It's Official: Dolan/Cablevsion/Msg/Newsday Want Nassau Coliseum

New York Islander Fan Central | 4/16/2013 11:32:00 PM |
I sure did try over the years, writing this day was coming often. On 11/20/12 this website wrote, Nassau To Pick Coliseum Developer, Who Cares? here.

Now there is reason to care.

James Dolan's Cablevision, Msg, Newsday have bid for the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the company that did the song and dance they wanted the Isles to stay, now want their home arena in the future.

Make no mistake it would take a miracle for them not to win that bid. 

Another entertainment venue to go with Hartford (tenant), Los Angeles Forum, Radio City, Beacon Theater, even Newsday to control the message. That's what Dolan does.

Updated 5/3/13:  NY Post
“We’ve put together a quality team ... plus this is what we do! We operate seven venues, and we’ve restored and revitalized each and every one, “said MSG President Hank Ratner.....


When the NHL's oldest facility, the Cablevision Garden (getting a 16.5m dollar check from the taxpayers each year) is done being renovated, they will turn their full attention to the Nassau Coliseum.

The Bids Are In:
This bid for the Coliseum will feature Charles Wang's friend (future part landlord), Bruce Ratner vs Dolan vs Blumenfeld vs Master Developer of the HUB, Donald Monti.

Hofstra President Stuart Rabinowicz will likely support the Blumenfeld bid. (unless Hofstra expansion projects with biotech are part of the HUB or if Master Developer Monti has promised him that.)

Dolan will likely have another corporate naming sponsor like JPM Chase who are giving Msg 300m for internal naming rights, along with Cablevision money, and perhaps their own naming rights on the facility.

They will win the bid handily because most of these other people are looking for some public financing (or a referendum-like deal) which Nassau will not do, they just renovated a similar facility in age.

They only need to transfer the companies that renovated Msg to Long Island. 

Plus they have a professional AHL hockey team all ready to cut into most of Charles Wang's current family/kid season ticket NHL base, the Ct/Cablevision Whale with an expiring lease in two years.

Ed Mangano:
Mangano will pick what can save his bid for re-election. Cablevision can give him the political contributions/positive press to help that. Tom Suozzi is a former Newsday employee after he lost to Mangano so that end is covered completely.

Long Island Press in 2010 reported Cablevsion has given 200,000 to Suozzi's political bids. 
 Cablevision, its political action committee and owners, the Dolan family, had been one of Suozzi’s biggest campaign contributors throughout his career—donating nearly $200,000 to Suozzi’s political aspirations since 2006, according to NYS Board of Elections financial disclosure records.
Counting on Mangano to be voted of office out for losing the Islanders? Not a prayer. Like referendum day, that's a smaller minority completely indifferent to virtually the only municipality in New York/New Jersey (around the country/Canada) who did nothing to keep their professional sports team via taxpayers. 

Of course when County Website rips Dolan owned Newsday in 2012 it's fair to write they do not have the best of relationships.
 
“It’s become obvious that Newsday columnist Joye Brown has some personal grudge or vendetta against Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano. We all get that! However, it’s a shame that Newsday is allowing an editorial opinion on the news page without labeling it as such. The fact that Newsday, once one of the top five daily newspapers in the nation, condones this poor practice is disturbing as it lacks transparency by blurring the line between news and opinion.

For me, my family, friends and associates, it appears Newsday is joining the ranks of the Star and the Enquirer. To place a column with Brown’s personal feelings on page 3, next to actual news stories – as a way of tricking the average reader into thinking they are facts – is yellow journalism at its worst. Ethical journalism calls for viewpoints in a separate section from the news because the two are supposed to be separate and apart. Accordingly, I am calling on the publisher of Newsday to end this practice immediately!”

Kate Murray:
For Kate Murray, the Rangers are exciting, it's obvious what she wants, she will get her sixty percent on election day as long as she does what the Joe Mondello machine tells her to do.

