Baseball financial woes should be taken care of with baseball fans' money.
But, a lot of the dollars the Steinbrenner Yankees generate comes from people who have no interest in either the Yankees or Major League Baseball - about 95 percent of the subscribers - yet they have to pay for the channel anyway because of the 1984 Cable TV Act.
That leads to the following question.
Is it fair that cable money — which comes from non-interested subscribers from New Jersey, New York and Connecticut that should be going to the Yankees (and for that matter the Mets) and should stay in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut — ends up in the pocket of say the owners of the Florida Marlins, Kansas City Royals or the Baltimore Orioles?
The question of cable TV wealth distribution can be is easily answered.
In 1984, Congress passed the Cable TV Act, which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan and assured the survival of ESPN, the Weather Channel, MTV, WTBS and CNN. Multiple System Operators (MSOs) were able to sign deals with cable networks and then bunch the networks together in a package and sell the package as one to cable subscribers.
Consumers had no say in what networks were thrown into the basic expanded tier but if they wanted a special channel, say CNN or CNN Headline News, they would also have to take ESPN, the Weather Channel and MTV. The legislation gave cable consumers three options. They could take the entire package, basic and basic expanded, just basic ... or quit cable.
ESPN would not be the business as it is today without federal government intervention. Major League Baseball teams were slowly moving games to cable TV in the 1970s and by the 1980s, all sorts of regional sports networks were popping up nationally.
The Boston Red Sox became a more than just a New England franchise because of exposure on WSBK, Channel 38. The Mets and Yankees were also up on the "bird" as both teams were seen beyond the New York area on WOR and WPIX. The Chicago Cubs became a national team when the Cubs ownership, the Tribune Company, went national with WGN and Ted Turner had his Atlanta Braves on WTBS.
Those teams started pocketing extra revenue and MSOs snapped up the stations has the games brought more subscribers.
(Major League Baseball denied the sale of the Texas Rangers from Eddie Chiles to Edwin Gaylord in 1986 and in 1988 because Gaylord planned to put Rangers games on KTVT, Channel 11 because there were too many games on national cable TV with the Braves, Mets, Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs. Eventually Major League Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth worked with George W. Bush and put together an ownership group that would buy the Rangers in 1989. Major League Baseball has never figured out how to deal with television.)
It was George Steinbrenner who changed the game when he signed a 12-year deal worth nearly $500 million with Charles Dolan's Madison Square Garden Network in 1988. Dolan's network went from about 2.3 million to 7.5 million subscribers thanks to the Yankees deal and gave MSG a summer's worth of programming. Steinbrenner was able to use that money to spend on players and player development.
That cable TV deal put the Steinbrenner Yankees into a different economic class than the rest of Major League Baseball and MLB officials have spent the better part of two decades trying to devise a scheme that would somehow penalize first George Steinbrenner and his partners and now the Steinbrenner family for being in the right place at the right time and agreeing to the MSG deal.
Steinbrenner's Yankees lived up to the MSG agreement and then the team decided it would be so much better to own a network than have a rights deal with MSG. The result was the YES Network and virtually every cable TV subscriber in the tri-state area is paying for the YES Network whether they watch it or not because the YES Network made it to the basic expanded tier. There was one holdout for a while – Charles Dolan's Cablevision – but eventually YES was added to Dolan's MSOs.
Steinbrenner was just following a path blazed by Gulf and Western, an owner of Madison Square Garden back in the early 1970s. Gulf and Western established a hybrid sports and entertainment channel, the MSG Network in the formative days of cable TV networks.
Dolan started SportsChannel after the MSG Network debuted. There were other networks as well. In Philadelphia, there was PRISM, also a sports-entertainment hybrid and an entity that gave the Philadelphia Phillies some additional money in 1979 to sign Pete Rose. The Z-Channel in Los Angeles also played around with a sports-entertainment format.
The cable TV-sports teams nexus slowly took shape in the mid 1980s with virtually all of the teams in Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and the National Basketball hooking up with small cable networks that planned to grown expediently. In some cases that happened and in other cases, the regional cable TV network struggled and was swallowed up by another entity.
