The Knicks are having one helluva season. For the first time since 1975, they have two starters on the All Star team. And the Rangers? They’ve been on a tear since the calendar hit 2025.
Weary New York sports fans have earned this joy.
But for over a million Optimum subscribers across New York, New Jersey and Conn, there’s only agita.
That’s because the cable provider has had a blackout of the MSG Network since New Year’s Day.
No Knicks, no Rangers, no Devils or Islanders. Nada. A big fat goose egg. A blank screen.
The consolation prize for fans who are still paying full price for this insult? They can pay an extra $30 a month for the Gotham sports app. Gee, thanks.
But how much can sports fans be squeezed just to enjoy their local pro teams during the regular season?
My X feed is filled with angry fans literally screaming, “I want My MSG.”
Fox Sports personality Craig Carton and actor Hank Azaria are among the celebrities who have sounded off. Politicians across the tri-state, including all three attorney generals of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, have implored both sides to come to a resolution.
I am hearing from friends and friends of friends. Nonstop. They feel ripped off, slighted and like Optimum is flipping them the bird.
Jeremy Allen, a 29-year-old recruiter in East Meadow, Long Island, told me, “Sports is the only reason I have cable and now I can’t even watch the games. I guess I was naive thinking it would get resolved right away. What a rude awakening.” The die-hard Knicks fan is shopping options.
Russ Lella, a 55-year-old high school teacher in Melville, watches every regular season Knicks game.
But he spent his Christmas vacation on the phone with Optimum. “I said, ‘Look, you dropped my channel.’ They kept telling me what I did have.”
When he told them he was switching providers, he said, Optimum kept him on the phone for 90 minutes, offering discounts.He still left.
“I am a teacher, so I was off that week and had the time,” Lella said. “My friends, who are too busy with work to deal with this nonsense, are angry. When I went to turn in my equipment, there were literally 20 other people there doing the same because they can’t get MSG.”
My college friend Billy Johnson, who hosts the Big Apple sports podcast “Free Oakley,” said his phone hasn’t known peace since the blackout.
“My Long Island friends are totally screwed. I’m the only one on my text chains who can actually watch the games,” he said. “My best friend sits in his car in his driveway in the freezing cold and listens to the Knicks games on the radio. It’s insane.”
And the timing is a major slap in the face.
“Good Knicks seasons don’t grow on trees,” Johnson pointed out. “And devoted fan are being deprived. They are being held hostage by a couple corporate types.”
MSG and Altice, which owns Optimum, have waged open warfare against each other online. On Tuesday, MSG Networks offered a truce in the form of third-party arbitration. Optimum called it a “nothing more than a pr stunt.”
Look, I’m not in the boardroom. I’m that person in the living room. Most of us are. And we just want the simple pleasure of watching our local teams, not watching our bank accounts dwindle as we add streaming service after streaming service, simply to have access.
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