Looking Back On The YankeeNets Partnership

Good morning Fackers. Mired in an abhorrent season that is on pace to be the worst in NBA history, the New Jersey Nets are less than an afterthought for most Yankee fans. They serve only as off-season filler for YES, killing time between episodes of Hot Stove and Yankees Magazine. Monday, the news broke that the Nets were close to a deal that would see them leave the Meadowlands to play the next two seasons at Newark's Prudential Center, and then presumably make their long awaited move to Brooklyn in 2012.

Moving is nothing new for the Nets. The Rock would be the seventh different arena to house the team since their inception in 1967, joining such sports meccas as the Teaneck Armory and the Rutgers Athletic Centers as courts they called home. But there is a certain irony in the Nets now reaching a deal to join the Devils in Newark, as it was the proposed construction of a Newark arena that proved to be the final straw in breaking the ambitious, if ultimately unsuccessful, YankeeNets partnership.

In the midst of their 114 victory 1998 championship season, the Yankees were approached by Cablevision, who presented an offer to purchase the club from George Steinbrenner and his partners. Cablevision owned MSG Network, which had carried Yankee games since 1989 as part of a then-record 12 year, $500 million dollar television rights contract that changed that landscape of TV deals for professional sports teams. With that agreement nearing expiration, Cablevision was looking to consolidate their position and maintain their monopoly on the rights of all seven major sports franchises in the metropolitan area. Cablevision already owned the Knicks and Rangers, the marquee basketball and hockey franchises in the area, and were looking to add the area's most valuable franchise to their portfolio.

Negotiations continued into the off-season, and just as it seemed a deal was imminent, it fell apart over the issue of how much control George Steinbrenner would exert as the Yankees managing partner from a minority ownership role. With Cablevision off the table, the Yankees turned to the Nets, and in 1999 YankeeNets was formed as a holding company, owning both franchises. The following year they added the New Jersey Devils to the fold, purchasing the club in the midst of their run to the 2000 Stanley Cup. Interestingly enough, the Devils had been owned for their entire history by Dr. John McMullen, the former Astros owner and a one-time minority owner of the Yankees who said "Nothing is so limited as being one of George's limited partners".

With three major professional franchises in their holdings, from a business standpoint YankeeNets was well positioned to leverage their collective holdings into favorable arrangements. With the Yankees TV deal with Cablevision expiring after the 2001 season, and the Nets deal expiring in 2002, the two teams could collectively negotiate for new deal, or even form a network of their own. Meanwhile, by adding the Devils to the group, the partnership contained two New Jersey based teams desiring a new arena, leaving them better positioned to work towards a new home.

As we all know by now, the first proposition came to pass. Together, the Yankees and Nets offered enough year round programming to establish their own regional sports station, and the highly successful YES Network launched in early 2002. The second issue ended up being the undoing of the partnership. Both the Nets and and Devils were in favor of building a new arena in Newark, But as individual business entities, despite success on the court and on the ice, both teams were losing money and couldn't secure enough funding to finance the project. Given the financial state of the two teams, Steinbrenner was unwilling to put up the remaining funds. This fractured the partnership, and when a resolution couldn't be reached, the dissolution of YankeeNets followed. The Devils and Nets were sold in early 2004 and YankeeNets was renamed Yankee Global Enterprises. It still serves as the holding company for both the Yankees and the YES Network.

While the partnership lasted just five years and fell short of all that seemed possible at its formation, the brief existence of YankeeNets benefited the Yankees in ways they are still enjoying today. It allowed for the formation of the highly successful YES Network, providing the Yankees with an extremely lucrative revenue stream. Though the two teams are no longer linked from a business standpoint, the continued presence of the Nets on YES provides the network with needed winter programming, allowing it to be viable year round. And if nothing else, the YankeeNets partnership prevented the Yankees from reopening sale negotiations with Cablevision. Looking back on the train wrecks that both the Knicks and Rangers have been for the past ten years, I shudder at what might have been had the Yankees falled under the Dolans umbrella. If that's not enough to get you to have a little pity on the 4-44 Nets, nothing is.

Are The Mets The New Knicks?

[Here is a guest post I did for River Ave. Blues last week, and figured the off day would be a good time to re-post it here.]