Steinbrenner's Yankees just cashed checks in the heavily populated New York City area while the owners of the Montreal Expos failed. The Steinbrenners, the Wilpon Mets and Arte Moreno's Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are raking in cable TV cash.
Philadelphia, Boston and Seattle are doing quite well and neither of the Chicago teams is hurting financially from their cable TV deals. Kansas City, Cincinnati and Milwaukee are not sharing in the wealth.
In the next collective bargaining negotiations, the "have nots" will go after the Yankees' TV money and for those who are unaware of just where their cable TV fees go, it might be worth checking with their local municipalities and find out if there are any clauses in the municipality-MSO contract that addresses the issue of whether local subscribers be distributed in other areas.
Cowherd and Kirkjian never did tackle the cable TV revenue issue. Nobody ever does, nobody ever thinks about it in Major League Baseball because they are entitled to that money under United States laws. The negotiators probably have no idea why they get the cable TV money they just know it is there.
Major League Baseball wants "parity" which really means socialism where are the teams are on an even financial playing field. The small market teams have been after Yankees TV money for two decades and the only legitimate argument those teams have is that they are half the TV show and that you cannot have a game which has only one team.
It is understandable that those teams want to share stadium revenues from attendance but there is something wrong when the owners of the lesser revenue markets want Yankees cable TV money when that money is coming from people who are totally unaware that they cable TV fees are being sent to owners in a different area under the guise of revenue sharing. That money should stay in the metropolitan area.
Evan Weiner is an author, columnist, radio-TV commentator and lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Sunday, January 3, 2010
The Politics of the New York Islanders
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m1d3-The-politics-of-the-New-York-Islanders#
The Politics of the New York Islanders
By Evan Weiner
January 3, 2010
Now that Nassau County, New York has a Republican in the County Executive chair, it is time to find out whether or not the old Nassau County Republican machine will re-embrace the New York Islanders National Hockey League franchise or if the new boss, Ed Mangano will say no to Islanders owner Charles Wang’s proposal to rebuild the Nassau County Veterans Memorial Coliseum and develop the 70 or so acres surrounding the building.
Wang has spent years trying to convince the Hempstead Town Supervisor, the Republican, Kate Murray that his plan is best for the area. So far, not much has happened other than a bunch of meetings and some vague promises.
That is a far, far cry from the old Republican machine that greeted the Islanders and the American Basketball Association’s New York Nets with open arms in 1972 to the new building that opened in Uniondale.
The New York Islanders franchise has never been much about hockey. Sure the team won four consecutive Stanley Cups between 1980 and 1983 but the team has been more about real estate and local Long Island cable TV programming than an on ice product and looking at the history of the Nassau Coliseum project will spell that out immediately.
The building sits on land that was once an Army/Air Force base. Nassau ended up with a lot of the land and decided to put up an arena. The decision was made back in the day when neither the National Basketball Association nor the National Hockey League was a major business. In 1961, the NBA was still trying to establish a national base in the United States and was failing in Chicago while the NHL had six teams with four of them based in the United States.
The arena was built and the county was able to get the American Basketball Association’s New York Nets as a tenant but county officials decided they really needed a hockey team in the venue as well. In 1971, the newly formed World Hockey Association looked at putting a team in the facility but Nassau County and County Executive Ralph Caso wanted nothing to do with the league that was being put together by some of the same people that were behind the financially struggling American Basketball Association so they turned to noted attorney William Shea, the man who helped push baseball’s National League to expand to New York in 1960 to get them an NHL team.
The National Hockey League quickly expanded to Nassau County in 1971 to ward off the WHA and thus the politics of Nassau County and hockey converged.
The new arena quickly became a home for political patronage for Nassau GOP.
Nassau County Republicans awarded a no-bid concessions contract at the new arena to a prominent GOP contributor in 1972. The arena was a money-losing venture from the very start. The prominent GOP contributor was found in 1973 to have underpaid the county in concession revenues.
The GOP put their operatives in the Coliseum, gave them jobs and found themselves defending huge deficits at the new building.
