metrocard
Legend
Because of you, Garden does what it wants
Wallace Matthews
September 28, 2007
In the final analysis, all Madison Square Garden had to lose was money.
That is why anyone who was wondering why on earth the Garden and its autocratic boss, Jim Dolan, would subject itself to the public humiliation of a sexual harassment lawsuit clearly has not been paying attention.
And just as clearly, neither was Anucha Browne Sanders.
These otherwise intelligent people seemed to believe they were dealing with rational human beings concerned with rational matters, such as reputation, prestige and that esoteric, somewhat quaint concept known as a "good name."
But how can you sully a reputation that is already in the toilet? How can the Garden suffer a loss of prestige when it has none left to lose? How can Dolan's "good name" be tarnished when that name has become a synonym for arrogance, ineptitude and entitlement?
Like the man said, when you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose, and thanks to the mismanagement of Dolan and his stooge, Steve Mills, all the Garden has now is money, and plenty of it. So what if they wind up forking over a million or so to Anucha? It's a lot less than they gave Larry Brown to get lost, or Shandon Anderson or Allan Houston or Luc Longley or a host of other frauds, cons and failures.
It's just one more check for Baby Jim to write and by comparison, a pretty skimpy one at that.
After nine days of testimony, this grubby little game of corporate "Gotcha!" with each collecting dirt on the other and filing it away for later use, finally went to the jury last night.
Maybe today, that jury will make Anucha a rich woman. One thing it won't do is reduce the Garden to a vacant lot.
Clearly, Anucha was the one rolling the dice here, hoping to cash in on Isiah's potty mouth and penchant for smarmy physical contact to the tune of $6.5 million.
When the Garden told her to stuff it, she lawyered up and raised the ante to $10 million.
That was fine with Dolan & Co., because, as Browne's lead attorney, Anne Vladeck, said in her otherwise dreary summation: "Money . . . is the only language the defendants understand."
And they speak it fluently. Dolan may lack class and smarts - his admission that he whacked Browne Sanders on his own, without the advice of counsel, when he found out she had filed a sex harassment complaint may yet come back to haunt him - but he seems to know that no amount of bad publicity can dent the fortress he has been handed by his dad, Charles.
Over the past five years alone, the Dolans have been on the wrong side of just about every sports issue in town. They had the temerity to keep the YES Network off Cablevision for more than a year, depriving more than 3 million Yankees fans of the entire 2002 season. They whacked Marv Albert, the basketball voice of a generation, for having the nerve to tell it like it is about the Knicks. They launched a ruthless campaign to defeat the West Side Stadium, and with it, New York's bid for the 2008 Olympics, in order to protect their interests at the Garden.
Worst of all, they have run two proud franchises and one storied building virtually into the ground. And you know what? None of it has had the slightest effect on their business or their fan base.
When this trial - and all that "negative publicity" the sports media "experts," and apparently, Browne Sanders, believed would force the Garden to settle - began, Cablevision stock was trading at $33.74. At the close of business yesterday, it was up to $34.53.
And the effect on season-ticket holders? Just as negligible. As of yesterday, the renewal rates were 97 percent for the Rangers, 91 percent for the Knicks. Isiah may not "give a ... about those white people" buying Knicks tickets, but they still give plenty for him and his team.
That is because Dolan and his cronies understand something Browne Sanders and many others do not: That professional sports is a business based not upon good will but bad judgment, the irrational, one-way loyalty of fan to team.
That loyalty never seems to waver and that judgment never seems to improve, even when the management and some of the players - anyone care to get in a truck with Marbury - are shown to regard their fans with open disdain.
To the Garden poobahs, paying off Browne Sanders was much more distasteful than going to court and hearing themselves described as what they clearly are - ruthless, heartless and soulless.
But not clueless. To the Garden, this was just a matter of business.
And thanks to you, their business is always good.
Copyright ? 2007, Newsday Inc.
http://www.newsday.com/sports/basketball/knicks/ny-spwally285393261sep28,0,4961355.column
RISE UP!!! LEAD THE REVOLUTION AGAINST DOLAN, ISIAH AND HIS FLOCK OF ISIASHSEXUALS!!! WE MUST PROTECT THIS HOUSE!!!