The similarities go beyond just the blue and orange. Both teams are owned by father/son duos and have been plagued by recent failures despite having payrolls near or at the top of their respective sports. Each franchise has only two championships in their history and has made the playoffs exactly one out of the past eight seasons. They both have had their front offices' dirty laundry aired in the New York tabloids in recent years.

Not that Jose Reyes ever asked a Mets intern if she was going to "get in the truck" or Omar Minaya sexually harassed a fellow member of the front office, but there is a big distinction between having an unsuccessful franchise and having the details of why your organization is a disaster printed for the world to see. At the center of these two debacles are two executives who have/had close relationships with the owners of their teams but terrible ones with the media.

While serving as President of Basketball Operations for the Knicks, Isiah Thomas spoke with the placid monotone of someone who was heavily medicated, spouting off cliches and dropping wincers such as "To me, it’s win or die. And I literally mean death. I don’t mean walk away. I mean death. That’s how I approach it". Omar, on the other hand has a penchant for mixing metaphors, inaccurate tensing ("He has lobby myself") and verbal tics, you know what I'm saying?

Initially credited with making the Mets an attractive destination and recruiting players like Pedro Martinez, Carlos Delgado and Billy Wagner, Omar's track record is tainted by severely overpaying for Luis Castillo, giving Moises Alou $15M for 414 plate appearances and locking up Oliver Perez, (who is currently humming along to the tune of a 7.42 ERA) for three years and $36M. The Johan Santana trade alone puts Minaya ahead of Thomas in terms of transactions that turned out favorably for their team, but the number of playoff appearances and dollars each team has spent speak for themselves.

Back on March 12th, 2007, with Knicks holding a record of 29-34 and sitting at 8th place in the Eastern Conference, James Dolan singed Isiah Thomas to a three year extension. Nine months earlier, Dolan had issued an ultimatum, saying the Knicks would have to make "evident progress" in order to Isiah to return as coach the following year.

The team had gone 23-59 under Larry Brown the year before, so they did improve, but the timing was curious. Dolan could have waited to see how the season turned out, but instead said "the improvement needs to be recognized now and not wait". The team responded with a horrid 4-14 stretch and finished 7 games out of the playoffs. Thirteen months later, Thomas was "reassigned" and banned from having any contact with the team, effectively ending his tenure as Knicks GM and coach.

Immediately following the conclusion of the 2008 season, the second one in a row which concluded by the Mets getting nudged out of October on the last day of the season after holding a significant lead with less than three weeks to go, Jeff Wilpon extended a three year contract extension to Omar Minaya. The timing again was questionable, as the GM had a full year left on his current deal, but Wilpon said "we think he deserves another chance to keep getting us to where we want to be".

The Mets are currently in 4th place in the NL East and behind 7 other teams in contention for the Wild Card, 5.5 games back. Unfortunately for Minaya, the on-the-field performance can be largely explained away by injuries, but the power structure of the Mets organization has come under fire as of late. First with the clumsy axing of Willie Randolph last year but most recently the zany antics of Tony Bernazard and the ensuing unsuccessful attempted public sacrifice of beat writer Adam Rubin's journalistic integrity, the team has become a punching bag for the New York Media. Rubin wondered aloud how he could continue his duties as a reporter covering theMets after the incident, but one has to question whether Omar can continue running them.

Even since they hired Donnie Walsh to head their basketball operations back in April of last year, the Knicks have had an air of credibility around them, even though their play on the floor was still sub-par. A well-respected veteran of the Pacers' front office, Walsh is candid with the media and his Wikipedia page doesn't have to have a separate section for "Controversy". Could the Mets benefit from a similar move?

It's quite unlikely that the Mets leapfrog 7 teams (or three in the NL East) and sneak into the playoffs this year. Since Minaya's new contract doesn't even start until the end of this season and won't end until 2012, keeping him around would be a prudent financial move. Rob Neyer doesn't think that will play a role in the decision, though.

Has Omar passed the point of no return?

I personally don't think so and don't feel certain that his successor would necessarily bring a new direction to the franchise, other than the symbolic overture of axing Minaya. That said, public perception and fan placation is a big part of being a successful sports team in New York, and theWilpon's have to be prepared to deal with a lot of backlash if they stand by their man.

Spike Lee Plays D

I don't know who would be penalized, but I'm fairly sure this is against the rules.

