The end of the NBA lockout very well could signal the start of another – the mass lockout of fans from seeing live NBA and NHL games on MSG/FSNY.
With the return of the Knicks and Nets, MSG/FSNY will have exclusive local rights to five teams, including the Rangers, Islanders and Devils, but only two area-wide cable channels – MSG Network and Fox Sports New York – on which to televise the games. No live Knick games, you can be sure, will be lost from view.
The NBA lockout delayed this particularly sticky situation for MSG/FSNY, which this fall decided it would not, as it had in the past, facilitate nightly spillover cable stations on dates that saw three or more MSG/FSNY teams in action. Several Islander and Devil games were lost to this decision early this NHL season.
MSG/FSNY yesterday declined to comment on its plans, come the return of the Knicks and Nets, but sources indicated that the Cablevision-owned networks will await the revised NBA schedule before acting.
Local Cablevision-owned cable systems several months ago cleared three “MSG Metro” channels – channels that provide area traffic, weather and features programming. One of those channels last month carried a Devils game on a triple-conflict night. Time-Warner cable systems will clear an MSG Metro station beginning Jan. 28.
The decision to not facilitate nightly spillover channels for sports programming at a time when Cablevision was adding three additional channels to its systems, creates the inescapable perception that MSG/FSNY sports programming would be used by Cablevision to drive a demand among non-Cablevision subscribers for their cable systems to add more Cablevision-owned channels.
Regardless, the return of the Knicks and Nets likely will create for MSG/FSNY many multiple conflict nights. Unless a far-reaching solution is reached – and quick – it’s impossible to envision winter and spring nights in which hockey and/or basketball fans are not deprived of the live sports programming they paid to see. *Months before the start of the NBA was delayed, speculation ran high that Marv Albert would become the voice of Monday night NBA basketball on TNT/TBS. Turner TV sources had indicated that Albert, having been dismissed by NBC, was the national play-by-play basketball voice the network needed, wanted and intended to pursue.
“I know absolutely nothing about that,” Albert said yesterday. “At this point, everything’s speculation. I’m just looking forward to getting back into the [Knicks’ radio] booth – even if I do have to sit next to John Andariese.”