MSG Network
The MSG Network is an American regional cable and satellite television network, and radio service owned by Sphere Entertainment -- a spin-off of the main Madison Square Garden Company operation.
Primarily serving the Mid-Atlantic United States, its programming focuses on events featuring and other programs about New York City sports teams, including live game broadcasts of the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association, the New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Buffalo Sabres, and New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League and Gotham FC of the National Women's Soccer League. The channel is named after the Madison Square Garden sports and entertainment venue in Midtown Manhattan, home of the Knicks and Rangers.
History
What would become MSG debuted on October 15, 1969, with an NHL hockey game between the New York Rangers and the Minnesota North Stars. As a result, it became the first regional sports network in North America, and one of the first of its kind in the world. The channel, which at the time did not even have a name, was carried by Manhattan Cable Television under a one-year, 125-event deal that was signed in May 1969. At the time, the cable provider, which had televised New York Knicks and Rangers post-season games the previous spring for a $25,000 rights fee, had only 13,000 subscribers. Madison Square Garden renewed the deal with what was now Sterling Manhattan Cable Television in the fall of 1970, in a five-year deal at an estimated rights fee of $1–1.5 million. Charles Dolan, who later headed MSG and Cablevision, was the president of Sterling Manhattan at the time. Games held at Madison Square Garden later appeared on another of Sterling Manhattan Cable's ventures, premium cable network Home Box Office during the network's early years.In the meantime, an unrelated channel was launched on September 22, 1977, as a joint-venture of UA-Columbia Cablevision and the Madison Square Garden Corporation, and would brand itself the "Madison Square Garden Sports Network" in 1978 before the Sterling Manhattan Cable channel could use the name. The competitor would change its name in 1980 to the USA Network.
In 1977, the Madison Square Garden Corp, which included its namesake sports arena was sold to Gulf+Western. Around the same time, a separate network was created by the Madison Square Garden Corp. to distribute 125 events to New York-area cable systems. These events were in addition to the 250 already being produced for the national distribution. It was this network which became known as Madison Square Garden Television that would evolve into the current MSG Network.
On April 9, 1980, the channel began using both the full name "Madison Square Garden Network" and its new abbreviated form "MSG Network". By August 1983, Barry Diller, who as head of prominent Gulf+Western division Paramount Pictures became the main shareholder in the USA Network when Gulf+Western transferred the network to Paramount in 1981, would increase the USA Network's relationship with the Madison Square Garden Network through a deal which included making the USA Network a source for MSG events. In December 1988, MSG Network became the first cable network to secure all local television rights to a Major League Baseball team's game, signing a 12-year deal with the New York Yankees that would give it exclusive rights to 150 games per season from 1991 through 2000. Sources placed the value of the agreement at approximately $500 million. By the early 1990s, the channel would affiliate with Prime Network. In 1994, Paramount Communications was acquired by Viacom, which in turn sold the MSG properties to Cablevision and ITT Corporation, which each held a 50% ownership stake; ITT would sell its share to Cablevision three years later.
On October 5, 2006, MSG underwent an extensive rebrand with the introduction of a new logo and graphics package, and the removal of the word "Network" from the channel's promotions. The new logo was designed by Jennifer Little for PMCD design. Since the rebrand, the channel has incorporated more entertainment-oriented programming, including concerts and professional boxing and wrestling cards that have taken place at Madison Square Garden or Radio City Music Hall. In February 2010, Cablevision spun off MSG Network, the Madison Square Garden venue and other related properties into The Madison Square Garden Company.
In September 2015, the MSG Networks division was spun out into a separate company, with The Madison Square Garden Company maintaining ownership of the venue and related properties. The company was split further in April 2020, with the sports properties operating as Madison Square Garden Sports Corp., and the venue and entertainment properties spun out as the publicly traded Madison Square Garden Entertainment.
On March 26, 2021, MSG Entertainment announced that it would acquire MSG Networks in an all-stock deal; the company stated that the purchase was part of an effort "to grow the company beyond its established collection of assets into one that is pioneering the next generation of entertainment." The acquisition was completed in July 2021. In April 2023, MSG Entertainment subsequently spun off its theatre and live events businesses under the MSG Entertainment name, with the remainder of the company renamed Sphere Entertainment.