With the Knicks down by two and under a minute to go, Spike Lee decided to get his lean on and help Al Harrington force the Magic to spend their last timeout. Well played, sir.

Spike is trying to be fairly discreet, but unfortunately, the guy in the suit next to him looks like he's about to piss himself.

One Reason to Watch the Knicks

Since we went to see the Knicks a couple of weeks ago, I have started to watch them a little bit more and have found them to be quite entertaining. Then watching them lose last night on a buzzer beater finger roll layup I realized why...

Gus Johnson.

We here at Fack Youk and our peers on the internet and internet 2.0 have been quite critical of announcers over the years. Say what you will about Gus, but that guy loves his job and gets into every game he announces. He goes absolutely fucking apeshit no matter if it is the NCAA tournament or Knicks v. Portland in February and his enthusiasm for every game is more infectious than a leper holding a needle full of AIDS.

And look at it this way, if you start watching now you can deflect people calling you a fair-weather fan when they sign Lebron next year and you are watching every game.

We Will, We Will, Sign You [Clap] Sign You [Clap]

Yesterday on the Max Kellerman Show on 1050 ESPN Radio, they had callers propose an chant for Knicks fans to serenade LeBron James with at the Garden. They settled on the above one, based on Queen's famous arena song.

The night after Kobe dumped 61 (with no rebounds and 3 assists) on the Knicks at the Garden, LeBron topped it by scoring 52 with 11 dishes and 10 boards, the most points in a triple-double since the merger.

"Look At It Dave": A Photo Retrspective [The Fack Youk Experience]

In case you missed this post, we got tickets to the Knicks game last night through www.scalpers.com, er, I mean... StubHub. They weren't that expensive but I still hate StubHub with a passion. They charged us a $36 fee because it was within a certain amount of time before the game began. That is pretty ballsy. I can't imagine why it would cost you more to give me a ticket at one time as opposed to another. You're just being dicks about it. That's the same pricing system the airlines used, and see where that got them? That horrible site led to the extinction of truly cheap tickets, but no one really seems to care. Fuck you StubHub. Fuck you over a rusty park bench.

Anyway, I'm roughly 103% certain that the charges against Eddie Curry are false. Stuff like this always is. We've heard this one a million times, highly paid but underachieving athlete is sued by a personal employee for making homosexual advances. No? Okay, but his driver seems like a bit of a nut job and an anonymous commenter said he knew him and that he's a weirdo (INFALLIBLE!). That doesn't make this any less funny, to us anyway...

We made a two part sign. One (decoy) that said "Lets Go Knicks", and one taped (via a duct tape "hinge" of sorts) underneath that said "Look At It, Dave" and in the process became the oldest people to ever carry a sign to an NBA game without a child in their presence.

Phase One:

Phase Two:Nothing more bad-ass than a Sunday River face warmer.

What we failed to realize during the 25 minute half-drunken flurry that resulted in obtaining the necessary supplies and creating this abortion of an artistic work, is that you can't see fucking orange marker from across a semi-dark arena. We had a friend of a friend sitting about four rows back from the court and told us the only words he could read were "Look" & "It".

We probably would have known this if we were the type of asshats who would actually bring a sign to a professional sporting event for a reason other than to make a joke that about 5% of the people at the game are going to get in the eight possible seconds we would have been on the jumbo-tron.

I was skeptical at first, but the "Knicks City Kids" are downright ridiculous (Terrible picture, sorry. Didn't want to be the creepy guy with the sign taking multiple pictures of 8 year olds). I'm pretty sure they chain them up in an abandoned subway car underneath Penn Station and allow them to do nothing other than practice dancing.

MSG is nice enough to give you a lid to help you avoid spilling your beer on other people on your way back to your seat. It's a nice thought. However, they fill the beers up to the very brim and when you walk, it makes the keg swill inside foam up, thereby creating a constant flow of suds through the straw hole. And when you try to take the lid off, it creates some soft of a vortex, causing you to spill more beer.

I'm guessing the total amount of beer spilled has been reduced by the introduction of the lid, but there is absolutely no way to get from the concession stand to your seat with one, much less two beers without your hands and the side of the cup being covered in shitty light beer.

