Madison Square Garden owner battles outcry over ‘dystopian’ blacklisting

Madison Square Garden executive chairman James Dolan is under fire for using facial recognition to bar lawyers acting against his company from top music venues. Photo / AP

© Financial Times

For nearly a quarter of a century, James Dolan has ruled as a capricious king over Madison Square Garden, the sports arena that is home to his New York Knicks basketball team.

Long-suffering Knicks supporters have grown accustomed to coaches being fired on a whim and to Dolan’s volatile temper.

But now he has found a way to shock even those New Yorkers who have been otherwise hardened to his antics: by using facial-recognition technology to stop lawyers working on litigation against his company from entering the arena, which is also the city’s premier venue for concerts and other live events.

Public outrage could soon result in legal consequences. Letitia James, the New York attorney-general, is probing what one affected litigator has called Dolan’s “dystopian” use of the software.

Far from backing down, Dolan, the heir to a cable television fortune, has displayed his combative style in a round of interviews with local media. In one appearance last week, he suggested New York politicians should focus instead on crime rather than worrying about the people he was ejecting, whom he dismissed as “ticket scalpers” and “ambulance chaser” attorneys.

This week, he reportedly hired Hope Hicks, a former Donald Trump aide used to going on the offensive, to handle the escalating public relations fallout.

Few of Dolan’s associates are willing to go on the record, citing fear of blowback. One sports industry veteran, who described Dolan as “a petulant child”, asked not to be identified because “there’s a John Mayer concert coming up at MSG” they wanted to attend.

Another described Dolan as “someone who almost inevitably manufactures crises” and said the fight over facial recognition was “pettiness in the extreme”.

In a statement to the Financial Times, MSG Entertainment pointed to the company’s charitable contributions, including more than $70 million in grants, scholarships and ticket donations through the Garden of Dreams foundation since 2006. “Any attempt to minimise the impact of Jim’s leadership by cherry-picking a few conflicts over the course of more than three decades, coupled with anonymous quotes from a handful of disgruntled employees, paints a wildly misleading and wholly inaccurate portrayal of his leadership.”

The latest episode captured public attention last month after a clutch of lawyers complained that they had been denied entry to events during the holidays. One was accompanying her nine-year-old daughter and friends to the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall, which Dolan also owns.

James Dolan has reportedly hired Hope Hicks, a former Donald Trump aide. Photo / AP

Dolan controls MSG and Radio City through MSG Entertainment, where he is chairman and chief executive, and the Knicks and ice hockey’s New York Rangers via the sister corporation MSG Sports. He is also in talks to develop a UK live-events venue in east London.

The US assets were inherited from his father Charles, founder of Cablevision and HBO, and it is that privilege combined with Dolan’s bombastic style that seems to so irk his detractors.

The sports industry veteran described Dolan as “a guy who was born sliding into home [plate] who shows no appreciation for his position in life”.

Yet some observers think that this time, Dolan is picking a fight he cannot afford to lose. His criticism of New York’s political establishment is foolhardy, they warn, given that MSG has received a property tax abatement since 1982 in exchange for keeping his sports teams in Manhattan. The arrangement has saved the company hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes over the years.

Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Democratic state senator from Manhattan, recently said: “James Dolan is the poster child of privilege, as someone who inherited his wealth and receives an annual $43m tax break from New Yorkers.”

“New York shouldn’t allow petty tyrants to impose their warped fantasies on the public while reaping millions each year from taxpayer subsidies,” added Hoylman-Sigal, who has sponsored legislation that would make venues such as MSG protected spaces for public entertainment.

MSG said representatives such as Hoylman-Sigal should turn their attention to crime and homelessness in New York “rather than taking up the cause of a small percentage of attorneys so they can attend Knicks and Rangers games”.

Dolan’s friends include activist hedge fund manager Nelson Peltz, currently engaged in a messy proxy battle with Disney, while his foes tend to come from the ranks of progressive politicians as well as the legions of fans who support his teams.

In 2015, Dolan personally responded to an impassioned email from a fan lambasting his stewardship of the Knicks by calling him a “hateful mess” and urging him to switch allegiance to the Brooklyn Nets “because the Knicks don’t want you”.

Complaining about Dolan’s ownership of the Knicks, who have not won a National Basketball Association championship since 1973, has become a kind of sport in itself, and a frequent punchline for local politicians trying to curry favour with voters. Andrew Yang, a candidate for the Democratic Party’s New York mayoral nomination in 2021, said he would urge Dolan to sell the team.

Dolan himself has been a significant political donor and has given money to Trump. But in New York, a Democratic stronghold, he has spent his cash more tactically. In 2021, he formed a super political action committee, the Coalition to Restore New York, and made nearly $4m in contributions aimed at shaping last year’s state and local elections.

Among his endorsed candidates was New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, who won after an unexpectedly tight race and holds considerable sway over a state project to redevelop Penn Station, which is located beneath Madison Square Garden, as well as the surrounding land.

Last week, Dolan told local New York sports radio station WFAN that the “heritage” of the Knicks and Rangers to the community is “very, very important to us”, adding: “But in the end, it is a private company. It’s owned, it’s not the US Post Office.”

He said he had no plans to retire or sell the teams.

“We make money on bringing people into the Garden, selling advertising, making our teams popular, etc. We don’t make money on chasing people away,” he added.