When the world hears about New York Knicks owner James Dolan, it’s typically because he’s had security remove someone from Madison Square Garden because they were wearing a shirt with “sell the team” or “Dolan sucks” emblazoned on the front. But not this time.
Dolan has written a scathing letter to the NBA board of governors, which was obtained by ESPN after it was sent to the board on Monday. In it, Dolan heavily criticizes the NBA’s revenue sharing structure and new $74.6 billion media deal.
He feels that the media deal deemphasizes regional sports networks (RSNs) to the point of near-elimination, which as the owner of an RSN (MSG Networks), he is very concerned about. Dolan also feels that revenue sharing, which takes a slice of the media and sponsorship profits from the league’s highest-earning teams and redistributes them among the smaller market teams, promotes only mediocrity.
“The NBA has made the move to an NFL model — deemphasizing and depowering the local market,” Dolan wrote in the letter via ESPN. “Soon, your only revenue concern will be the sale of tickets and what color next year’s jersey will be. Don’t worry, because due to revenue pooling, you are guaranteed to be neither a success nor a failure.
“Of course, to get there, the league must take down the successful franchises and redistribute to the less successful. This new media deal goes a long way to accomplishing that goal.”
Dolan specifically called out the NBA’s decision to keep 8% of the total NBA-related fees for itself in the new deal, which comes out to $6 billion. That’s a massive jump compared to the upcoming 2024-2025 season, the last in the current media rights deal, in which the NBA is keeping just 0.5%, or $15 million.
And he was especially emphatic about RSNs, claiming that the proposal offers “no local protections for RSNs” as it allows up to half of a team’s games (and all playoff games) to be aired by national networks, giving RSNs fewer games to air on their own platforms.
Dolan is no stranger to being the lone dissenting voice. He’s been the squeaky wheel on the NBA owner wagon for quite some time. While the other 29 NBA team owners voted to allow Michael Jordan to sell the Charlotte Hornets, Dolan voted no. He did the same thing when the other 29 owners voted to approve WNBA expansion into San Francisco.
He has also launched what ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski has called an “unorthodox” lawsuit against the Toronto Raptors, alleging that a former employee stole thousands of private and confidential documents before leaving to work for the Raptors. (That kind of information transfer when coaches and development staff change jobs within the NBA is considered customary.) The suit also questions the objectivity of commissioner Adam Silver, who considers Raptors owner Larry Tanenbaum a friend and role model. Dolan resigned from his positions on the NBA’s influential advisory/finance and media committees in November due to the lawsuit.
