NY Times: Chinatown Can Cheer, but Can?t Watch, Rise of an Adopted Star

Eman

Benchwarmer
A good read from today's edition of The New York Times:

"The rather awkward bit of d?tente began around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Nom Wah dim sum restaurant on Doyers Street in the heart of Chinatown. It was an hour before Jeremy Lin, the rising star for the Knicks, took the court at Madison Square Garden and before much of Chinatown was going to be once again prevented from seeing its adopted son work wonders on the basketball court.


Like about 2.5 million Time Warner Cable customers throughout the state, residents in places like Confucius Plaza, a 44-story apartment building in Chinatown, have been unable to watch Lin — an international phenomenon and the nation’s most prominent Asian-American athlete — because the cable company has been in rancorous dispute with MSG Network, which televises Knicks games.

So network executives invited the neighborhood to a hastily arranged all-you-can-eat dim sum party to explain their side of the dispute. There were translators and plenty of food, a life-size cardboard cutout of Lin, and because the restaurant had a different cable provider, there was an actual live, legal telecast of the game on television.

There was not, however, a whole lot of peace and understanding. Instead, it was just another night of paradox and frustration: New York fans with perhaps the strongest affection for Lin unable to see him perform in their own homes.

Lin scored only 10 points Wednesday night as the Knicks beat the Sacramento Kings, 100-85, but he contributed 13 assists, a career high.

Vincent Lau, a Time Warner customer, heard about the event at the restaurant from his wife, and quickly ran over to be heard.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Mr. Lau, 28, “for a New Yorker to not be able to watch their home teams.”

Jeffrey Wong is a graphic designer and lifelong Knicks fan who lives in Confucius Plaza and thus has not been able to see Knicks games since Jan 1. “I don’t know who to fault,” he said. “I don’t even know who to call.”

Thanks to Lin’s meteoric rise, interest in the team — which two weeks ago was staggering through yet one more failing season — has never been higher. Lin’s name is chanted in bars and restaurants in Chinatown, and establishments that have other providers, like DirecTV, are now teeming with extra patrons on game nights.


The scramble to find places to watch Lin play is particularly acute in Chinatown, which lacks the concentration of sports bars found in other parts of the city. Mr. Wong, who was a passionate recreational basketball player until he was slowed by injuries, hardly missed the Knicks during the first few weeks of the blackout because the team performed so poorly.

Thanks to the team’s disastrous record in recent years, Mr. Wong was expecting the season to fade into obscurity.

That changed on Feb. 4, when Lin played his first significant minutes against the Nets. Mr. Wong received a text message from a friend that “Lin was lighting it up.” Since then, he has had to find bars that carry televised Knicks games. He watched one game on a Web site, the legality of which is uncertain.

“Until Jeremy Lin started playing, I don’t think the blackout mattered much to me,” said Mr. Wong, who grew up in Chinatown. But “I’ve watched every game since then except for last night.”

Like other fans interviewed for this article, Mr. Wong is uncertain whom to blame for the blackout. But for now, Mr. Wong and other neighbors will remain basketball refugees in their own city because Verizon and DirecTV, which have agreements to show the MSG Network to their customers, are unable to install their services in Confucius Plaza.

Andy So, who was born in Chinatown and also lives in the apartment tower, has been cast out into bars to see Lin and the Knicks. When he heard that Lin was making his first start last week against Utah, he bought tickets to see him play.

“We thought it was a pretty cool moment in the history of the N.B.A. for an Asian-American to start on the Knicks,” he said.

Now, thanks to Lin’s continued rise — he outscored Kobe Bryant last Friday — reasonably priced Knicks tickets are far harder to find. So while the MSG Network has seen its television ratings soar 87 percent since Lin entered the starting lineup last week, the fans who would undoubtedly have raised those ratings even further have been excluded from the party.

To limit the damage, the MSG Network held the viewing party at the dim sum restaurant two blocks from Confucius Plaza. It was not the most natural event to pull together. And so it hired Julie Huang, a publicist whose firm is best known for producing Chinatown Restaurant Week.

“No matter who’s right or wrong, I give MSG props for showing up,” Ms. Huang said.