The Knicks City Dancers' routine included a riveting crescendo where they went through about eight sexual positions in four seconds. It was resplendent, I tell you.

What? I'm Trey Anastasio, lead guitarist of the band Phish, shut up. Does that give me more credibility when I try to talk about music?

[Ed. Note: That terrible photoshop took me like 25 minutes and that "joke" got less funny by the second. I spent so much time on it, I still feel compelled to include it though. I really need to figure out how to use Gimp.]

I took this picture so I would remember the final score.

Oh, about the actual game...

We sat next to some chill kids from Philly, who if they are reading this, probably don't think it's funny because they've heard all the punchlines already.

The Knicks actually were within 1 point (or 3 maybe, I don't remember or care) but it got pretty exciting in the fourth quarter. Danilo Galinari drained a three (in his first game back) and Al Harrington made a few as well in a really awesome, signature SSOL(F?) shootout. Andre Iguodala had super sick dunk that I'm sure made the Top Ten on SportsCenter. One of the guards on Philly (not exactly in research mode at the moment) had a silly juke which should have been up there as well, but probably wasn't.

The penultimate moment of the night, that sort of summed up the whole experience, was when Nate Robinson got free on a breakaway. Every single person not in a wheelchair was on their feet, about to have a sportsgasm and he fucking finished it like John Stockton. I wanted to cry. YOU WON THE SLAM DUNK CONTEST YOU AMAZING LITTLE MAN. DUNK FOR ME!

See what I did there? Someone on 35th & Madison is going to be very confused for about 2/3 of a second.

"Get This Idea Will Just Had" [The Fack Youk Experience]

Clifton: you going to the knicks game tonight?

11:26 AM me (Jay): probably

get this idea just Will had:

we are gonna make a sign that says...

take a guess

Clifton: i was going to say you should make a sign

haha

what?

me: GUESS

11:27 AM Clifton: fack youk and something about curry

me: close, we didn't even think about the fack youk part

"Look At It, Dave"

Clifton: hahaha

11:28 AM me: probably scroll www.fackyou.blogspot.com on the bottom except spell it right

Clifton: they probably aren't going to let you in with thatme: ahhh yes, but here's the genius part

we are going to make two signs and tape them together, with the one on the outside saying something hokey and gay like "Let's Go Knicks" with a basketball or something

11:29 AM Clifton: thats awesome

me: and then bust out "Look At It, Dave" in like the 2nd quarter and see how long it takes to get kicked out by the MSG gestapo

Clifton: that is outstanding

me: we might get some publicity, and it's sort of fucking hilarious

Clifton: there must be a blog post about the experience

11:30 AM me: there will be a preliminary post and a follow up probably

11:31 AM Clifton: good stuff

11:32 AM me: i may or may not just rip this GChat and post it directly on the blog

Clifton: that is not a bad idea either

Like The Knicks? Root For The Cavs!

I'm not a huge basketball fan, but my primary affiliation is with the Knicks, just based on who my dad rooted for and the Starter jacket I had in 5th grade. If most of my time living in NYC didn't coincide with the Isaiah Thomas era, I probably would have caught more than one game at MSG. I'd could have been even less of a fan if our gym teacher in high school didn't just roll out six or eight basketballs and do everything but rename our gym class "45 minutes of pick-up games".

I've never followed a full season of Knicks basketball, but if they get LeBron, I'm jumping on the bandwagon before ESPN has the headline up on their homepage.

True Knicks fans (or real fans of any team) would probably take offense to this, and rightfully so. They've suffered through the bad times, and know every bench player's name. They probably know the broadcasters verbal tics and are already intimately familiar with SSOL.

When a team is winning, they become more popular because casual fans become serious ones and also because assholes like me come out of the woodwork. We might not like the sport enough to suffer through a couple bad seasons in a row, but can be enticed into watching or coming to a game if the team is competitive. We might have some real sports loyalties, just not in basketball.

Donnie Walsh and Mike D'Antoni have all but screamed from the rooftops that they are pursuing Mr. James if he is available in the 2010 offseason. They've shed almost every contractual obligation beyond the 2009/10 season except Eddie Curry and Jared Jefferies (along with the possibility of picking up Danilo Galinari's option). They are creating a very tempting void for LeBron and maybe even one other max contract to fill in "The World's Most Famous Arena", home of the league's most valuable franchise.