Charles Wang:
Wang will have veto power over the HUB site until 2015 per the LI Business News, but who knows if that could be negotiated as part of breaking his current lease early? Ratner vs Dolan will make for some very interesting games, and with the Islanders future television/newspaper coverage given the contention with the Nets ownership to say nothing of fights for events with Barclay's currently going on 4/17/13.

Dolan's long problems with virtually every NY/NJ team is well documented.  

Wang has a binding lease until 2021 in Bridgeport, and Howard Saffan said the team is not going to move anywhere regardless of the Isles. He operates Webster Bank Arena which he just spent money renovating.

Charles Wang is not paying to repair the Nassau Coliseum anymore, unless Bruce Ratner has an ECHL hockey team included as part of his bid there will  not be a New York Islander affiliate to put on the property.

Again, I have written this often, as long as Wang owns the Marriott, he needs revenue from people staying there who will go to the Coliseum, not an empty lot. He may even want Dolan to put his AHL team in the Coliseum so his hotel receives the related hockey business from fans/visiting teams he will lose in Brooklyn?

Wang picked Brooklyn to make Dolan keep paying him cable contract money, and for his legacy of not being the man to lose the Islanders. It's a far from perfect plan for Wang to generate revenue, and those claiming luxury boxes are the revenue miracle learned nothing from the Smg lease that John Pickett did to go with teams in modern buildings losing money all over this league with full facility control, luxury boxes, and thousands of more seats than Barclay's at this time.

Per the LIBN, David Winzelberg, in August 2012 Wang can veto any plan for the HUB/Coliseum here.

Wang’s newest lease for the Coliseum signed last year gives him a say in what eventually gets built around the rest of the property. The Hub’s master developer will have to build a tiered parking to make up for any of the 6,500 parking spots lost, and Wang can reject any plan he deems would “adversely affect the use and operation” of his Long Island Marriott hotel and the Coliseum.
Legally speaking does Mangano's RPF for the Coliseum circumvent the above? Perhaps.

Behind The Scenes:
No, James Dolan is not happy. That 300m+ until 2030 in cable contract money was to pay for a Cablevision Coliseum bid when the Isles left New York entirely.
 
That plan (for now or until we see something on that iron-clad Barclay's lease) did not work out for Dolan.


Perhaps enough current Islander fans (mostly comprised of families/kids) at future LI Ranger AHL games combined with a very poor Brooklyn turnout will force Wang/NHL to cease operations. There will be virtually no media with the real chance Newsday goes AP with the Islanders in Brooklyn. 

For a company that pulled Islander pregames with Dolan fighting with a former Msg President over hockey production costs,  imagine how much 300m+ means to Cablevision/Msg, plus full territorial rights to say nothing of no longer having to produce game coverage?

Trust me, if the games were of value, every time there was a +2 game, Dolan would find a way to put it in a place people could find it in HD, and would promote the games like he does his own teams. The man went on WFAN, and laughed when grilled on the Isles 2002 playoffs being put on Metroguide.

Referendum Shell Game Complete:  
Folks, I tried. How many countless times did I question the coverage, with the end game long before a 2011 referendum or since?


Now we know (or knew) why all those negative articles appeared in Msg's newspaper to defeat the referendum long before Dolan's Newspaper's very late tepid, token endorsement only when it was clear it would not pass (polls) that only said the process should continue for now when you got to the fine print. 

The two second appearance of James Dolan endorsing anything would make people vote against it, who but hockey fans would visit ITV to view even know of it's existence?

Dolan-owned Newsday took a quiet vote in August, and their newspaper made it a circus to drum up support to defeat it  with continual front-page headlines, and negative editorials. Now they want the Coliseum, and have placed a bid for it?

This was not Mike Bloomberg quickly giving every team the store via taxpayer behind closed door for new baseball stadium's. 

George Marlin will not be doing negative editorials in Dolan's Newspaper to tell the public Msg should not develop the Nassau Coliseum. 

Randi Marshall will not be twittering about Dolan's political contributions as she did regarding Charles Wang.

Coverage Game: 
Per the LI Press/Countless Articles we know how Dolan plays the media game with outlets he owns direct from the employees.