By 6:15, the line of residents waiting to get into the improvised summit stretched out to the Bowery. They were a mix of retirees, restaurant workers, businessmen and some of Chinatown’s more recent arrivals; the area, like many ethnic corners of the city, has become gentrified.

Some people clearly scrambled from the Confucius Plaza apartment building, drawn by word of mouth or the commotion on the street.

The 100 or so fans who were admitted on a first-come first-served basis received “Just Lin Baby” T- shirts and raffle tickets for Knicks tickets and a single sneaker signed by Lin. Dan Ronayne, an executive vice president for MSG Networks, also attended with staff who were on hand to show Time Warner Cable customers how to switch cable providers.

Wilson Tang, the owner of Nom Wah, brought in an extra flat panel television for the event. A basketball fan, Mr. Tang has been personally affected by the blackout, too. While he has been able to watch Knicks games at his restaurant, which has DirecTV, and at home, where he has RCN, his father is a Time Warner customer.

“We’ve been Knicks fans since I was a little kid,” Mr. Tang said. “So now he comes to my apartment.”

The dispute essentially comes down to how much Time Warner Cable, the leading pay television provider in Manhattan, is willing to pay to carry MSG Network.

Time Warner Cable has also been making its case to subscribers. Last month, it flew 10 pairs of Knicks fans to Charlotte to see the team play the Bobcats. The company put them up for two nights, fed them, gave them $500 gift certificates and had them sit in the company’s suite in the arena.

Jimmy Zheng, in Chinatown on Wednesday evening, just wanted to see Lin on television. No one — in Chinatown or elsewhere — knows how long Mr. Lin’s magical run will last, or if anything like it, for Asian-Americans, will ever be seen again.

“Probably both are to blame,” Mr. Zheng said of the television dispute. “I’m sure each side has their arguments. But I can’t watch the games, so that’s all that matters."'



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/s...ackout-frustrates-lins-chinatown-fans.html?hp
 

iSaYughh

Starter
No offense really intended, but **** giving a **** about some people who aren't even true Knick fans, not being able to selectively tune in to casually watch the games, because they get a weird kick out of rooting for their own race.

I guess it's good if economics can drive the dispute to a settlement one way or another; but even there I think the influence of Chinatown is overrated lol, vs the hordes of legit Knick fans who will drive the economics of our revitalized Knick squad -- regardless of whether a star player jives with the color of our skin.

Even if NBALP, I couldn't watch tonight's game.
 

fender0577

Rotation player
No offense really intended, but **** giving a **** about some people who aren't even true Knick fans, not being able to selectively tune in to casually watch the games, because they get a weird kick out of rooting for their own race.

I guess it's good if economics can drive the dispute to a settlement one way or another; but even there I think the influence of Chinatown is overrated lol, vs the hordes of legit Knick fans who will drive the economics of our revitalized Knick squad -- regardless of whether a star player jives with the color of our skin.

Even if NBALP, I couldn't watch tonight's game.
I'm with you iSaYughh, they aren't really fans, so who cares.This is the only down side to having a good team, IMO, is all these fake *ss fans.Same thing happened when the GMEN got hot, and won it all, all these fake *ss Eli fans popping up every where, i can't stand that type of crap.
 

amazinz5

Benchwarmer
We haven't experienced a single game-changing figure as far as race probably since MLK in the US. I was thinking yesterday he'll probably be remembered as the MLK of Taiwan. I'm ok with them getting into this.
 
The band wagon might need a new set of wheels if this keeps up. I don't mind cultural support but when you see people cheering for someone in this fashion...it sought of cheapens the whole experience. The Raptors organisation must have felt pretty low because of this. this show is even going political

Obama is recognizing the Linsanity too. Perhaps, he and Lin (both Harvard grads) can draw up a plan for the economy, and have him as an ambassador in his next trip to China. I'm sure a noble peace prize with J-Linn's name on it will be waiting for him when its all said and done....I hear they're practically giving them away these days.
 
No cism but I'm already fed up with our new asian "fans".

Just because their skin is yellow and they have whacky signs doesnt make them anymore important then everybody else. I'm sick of these bandwagon fans getting like first class treatment and being the face of the NY Knicks fans now, because if we traded Lin to f*cking Orlando they'd all be Magic fans.