The Coliseum was a dumping ground for political patrons.
Meanwhile the Nets and Islanders owner Roy Boe was under funded and the basketball team was losing money. Ultimately Boe would agree to join the NBA with three other ABA teams in 1976 at a price of $3.2 million for the right to be an NBA team and then there was a $4.8 million charge for “invading” the New York Knicks territory. Boe could not afford the bills and sold his main draw Julius Erving to Philadelphia. Boe’s Nets would never recover from the merger and sale and Boe sold the team to New Jersey interests who moved the team to Piscataway, New Jersey in 1977. The Islanders nearly suffered the same fate in the late 1970s and were saved when a minority owner John O. Pickett stepped in.
Pickett’s team was aided by a huge cash infusion from the relatively new cable TV company, Charles Dolan’s Cablevision, and the team’s finances stabilized.
The Islanders franchise was a combination, GOP business and cable entity and Dolan was able to use the big money contract as a loss leader for his SportsChannel enterprise by pointing out to the various towns, villages and municipalities that enfranchised Cablevision in Nassau and Suffolk County that we had local programming nobody else did---the Islanders.
Dolan also hired political operatives---mostly Republicans—to help expand Cablevision on Long Island.
At the same time, the Coliseum was losing money. The Hempstead Town Supervisor, Alfonse D’Amato brokered a deal that gave Hyatt Management a five-year contract to run the Coliseum. The deal started in 1979 and D’Amato promised that the county would show a profit on the venue with Hyatt. D’Amato was wrong and the building lost money in 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1982. D’Amato was gone by 1981 as he was elected to the Senate. His successor Thomas Gulotta wanted Hyatt gone but Nassau County Executive Francis Purcell extended the Hyatt deal, the company was now called Spectator Management Group, through 2015.
By the mid-1990s, the Islanders franchise became part of a real estate package that peaked the interest of a New York City developer, Howard Millstein. Pickett sold the Islanders to Millstein and Steven Gluckstern in 1997 and the New York City developer planned to build a new arena on the property along with other structures. Millstein and County Executive Gulotta worked out a deal which fell apart at the last minute. Unofficially the word was the two sides could not agree on who was going to build the venue, Millstein wanted his people, Gulotta wanted his people.
Millstein tried to get out of the lease that gave the hockey team no share of parking and concession revenue. Millstein and Gluckstern sold the Islanders and the Dolan cable TV deal to Wang in 2000.
In 2007 Wang proposed the “Lighthouse Project” which would have rebuilt the Coliseum and developed the land surrounding the building. The project has been in political limbo since then and no one is talking right now.
Dolan owns much of the media in Nassau and Suffolk County with his News12 cable station and the area’s main newspaper, Newsday. For some reason the Coliseum redevelopment plan is not a top news story for Dolan and for some other reason, political reporters no longer press politicians for answers and hold politicians accountable. Kate Murray, the Hempstead Supervisor, gets off easy from the lack of coverage, which has more to do with news philosophy today which is pundit-based instead of Edward R. Murrow type questioning.
But Murray and Mangano should not count on Wang waiting forever for a decision of yes and no on the arena. Wang has a major option that didn’t exist.
An arena grows in Brooklyn.
After a half decade of waiting, New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner finally has the go ahead to build an arena in Brooklyn.
Ratner, a political operative in New York City, is a lot smarter than Phoenix, Arizona politicians that were talked into building an arena that was built with perfect basketball sightlines that is virtually useless for any other sports event.
The financial difficulties of the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes can be directly traced back to the Phoenix decision of the late 1980s.
The story that went around was that Ratner’s Brooklyn building was not going to be able to fit a hockey rink and would be useless for hockey and probably ice shows.
However, a person who worked on Ratner’s original arena plans said there was always a hockey element to Ratner’s plan.
Ratner probably will not outright own the Nets or even the building in 2012 when the place might be finished. Ratner has a deal to sell his team and part of the arena to Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, the owner of a Moscow based basketball and hockey team, CSKA Moscow.
