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Optimum pulled the plug on MSG shortly after confetti rained down on Times Square to ring in 2025 – and Knicks and Rangers fans could be left in the dark well into the new year, The Post has learned. The breakdown in talks over a new contract with MSG Networks, which expired at midnight Tuesday, is part of a wider retrenchment by cable operators looking to slash the high prices demanded by regional sports networks, or RSNs. The two sides remain far apart in the high-stakes negotiations that have major implications for both companies, sources close to the situation told The Post.
Protesters who held a rally in Times Square last weekend against the city’s vaccine mandate will hold a demonstration this Sunday in support of the Brooklyn Nets’ Kyrie Irving, who has chosen not to get the COVID vaccine. Jo Rose, who was at the rally in Times Square and will attend the demonstration for Irving, told Fox News they will start at Commodore Battery Park and march to the Barclays Center ahead of the opening game for the Nets. Irving is not eligible to play home games in Brooklyn because of a New York City mandate.
Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant celebrated his 31st birthday with the entire team — including fellow new players Kyrie Irving and DeAndre Jordan at Dave & Buster’s in Times Square, spies said. Also at the party were Durant’s business partner Rich Kleiman, former Giants star wide receiver Victor Cruz and supermodel Joan Smalls.
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Turner Sports is trying to turn the opening of the NBA season into a weeklong celebration, complete with an open-air set in Times Square, fan events in New York and Cleveland, and a Kendrick Lamar concert.
Sports Illustrated took Alan Anderson to Times Square in New York City to ask them about their favorite Cinderella teams in the NCAA Tournament. Except that, well, he asked them about fake teams -- you know, Coastal Iowa and Xanadu State (or, as one dude put it, "Vandado").
The tour stops at the B.B King Blues Club and Grill in Times Square on Wednesday. The Score was a bit disappointed to learn from World Peace’s camp that he will not be performing a stand-up routine per se, only serving as host on a bill headlined by Malik S. In addition to fielding questions submitted by audience members, World Peace is expected to sneak in some jokes while introducing the comedians.
While a low-pressure system blew threw Manhattan this weekend, sending snow sideways through Times Square, a high pressure system continued settling over the NBA. Sources on both sides of the labor dispute have told the Herald it is time, as the lockout hits Day 123, to bend to the wishes of the other and reach an agreement. Two players reached said they understood the league is, in the words of one, “putting the screws to us . . . taking things back without giving up anything.” But they shared the feeling the union might essentially be cutting off its nose to spite its face the longer it holds its line.
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Timberwolves All-Star forward Kevin Love, in Times Square yesterday to announce he is joining a beach volleyball circuit in Los Angeles to cope with the NBA lockout, spiked commissioner David Stern for his decision to eliminate data on current players from all the team websites. On July 1, Stern ordered all teams to remove the faces, statistics and players' names from each team's sites. "They took everything off," Love told The Post. "I laughed, but it's not funny. You take everyone off? You go on our website and it's the dancers and Crutch our mascot. I think it's cool for the charity events, but not using any of the players, it's silly. Let's get this thing resolved and play basketball. It's disheartening to fans and to us. Let's get it figured out.''
The Nets might want to re-do that Times Square billboard so there is a cast on Deron Williams' right wrist. On the day the Nets faced their arch-rivals, the Knicks, the team announced that Williams was done for the remainder of the season and would require surgery to clean out bone fragments and scar tissue in the wrist. The operation was planned for yesterday but a scheduling conflict forced the procedure to Monday at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan. Williams, acquired in a blockbuster trade with Utah on Feb. 23, arrived with what was determined to be a sprained tendon in the wrist. Several times in his 12 games with the Nets, he aggravated the injury. The Nets maintain that he did not additional damage to the wrist, and they were aware of the nature of the injury. An MRI exam at the time of the trade did not show the full extent if the injury but another exam Wednesday with a specialist, using a more fine-tuned MRI, revealed the loose bodies.
"The Blueprint for Greatness" has now become "The Blueprint for keeping Deron Williams in a New Jersey (Brooklyn) Nets uniform long-term." The Nets unveiled an 80-by-60 foot billboard featuring Williams and the slogan "Bound For Brooklyn" in Times Square on Tuesday afternoon. It will be on display until Apr. 19. “This Times Square billboard tips off our dynamic "Brooklyn Bound" campaign, which will see us doing major outdoor advertising in Brooklyn on billboards and phone kiosks,” said Nets CEO Brett Yormark. “Deron is arguably the best point guard in the NBA and he will be the face of our campaign as we prepare for the team’s exciting relocation to the Barclays Center of Brooklyn in 2012.”
Ric Bucher: Latest salvo in NYK-Nets war: Deron Williams' billboard appears in Times Square on Mon. For NYers, it's the VanHeusen ad w/Young & Rice now.
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