Please don't write, and claim it's my conspiracy. The people working for him have said this many times April 2012  along with 2010. I could produce a hundred links of Dolan regulating media from other outlets. It's what the professional media has reported independent of Msg almost non-stop, along with the employees themselves.

The Nassau Coliseum sure has received a lot of questionable or trivial front pages under Dolan's ownership.

Dolan's paper linking the Isles to Smg for the first time ever or using the front page over a disputed rent bill of only a few million? Nassau County had past disputes with Smg over money owed that was on the county website in 2006.

So much for " Smg set us free", when the Tribune Company owned Newsday in the late 1990's when they were the Islanders flat out enemy with lawsuits. If you read Dolan's paper, it comes off as if the Islanders are treated like they co-created the Coliseum internal problems themselves lately, when all Wang did was spend money as a tenant to renovate his landlords building long before Wang/Rechler got the so-called 2009 " gift " of a sublease where Smg receives 17m until 2015 unless Wang opted out which means Smg still get's every dollar through 2015.

Some gift.

Of course Dolan's paper should report the Islanders were named in the Coliseum asbestos lawsuit, that's fair. 

You will not see one word against Dolan's bid for the Coliseum, at best only the competition in the official newspaper of Madison Square Garden will be discussed with their plans. 

Dolan's paper will not turn it's owners bid into a circus like the Lighthouse or the referendum, those writers would lose their jobs. The silence will be deafening until they are selected as RFP winner (whatever you call it) which is separate from the HUB.

Who knows what Robert Brodsky, Randi Marshall will be told to write to keep their job? News12 LI is Dolan-owned which moderated the big vote debate in 2012.

The LI Business News has a Dolan owned name attached to it.

The NYC media will not care, they sell Msg, and their teams, plus need the ad money. Dolan's recent quote that he pays you're salary does not extend only to Msg security. Sports editors know he pays their salary too with the beat writer faster than you can say, Alan Hahn, New York Observer 2007 vs 2013.

At least the Observer in 2013 finally pointed out all those privately funded baseball stadiums were built by the taxpayers vs the NYC editorials demanding Wang pay for it himself in 2011.

The Dolans 16.5m from taxpayers every year did not make it into the Observer. 

Kind of like the countless articles you see about the sports coverage with the spin positive for Msg, not the other teams. (Newsday's Foil request on Mets)

Bridgeport vs Long Island vs Cablevision Whale in Hartford:
Dolan wants another entertainment venue, the Sound Tigers are locked into Webster Bank Arena until 2021, and in two years Dolan is free to move his AHL team directly into a new/renovated Nassau Coliseum so there is your professional team per Mangano's guidelines. 

The Sound Tigers registering two domains was strange but a sign of what's been going on quietly behind the scenes, that could have been for this coming year. 

The AHL Long Island Rangers will cut into the remaining Islander fans, the kids/familes that currently make up a large part of the crowd at the Islander games, there are no territorial rights for the American Hockey League. The Rangers NHL team will waste no time going back to the Coliseum for some preseason games, to market an AHL franchise as the official home team.

Unlike in Hartford where Msg decided to immediately go after another teams fan base with an AHL affiliate, and met resistance, that will not happen on Cablevision-owned Long Island, where Newsday even before Dolan purchased the paper worked tirelessly to sell the Msg brand with generations of Ranger fans working for the paper.

Legal?
As I have written here often Dolan, Cablevision, Msg, Newsday have every legal right to do this.  

Bridgeport:
Not much to write about Bridgeport, they lost a two goal lead with three minutes left to lose in overtime, in another game that defined their season. They have richly earned the playoff elimination that should come no later than Saturday.


According to Quadnews.net via New Haven Register reporter Chip Malafronte, defenseman Mike Dalhuisen has signed a contract with the New York Islanders and is set to play for their AHL affiliate, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, beginning 2013-14. The terms of the contract are undisclosed. 


New York:
When the 48 game season concludes, entries about the 2013-14 season will begin. Sorry for the timing but this is Mangano's plan, not mine. As I told folks back on 1/2/13 the season was cancelled here, Stanley Cup or 30th, and that this website may not be for you during this time.