Mangano’s predecessor, Democrat Thomas Suozzi has made it a bit easier for Wang to leave if business does not pick up at the old building. The Islanders/Coliseum lease has been revised and is in effect until 2015. Wang is now getting operational control of the facility and will be in control of booking and will receive parking and concession monies. Wang can break the lease between now and 2015 but only if he pays off Spectator Management Group and receives approval from the Nassau County Legislature.
Mangano is now on the clock as are the Islanders old allies, the Nassau County GOP. Will Mangano follow his GOP roots going back to Ralph Caso, Fran Purcell, Alfonse D’Amato, Thomas Gulotta and play ball with Wang and the Islanders or will Wang, who has Brooklyn as leverage and the NHL will not stop Ratner or Prokhorov from pursuing Wang, just play out the clock waiting for Mangano and Murray to finally make a decision on the Lighthouse Project.
The politics of the New York Islanders continue with some new players playing the same old political games.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
The Politics of the New York Islanders
By Evan Weiner
January 3, 2010
Now that Nassau County, New York has a Republican in the County Executive chair, it is time to find out whether or not the old Nassau County Republican machine will re-embrace the New York Islanders National Hockey League franchise or if the new boss, Ed Mangano will say no to Islanders owner Charles Wang’s proposal to rebuild the Nassau County Veterans Memorial Coliseum and develop the 70 or so acres surrounding the building.
Wang has spent years trying to convince the Hempstead Town Supervisor, the Republican, Kate Murray that his plan is best for the area. So far, not much has happened other than a bunch of meetings and some vague promises.
That is a far, far cry from the old Republican machine that greeted the Islanders and the American Basketball Association’s New York Nets with open arms in 1972 to the new building that opened in Uniondale.
The New York Islanders franchise has never been much about hockey. Sure the team won four consecutive Stanley Cups between 1980 and 1983 but the team has been more about real estate and local Long Island cable TV programming than an on ice product and looking at the history of the Nassau Coliseum project will spell that out immediately.
The building sits on land that was once an Army/Air Force base. Nassau ended up with a lot of the land and decided to put up an arena. The decision was made back in the day when neither the National Basketball Association nor the National Hockey League was a major business. In 1961, the NBA was still trying to establish a national base in the United States and was failing in Chicago while the NHL had six teams with four of them based in the United States.
The arena was built and the county was able to get the American Basketball Association’s New York Nets as a tenant but county officials decided they really needed a hockey team in the venue as well. In 1971, the newly formed World Hockey Association looked at putting a team in the facility but Nassau County and County Executive Ralph Caso wanted nothing to do with the league that was being put together by some of the same people that were behind the financially struggling American Basketball Association so they turned to noted attorney William Shea, the man who helped push baseball’s National League to expand to New York in 1960 to get them an NHL team.
The National Hockey League quickly expanded to Nassau County in 1971 to ward off the WHA and thus the politics of Nassau County and hockey converged.
The new arena quickly became a home for political patronage for Nassau GOP.
Nassau County Republicans awarded a no-bid concessions contract at the new arena to a prominent GOP contributor in 1972. The arena was a money-losing venture from the very start. The prominent GOP contributor was found in 1973 to have underpaid the county in concession revenues.
The GOP put their operatives in the Coliseum, gave them jobs and found themselves defending huge deficits at the new building.
The Coliseum was a dumping ground for political patrons.
Meanwhile the Nets and Islanders owner Roy Boe was under funded and the basketball team was losing money. Ultimately Boe would agree to join the NBA with three other ABA teams in 1976 at a price of $3.2 million for the right to be an NBA team and then there was a $4.8 million charge for “invading” the New York Knicks territory. Boe could not afford the bills and sold his main draw Julius Erving to Philadelphia. Boe’s Nets would never recover from the merger and sale and Boe sold the team to New Jersey interests who moved the team to Piscataway, New Jersey in 1977. The Islanders nearly suffered the same fate in the late 1970s and were saved when a minority owner John O. Pickett stepped in.
Pickett’s team was aided by a huge cash infusion from the relatively new cable TV company, Charles Dolan’s Cablevision, and the team’s finances stabilized.
