Results tagged “yesnetwork”

George Steinbrenner is being sued by a cable executive claiming that The Boss stole his idea for the YES Network. Bob Gutkowski is suing Steinbrenner for $43 million, claiming that he pitched the idea that the Yankees start their own network back in 1996, six years before YES hit the airwaves. Gutkowski had worked with Steinbrenner while he was president of MSG network, negotiating the historic 12-year, $493.5 million deal to bring the Bombers to cable in 1988. The suit says that The Boss wanted to use the threat of starting a network to get $1 billion for a 10-year extension from MSG, who had been taken over by Cablevision (which had ousted Gutkowski from his former role). Gutkowski claims that Steibrenner said to him and his partners, "You are my guys. If it goes forward, I will do it with you." But Steinbrenner did not "do it" with Gutkowski, instead stalling him and stringing him along, according to the executive. The Yankees have called the suit "false and frivolous" and denied Gutkowski had any role in developing the YES network.

• Yankees 6 Royals 3: At this point, the YES Network should just play a “ch-ching” sound everytime A-Rod steps up to the plate. After hitting a home run for the 5th-consecutive game on Sunday, A-Rod has 52 for the season, the most for a Yankee since Mantle and Maris hit 54 and 61 in 1961. He also has 138 RBI’s with 19 games left, which puts him in line to have the most RBI’s as a Yankee since Joe DiMaggio had 155 in 1948.
  Continue reading "Last Night's Action: The Royals Are Flushed"

Could the YES Network and the Yankees be up for sale? A report from Fortune Magazine quotes sources that say the YES Network is being shopped around - and that the Yankees could be up for sale in three or four years.

Miracles can happen - at least for Mets fans with Cablevision. Cablevision and SportsNet New York announced yesterday that the fledgling sports network will be on Cablevision effective immediately on channel 62 (actually in time for yesterday's game). While terms of the agreement were not announced, it's great news for Cablevision's 3 million customers.

Sunday, the Daily News reported that the Yankees lost anywhere from $50-80 million in 2005. The figure comes after adding 2005 payroll at around $200 million, revenue sharing of $75 million, a $33 million luxury tax and operating expenses. Yikes, $300+ million for an AL East Championship? On top of that, prices are going up next year with the premium tickets getting $20 more expensive.

As for the game, Randy Johnson was once again shaky. While he struck out nine batters, he gave up three home runs and could not protect a one-run lead after the Yankees came back from a 4-1 deficit. Johnson is probably still rounding into form, but Yankee fans’ are beginning to get impatient with their sixteen million dollar man.

Albert was the longtime voice of the Knicks until last June when Albert and Cablevision couldn't agree on a contract. Since then, Albert has continued to call NBA games with TNT. Ian Eagle, the current Nets announcer will call the remaining games for the team.

Because of the partnership with Time Warner and Comcast, it is believed that the Mets network will be carried on basic cable. The only quesion is if it will be on Cablevision. The Mets have one year left on its Cablevision contract after paying $54 million for an early out. So will Cablevision want to pay their competitors for a team that spurned them? We'll see. Of course, if the Mets play like they have this year, will anyone want to pay to watch them?

Related: Congratulations to whatevs, as his Detroit Pistons defeated the L.A. Lakers for the NBA Championship. Gothamist has yet to send whatevs the spoils from the bet we had for the Eastern Conference finals (because we're still waiting for a new shipment of Gothamist t-shirts!), but let it be known that Gothamist's stance is that the Nets were the second best team in the league this year, given that the Nets took the Pistons to 7 games, whereas the Lakers were defeated in 5. [Scientific calculations on determining the Nets' second-bestness from JW]