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I wanted to ask you about the current Knicks’ imbroglio. Spike Lee: Not going to the White House. Yeah. Apparently, the team owner, James Dolan, who we know is a Donald Trump pal, is trying to force them to visit the White House but the team doesn’t want to. Spike Lee: He can’t force them! It’s been years since the last NBA team has gone. They’re not going. I hope they don’t go! I hope they don’t go.
How do you, as a Knicks superfan, reconcile having James Dolan as the owner of the Knicks? So, not to cut you off, but here’s the thing: There were a lot of Yankees fans that didn’t like George Steinbrenner and his politics. But Steinbrenner wasn’t bringing the president to crucial Knicks games, taking shots at the mayor by questioning his fandom, etc. Spike Lee: He wasn’t. But he was a Republican.
How did Ben Stiller get to make the documentary on the Knicks’ championship run and not you? Spike Lee: It was Dolan. Dolan gave it to him. Look, it’s his team, he can do what he wants to do. Coulda woulda, but it’s his team. He also wants his team to go to the White House, too.
The Knicks are in contract limbo with three key players, after tabling all contract extension talks on Oct. 9. Owner James Dolan said this summer that New York wouldn't dip into the punitive second apron to keep the team together. Hart has a team option and on media day said there hadn't been any discussions on a new deal. Towns is eligible for a four-year, $276 million deal. Before talks were halted, the Knicks' offer was at $200 million, which represents a pay cut from his current salary (four years, $220.4 million). Towns hoped for a contract extension at the start of last season and didn't get it. The disappointment was quiet, but he played through an up-and-down regular season as he and Brown struggled to get on the same page; then it clicked in the postseason.
Mike Vorkunov: "We found out that winning really does matter for teams when it comes to their bottom line. The Knicks had their best day of merch sales ever the day after the finals. Maybe not so surprising, but people who had their team win a championship want to go out and buy a bunch of stuff that supports their team and gets to say that. The numbers came out, and I think it was August or so, but the Knicks had nine home games this playoff run, and they had nine home games the year prior when they went to the Eastern Conference finals. And I think they made something like $60 million more dollars this year. They average about $20 million in revenue per home game. They said in their SEC filings that that set NBA records for game revenue gates. And so it is really fascinating because a separate one for the Rangers said that they really need prolonged playoff runs to be profitable."
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Miles McBride is set to make just under $4 million in the final year of his contract this season and will be in line for a dramatic raise if he hits free agency next summer. Operating under owner James Dolan’s demand to stay under the second apron, it will be extremely difficult for the Knicks to have all five starters on big contracts and still have space left over to give a significant contract to a bench player. That makes Miles McBride the most likely trade candidate on the roster before the Knicks potentially lose him for nothing in the summer.
Ms. Hochul first learned that Mr. Dolan had officially switched sides around the time of the Knicks championship earlier this year. The governor called Mr. Dolan to congratulate him on his team’s success, and he explicitly told her that he would be backing Mr. Blakeman, according to two people familiar with the call.
Knicks owner James Dolan is calling out leaders of the city’s most influential business group for sitting out the governor’s race instead of backing Republican Bruce Blakeman – or at least advocating for a lower tax, pro-growth agenda. Dolan, who also owns Madison Square Garden, is bankrolling a pro-Blakeman political action committee over Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul in this year’s race and he claims other business leaders are giving the incumbent a free pass.
“I have a growing concern that the Partnership and MSG may be sliding toward different paths as it relates to our respective views on the financial and political challenges we are facing both as a city and a state,” Dolan said in an Oct.12 e-letter to Rob Speyer of the real estate firm Tishman Speyer and co-chair of the Partnership’s board of directors. Dolan said there is “widespread agreement”i n the business community that Mayor Zohran Mamdani is “bad for the city” because “we all know that his plans to raise taxes are disastrous for our economy.”
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New York Knicks owner James Dolan is set to host a fundraiser for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman at Madison Square Garden, the New York Post reported. The fundraiser will take place ahead of the Knicks' preseason game against the Toronto Raptors on Oct. 15, according to the Post. An invitation published by the Post shows that tickets to attend the event start at $10,000.
Sports and entertainment mogul James Dolan has emerged as the largest GOP donor in the Empire State this election cycle after backing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s last campaign. Dolan, his company and family members donated $1.4 million this year to committees supporting Hochul’s GOP foe, Bruce Blakeman, and have put millions more into super PACs that have started to support the Republican. The money represents crucial support after one of the party’s biggest rainmakers stopped giving.
Knicks owner James Dolan is hosting a fundraiser for GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman on Thursday at New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden, The Post has learned. The gala hosted by Dolan — along with the president and CEO of Witkoff Group, Scott Alper and chairman of EnTrust Global, Gregg Hymowitz — will take place ahead of the reigning NBA champions’ preseason showdown with the Toronto Raptors.
Oh No He Didn't: Shams on the Knicks statement today: "This is the Knicks attempting to essentially eliminate the distraction, eliminate the growing cloud around the team that has come from the fact that there is no extension for Karl-Anthony Towns or Josh Hart yet, and trying to bring the focus back to basketball. But now officially, both of these sides are fully divided on this issue. I'm told that negotiations have been idle between the Knicks and Towns for a while now. KAT would be willing to take tens of millions of dollars less than that max number, but he feels that current offer is just too steep and too extreme of a pay cut to take. James Dolan, the Knicks have shut the door on Karl-Anthony Towns' wishes for a contract extension"