The Islanders franchise was a combination, GOP business and cable entity and Dolan was able to use the big money contract as a loss leader for his SportsChannel enterprise by pointing out to the various towns, villages and municipalities that enfranchised Cablevision in Nassau and Suffolk County that we had local programming nobody else did---the Islanders.
Dolan also hired political operatives---mostly Republicans—to help expand Cablevision on Long Island.
At the same time, the Coliseum was losing money. The Hempstead Town Supervisor, Alfonse D’Amato brokered a deal that gave Hyatt Management a five-year contract to run the Coliseum. The deal started in 1979 and D’Amato promised that the county would show a profit on the venue with Hyatt. D’Amato was wrong and the building lost money in 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1982. D’Amato was gone by 1981 as he was elected to the Senate. His successor Thomas Gulotta wanted Hyatt gone but Nassau County Executive Francis Purcell extended the Hyatt deal, the company was now called Spectator Management Group, through 2015.
By the mid-1990s, the Islanders franchise became part of a real estate package that peaked the interest of a New York City developer, Howard Millstein. Pickett sold the Islanders to Millstein and Steven Gluckstern in 1997 and the New York City developer planned to build a new arena on the property along with other structures. Millstein and County Executive Gulotta worked out a deal which fell apart at the last minute. Unofficially the word was the two sides could not agree on who was going to build the venue, Millstein wanted his people, Gulotta wanted his people.
Millstein tried to get out of the lease that gave the hockey team no share of parking and concession revenue. Millstein and Gluckstern sold the Islanders and the Dolan cable TV deal to Wang in 2000.
In 2007 Wang proposed the “Lighthouse Project” which would have rebuilt the Coliseum and developed the land surrounding the building. The project has been in political limbo since then and no one is talking right now.
Dolan owns much of the media in Nassau and Suffolk County with his News12 cable station and the area’s main newspaper, Newsday. For some reason the Coliseum redevelopment plan is not a top news story for Dolan and for some other reason, political reporters no longer press politicians for answers and hold politicians accountable. Kate Murray, the Hempstead Supervisor, gets off easy from the lack of coverage, which has more to do with news philosophy today which is pundit-based instead of Edward R. Murrow type questioning.
But Murray and Mangano should not count on Wang waiting forever for a decision of yes and no on the arena. Wang has a major option that didn’t exist.
An arena grows in Brooklyn.
After a half decade of waiting, New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner finally has the go ahead to build an arena in Brooklyn.
Ratner, a political operative in New York City, is a lot smarter than Phoenix, Arizona politicians that were talked into building an arena that was built with perfect basketball sightlines that is virtually useless for any other sports event.
The financial difficulties of the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes can be directly traced back to the Phoenix decision of the late 1980s.
The story that went around was that Ratner’s Brooklyn building was not going to be able to fit a hockey rink and would be useless for hockey and probably ice shows.
However, a person who worked on Ratner’s original arena plans said there was always a hockey element to Ratner’s plan.
Ratner probably will not outright own the Nets or even the building in 2012 when the place might be finished. Ratner has a deal to sell his team and part of the arena to Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, the owner of a Moscow based basketball and hockey team, CSKA Moscow.
Mangano’s predecessor, Democrat Thomas Suozzi has made it a bit easier for Wang to leave if business does not pick up at the old building. The Islanders/Coliseum lease has been revised and is in effect until 2015. Wang is now getting operational control of the facility and will be in control of booking and will receive parking and concession monies. Wang can break the lease between now and 2015 but only if he pays off Spectator Management Group and receives approval from the Nassau County Legislature.
Mangano is now on the clock as are the Islanders old allies, the Nassau County GOP. Will Mangano follow his GOP roots going back to Ralph Caso, Fran Purcell, Alfonse D’Amato, Thomas Gulotta and play ball with Wang and the Islanders or will Wang, who has Brooklyn as leverage and the NHL will not stop Ratner or Prokhorov from pursuing Wang, just play out the clock waiting for Mangano and Murray to finally make a decision on the Lighthouse Project.
The politics of the New York Islanders continue with some new players playing the same old political games.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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