The Knicks are having one helluva season. For the first 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. An enormous fats goose egg. A clean display.
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 get pleasure from their native professional groups through the common season?
My X feed is crammed with indignant followers actually screaming, “I need My MSG.”
Fox Sports activities persona Craig Carton and actor Hank Azaria are among the many celebrities who’ve sounded off. Politicians throughout the tri-state, together with all three lawyer generals of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, have implored each side to return to a decision.
I’m listening to from pals and pals of pals. Nonstop. They really feel ripped off, slighted and like Optimum is flipping them the hen.
Jeremy Allen, a 29-year-old recruiter in East Meadow, Lengthy Island, informed me, “Sports activities is the one motive I’ve cable and now I can’t even watch the video games. I suppose I used to be naive considering it could get resolved immediately. What a impolite 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 cellphone with Optimum. “I stated, ‘Look, you dropped my channel.’ They stored telling me what I did have.”
When he informed them he was switching suppliers, he stated, Optimum stored him on the cellphone for 90 minutes, providing reductions.He nonetheless left.
“I’m a instructor, so I used to be off that week and had the time,” Lella stated. “My pals, who’re too busy with work to cope with this nonsense, are indignant. Once I went to show in my tools, there have been actually 20 different folks there doing the identical as a result of they will’t get MSG.”
My faculty pal Billy Johnson, who hosts the Massive Apple sports activities podcast “Free Oakley,” stated his cellphone hasn’t identified peace because the blackout.
“My Lengthy Island pals are completely screwed. I’m the one one on my textual content chains who can really watch the video games,” he stated. “My greatest pal sits in his automobile in his driveway within the freezing chilly and listens to the Knicks video games on the radio. It’s insane.”
And the timing is a serious slap within the face.
“Good Knicks seasons don’t develop on bushes,” Johnson identified. “And devoted fan are being disadvantaged. They’re being held hostage by a pair company varieties.”
MSG and Altice, which owns Optimum, have waged open warfare in opposition to one another on-line. On Tuesday, MSG Networks provided a truce within the type of third-party arbitration. Optimum known as it a “nothing greater than a pr stunt.”
Look, I’m not within the boardroom. I’m that individual in the lounge. Most of us are. And we simply need the easy 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.