The Knicks are having one helluva season. For the primary time since 1975, they’ve two starters on the All Star group. And the Rangers? They’ve been on a tear because the calendar hit 2025.
Weary New York sports activities followers have earned this pleasure.
However for over 1,000,000 Optimum subscribers throughout New York, New Jersey and Conn, there’s solely agita.
That’s as a result of the cable supplier has had a blackout of the MSG Community since New 12 months’s Day.
No Knicks, no Rangers, no Devils or Islanders. Nada. A giant fats goose egg. A clean display screen.
The comfort prize for followers who’re nonetheless paying full value for this insult? They’ll pay an additional $30 a month for the Gotham sports activities app. Gee, thanks.
However how a lot can sports activities followers be squeezed simply to take pleasure in their native professional groups through the common season?
My X feed is full of offended followers actually screaming, “I want My MSG.”
Fox Sports activities character Craig Carton and actor Hank Azaria are among the many celebrities who’ve sounded off. Politicians throughout the tri-state, together with all three legal professional generals of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, have implored each side to return to a decision.
I’m listening to from associates and associates of associates. Nonstop. They really feel ripped off, slighted and like Optimum is flipping them the chook.
Jeremy Allen, a 29-year-old recruiter in East Meadow, Lengthy Island, informed me, “Sports is the only reason I have cable and now I can’t even watch the games. I guess I was naive thinking it would get resolved right away. What a rude awakening.” The die-hard Knicks fan is purchasing choices.
Russ Lella, a 55-year-old highschool instructor in Melville, watches each common season Knicks recreation.
However he spent his Christmas trip on the telephone with Optimum. “I said, ‘Look, you dropped my channel.’ They kept telling me what I did have.”
When he informed them he was switching suppliers, he stated, Optimum saved him on the telephone for 90 minutes, providing reductions.He nonetheless left.
“I am a teacher, so I was off that week and had the time,” Lella stated. “My friends, who are too busy with work to deal with this nonsense, are angry. When I went to turn in my equipment, there were literally 20 other people there doing the same because they can’t get MSG.”
My school buddy Billy Johnson, who hosts the Large Apple sports activities podcast “Free Oakley,” stated his telephone hasn’t identified peace because the blackout.
“My Long Island friends are totally screwed. I’m the only one on my text chains who can actually watch the games,” he stated. “My best friend sits in his car in his driveway in the freezing cold and listens to the Knicks games on the radio. It’s insane.”
And the timing is a serious slap within the face.
“Good Knicks seasons don’t grow on trees,” Johnson identified. “And devoted fan are being deprived. They are being held hostage by a couple corporate types.”
MSG and Altice, which owns Optimum, have waged open warfare towards one another on-line. On Tuesday, MSG Networks provided a truce within the type of third-party arbitration. Optimum referred to as it a “nothing more than a pr stunt.”
Look, I’m not within the boardroom. I’m that particular person in the lounge. Most of us are. And we simply need the straightforward pleasure of watching our native groups, not watching our financial institution accounts dwindle as we add streaming service after streaming service, merely to have entry.