A void doesn't only exist on the 2010/11 Knicks roster. Despite being founded in 1946, the Knicks have only two championships to their name (1970 & 1973). As a result, they don't really have an all-time "face of the franchise" type of player. Walt Clyde Frasier left in 1977 and Patrick Ewing never won a championship. LeBron is only going to be 26 when he becomes a free agent and if he puts in 6-8 years with the Knicks, I'd give him a 98% chance to be best Knick ever. That's not a bad legacy to leave.

King James has been remarkably diplomatic while being badgered by the questions of what he's planning to do in the summer of '10. He says:

I don't know if it's going to happen. I'm so focused on this season and what we have at task with the Cavs that it's hard for me to even think about that date. But at the same time, you have to stay open-minded if you're a Knicks fan.

But it's going to be a lot of teams that are going to try to strengthen their teams, and there's going to be a lot of free agents out there in 2010, so if you guys want to sleep right now and don't wake up until July 1, 2010, then go ahead, because it's going to be a big day.

LeBron is from Akron, and the Cavs are as close as he can get to a hometown team as far as NBA franchises are concerned. Common knowledge assumes that he could be a brighter star on Broadway or with Jay-Z's Nets if the Atlantic Yards project ever goes through, but how much bigger can LeBron get? He's got a massive Nike sponsorship with incredibly well done commercials (you're gonna want to click that). He's going to make basically the same NBA salary anywhere he goes and he's already in the process of surpassing an aging Kobe as the preeminent star in the league.

I think the single biggest factor in his decision is whether or not he wins a Championship in Cleveland. Just judging by his generosity with the ball (6.6 career APG), and his demeanor in press conferences, I think he's the kind of guy who badly wants to win a title for his city, whose lack of ultimate professional sporting glory stretches back to the Browns' NFL Championship in 1964. There are certainly other factors, but giving the city of Cleveland a Championship would free him of a ton of guilt and allow to to be embraced as a hero instead of jeered as a Quisling on his trips back to town.

Maybe I'm wrong, but wouldn't that at least make it better for everyone involved? It's not like the Knicks are going to win an NBA Title in the next two years...

Job Listing: Eddie Curry Needs a New Driver

Big L once said, "Yo, fuck all the glamours & glitz, I plan to get rich, I'm from New York, and never was a fan of the Knicks." That statement pretty much sums up my feelings about the Knicks (and life). But there are certain stories that come up that capture my attention and may even get me to write about them.

The NY Post is reporting that injured Knicks center Eddie Curry was served with a sexual harassment suit Monday by his former driver, David Kuchinsky, in which his driver alleges that Curry tried to solicit gay sex from him. There are a lot of fucked up details so I suggest you read the story, but here are a few quotes...

...Curry, a married father of three, repeatedly approached chauffeur David
Kuchinsky 'in the nude,' allegedly telling him, 'Look at me, Dave, look' and
'Come and touch it, Dave.'

...Kuchinsky further claims in his suit that Curry pointed a 'fully loaded' gun at him on at least two separate occasions to keep him from complaining about his treatment.

With the past several years of complete ineptitude and royal fuck ups on and off the court by this entire organization I am not really shocked that something like this would happen. Even if it isn't true, only this organization would have a player accused of that.

I would also like to mention that this story will now be considered 100% fact by Fack Youk and I will never redact it, so fuck off. EDDIE CURRY IS GAY!

[Ed. Note: Not that there is anything wrong with that...]

Celtics Want To Get In The Truck?

As Brendan noted this morning, some sources are indicating that Stephon Marbury might be joining the Celtics once the Knicks finally end their messy divorce. I am sure my reaction is similar to almost everyone else; what the fuck are the Celtics thinking?

Granted, he is probably still a pretty good player (who really knows though, since he hasn't donned an NBA jersey almost a year) and will probably play for the league minimum (since he will probably still be collecting close to the league maximum from the Knicks). But do the Celtics really want a guy who has never won a playoff series, forced his way out of almost every city he has played in and hated almost every coach he has ever had? As much as I hate it, the Celtics seem to have a pretty good thing going and I do not see any positive out of bringing in a guy like Stephon Marbury, especially when he will only be getting 15 minutes a game.

That being said, if he brings down a Boston team, I am all for it!