#isles New York Islanders 9/23 preseason game against Devils at Barclay Center is the only scheduled preseason game to be televised on Msg+
— NYI Fan Central (@nyifancentral) August 28, 2015
A year ago I wrote the Dolan's would not permit the Islanders preseason to be televised and the Devils game was after the 2013 game was a blacked out subject entirely to even discuss. I'm also aware they shockingly moved two Ranger games to secondary stations for Islander games during last season.I do not know why that happened.
Of course we all know the long, long history on this subject and they will never release the ratings data for all four stations to break down the ratings disparity/damage for Msg/Msg+/Msg2/Msg+2 non HD.
My impressions are they have hidden the Islanders successfully for so long it's not a big deal anymore to them, and it's likely more one hand at Msg is not working with the other (as the Coliseum's final regular season game post-game was not aired) or it was stock related.
Bottom line our team win or lose will be mostly hidden on television and in print under the Dolan umbrella with at best glass half empty coverage.
Despite the New York Islanders historical strong fan support in NYC:
No professional sports team team has less local media, or only one full time writer who's employed by the owner of another NHL team to do the bare minimum with the glass half empty at best, with something negative in virtually every single article.
The New York Islanders as always will have their narrative defined by other NHL teams or part time professional local writers. Mike Vaccaro of the Post will show up once since 1978 to comically attempt to define the teams history.
Will our fans be smart enough to see through this? Not likely between Mr Yormark seemingly desperate to be the only person among nine NY/NJ counterparts in his job to brand Brooklyn every chance he can, and lose revenue, plus Msg more than happy to keep the New York Islanders publicity out of Manhattan.