MSG-Altice dispute comes at a tough time for Knicks fans enjoying team's spirited run
Josh Hart #3 of the Knicks dishes off a pass to a teammate during the second quarter against the Utah Jazz at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. Credit: Jim McIsaac
There is one thing we can say definitively about the current dispute between MSG Networks and Altice, parent company of Optimum TV: This is particularly cruel for Knicks fans.
They have waited a quarter-century for a team this good, watching games, paying cable television bills, hoping someday it all would be worth it.
But when the Knicks won their ninth game in a row on Wednesday night, many of those fans were shut out, thanks to Altice pulling MSG as 2025 dawned.
What is going on here?
A lot, all of it bad.
MSG needs to be on Optimum TV, on a well-subscribed tier, to make its business work, barring a massive migration of homes to Verizon Fios or DirecTV.
Regional sports networks such as MSG have been hit hard by the cord-cutting era and the decline of the traditional cable bundle, with no margin for error.
But RSNs are not the only victims of cord cutting. Cable companies such as Altice also have been damaged and are aggressively trying to hold the line on costs.
Hence Altice is complaining that MSG is asking for too much money, and saying it should be moved to a sports-centric tier, which is not a realistic option for MSG.
Altice, like all cable companies, cares more about providing broadband service, which has high profit margins, than video.
So it would be fine with you keeping its internet service and streaming the Knicks, Rangers and Islanders on fuboTV or the Gotham Sports app.
It suffers only when you switch to a service such as Verizon and take your internet connection there with you.
While both sides in this dispute seem to be dug in for what could be a long battle, there obviously is room for compromise.
Optimum still carries other sports channels such as YES, SNY and ESPN on diverse, popular tiers, so at the right price, there must be a way for MSG to be there, too.
RSNs and cable providers often are at odds, but they also still need each other.
The precise details of this disagreement remain a closely held secret, but someday it figures to be resolved. Let’s hope so. But the ride will be bumpy.
During this transition from the cable bundle to streaming, sports fans have been swatted around like pinatas. Did you want to watch Thursday night’s Maple Leafs-Islanders game? It was an ESPN+ exclusive.
The most notorious case is the Yankees, whose games seem to ricochet at random among local and national TV channels and streaming platforms.
But one thing Yankees fans can rely on is that most games still are on the YES Network, just as most Knicks, Rangers and Islanders games still are on MSG.
Once that rug is pulled out from under fans, there is nothing to count on, and more and more will decide to remove the “kick me” signs from their backs and stop caring at all.
In fairness, one thing must be pointed out here that sports fans need to accept: The past 10 years or so have represented the revenge of the non-sports fan.
For decades, they subsidized those of us who like sports by paying for expensive sports channels in their cable bundles that they never watched.
Your great-aunt Ethel who does not know Aaron Judge from Joe Judge paid the same for YES and MSG as you did.
But in the streaming era, those folks have other options, and many have exercised them, leaving sports fans to pay more for the privilege.
That’s fair. But only to a point.
We can accept that this is a transition period in which streaming is going to confuse and cost us at times. We can accept that RSNs and cable companies are in a tough spot and need to protect their business interests at every turn. We can accept that sports fans might need to pay more now than 20 years ago.
But we cannot accept a world in which our dominant local cable company and our dominant winter sports channel disconnect in the middle of a special season.
Sure, business is business. But this also is personal. Figure it out.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.