The new fans are great, 1 billion people voting for your players to be in shit and win shit is great, but not all Knicks fans are Asian, not every Knick fan in MSG is Asian, and not everyone mad at Time Warner are asians in chinatown who only wanna watch us because "Oh look im Asian! Hey he's asian to! *Throws money at TV and dances around*"

Why not do a story on real Knick fans missing MSG and Linsanity and not bandwagin stereotypical asians in chinatown? Stupid paper
 

CoolClyde

Moderator
Dolan says f*ck you!

Even if NBALP, I couldn't watch tonight's game.

i have news for you buddy, if you're in NYC, all Knicks and Nets games will be blacked out on NBA LP, as well as any games on ESPN or TNT (and I think the one free NBA HD channel). it's the local blackout rule. you're being f*cked by Cablevision, MSG and D'oh-lan, who feel they should be paid more money by Time Warner, because they're getting more money from DirectTV and other cable outlets, so why not T/W? T/W doesn't want to pay more money just for MSG's services, because then their entire cable package cost has to rise. This comes back to the FCC allowing cable companies to charge astronomic prices for premium packages including hundreds of channels you don't watch, as opposed to paying ala carte for the channels you want.

with the rise of Lin, it's an incredibly sh*tty situation to be in.
 

iSaYughh

Starter
i have news for you buddy, if you're in NYC, all Knicks and Nets games will be blacked out on NBA LP, as well as any games on ESPN or TNT (and I think the one free NBA HD channel). it's the local blackout rule. you're being f*cked by Cablevision, MSG and D'oh-lan, who feel they should be paid more money by Time Warner, because they're getting more money from DirectTV and other cable outlets, so why not T/W? T/W doesn't want to pay more money just for MSG's services, because then their entire cable package cost has to rise. This comes back to the FCC allowing cable companies to charge astronomic prices for premium packages including hundreds of channels you don't watch, as opposed to paying ala carte for the channels you want.

with the rise of Lin, it's an incredibly sh*tty situation to be in.

:agreed: That's perfect assessment of (shit) situation. I talked to Time Warner, who said only the *home* Knick games will be blocked out for me. Still, obscene.

Actually just reading article yesterday....new service is going to be hitting NYC in March, where for about 15 bones a month, you get a box that through satellite will stream all local channels for you, and you can get a la carte options, as well; in addition to a mammoth DVR.

It only works locally, to each city that this service caters to (I think NYC is the first) -- but it's seeking to tackle...and TOPPLE....that huge problem with cable companies that you hit on.

If the business flies, could be the end of media and cable companies as we know it. Total restructuring and disruption
 

CoolClyde

Moderator
:agreed: That's perfect assessment of (shit) situation. I talked to Time Warner, who said only the *home* Knick games will be blocked out for me. Still, obscene.

Actually just reading article yesterday....new service is going to be hitting NYC in March, where for about 15 bones a month, you get a box that through satellite will stream all local channels for you, and you can get a la carte options, as well; in addition to a mammoth DVR.

It only works locally, to each city that this service caters to (I think NYC is the first) -- but it's seeking to tackle...and TOPPLE....that huge problem with cable companies that you hit on.

If the business flies, could be the end of media and cable companies as we know it. Total restructuring and disruption

velly interestling
 

quiggle

Starter
i agree with the race issue, see its stuff like this no wonder asian girls go for white guys to love long time.
 

tiger0330

Legend
:agreed: That's perfect assessment of (shit) situation. I talked to Time Warner, who said only the *home* Knick games will be blocked out for me. Still, obscene.

Actually just reading article yesterday....new service is going to be hitting NYC in March, where for about 15 bones a month, you get a box that through satellite will stream all local channels for you, and you can get a la carte options, as well; in addition to a mammoth DVR.

It only works locally, to each city that this service caters to (I think NYC is the first) -- but it's seeking to tackle...and TOPPLE....that huge problem with cable companies that you hit on.

If the business flies, could be the end of media and cable companies as we know it. Total restructuring and disruption
What's the name of the company/service. If it's satellite, you need a dish and it shouldn't be restricted to NYC since the sky is open every where.
 
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