Facing an environment where its core leagues, the NHL and NBA, were increasingly diverting their game inventory to national broadcast and multichannel partners, MSG representatives stated that the actions jeopardized their ability to deliver the required number of games on the MSG networks to providers and subscribers under their retransmission agreements, reducing the fees they could collect from providers. This, along with the broader trend of cord-cutting and the similar declines of other regional sports network groups, placed MSG Networks at risk of bankruptcy by the end of March 2025.
Programming
Among other teams, it has long produced radio and television broadcasts of the NBA's New York Knicks, the NHL's New York Rangers and the WNBA's New York Liberty, which play their home games at the Garden. Upon its launch in 2014, MSG also became the television home of the Westchester Knicks, the New York Knicks' farm club in the NBA G League. Since 2013, MSG has also aired games from the Hartford Wolf Pack, the New York Rangers' farm club in the AHL.MSG also holds television rights to the NASL's New York Cosmos since 2017. In 2010, MSG began broadcasting exclusive content from the NFL's New York Giants. Buffalo Bills content was added in 2016.
MSG also owns the television rights to the NHL's Buffalo Sabres, New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders and the AHL's Bridgeport Islanders and Rochester Americans. Islanders, Devils and games air on MSG Sportsnet, while Sabres and Americans games air on MSG Western New York in Western New York and are split between MSG and MSG Sportsnet in the rest of upstate New York.
The network also broadcast nightly highlights of races held at tracks sanctioned by the New York Racing Association, as well as a weekly magazine show; live races also air on select Saturday afternoons. MSG Network broadcasts soccer events from the Premier League and the UEFA Champions League.
It also runs extended highlights from concerts held at MSG or other venues owned by the Dolan family through MSG Entertainment, along with other shows focused on New York musicians – which are frequently used as filler programming in blackout zones; as well as movies – generally sports-related, in addition to some Hollywood blockbusters and several New York sports-related fiction or documentary programs that were originally broadcast on ESPN, which are most commonly seen during the summer NHL and NBA offseason.
During the period of time in which sister station MSG Sportsnet was a primary affiliate of Fox Sports Net, MSG also acted as a secondary FSN affiliate, airing Fox Sports-produced programming in certain timeslots and contributing footage to FSN shows. This ceased when the FSN branding was removed and FSN New York became MSG Plus, and FSN programming has since been split between MSG Sportsnet and the YES Network.
MSG began carrying local broadcasts of Gotham FC matches in 2023 before expanding the broadcast rights partnership in 2024.
Collegiate sports
MSG airs locally produced athletic events from Hofstra University and Fordham University. MSG also airs the Kwik Trip Holiday Face-Off college hockey tournament through its affiliation with Bally Sports.MSG and MSG Sportsnet previously broadcast basketball games from the Metro Atlantic Athletic, Northeast, America East and Atlantic Coast Conferences; football games from the Southeastern Conference; and football and basketball games from the Pac-10 and Big 12 Conferences. The Pac-10, Big 12 and ACC telecasts were carried though Fox Sports Networks, while the other games were either produced by the conferences themselves or through ESPN Plus.
MSG formerly carried games from the Big East Conference, along with the coaches shows for Rutgers and St. John's University. In July 2008, the Big East and SportsNet New York announced a multi-year deal which gave SNY exclusive regional rights to Big East coaches shows and ESPN Plus-produced games. However, MSG retained rights to a reduced schedule of Big East games, including any St. John's basketball games played at Madison Square Garden.
Original programming
''MSG, NY''
MSG, NY, a daily sports highlights and entertainment program which served as the network's flagship program, debuted in October 2006. Aired numerous times during the day, the program originated as the sports-focused MSG Sportsdesk similar to ESPN's SportsCenter, until a format change that occurred as part of MSG's 2006 rebranding and reformatting in which sporting events remain the primary focus while a secondary focus was placed on all events at Madison Square Garden.Anchors included Jason Horowitz, Deb Placey, Tina Cervasio, Al Trautwig, Greg Gumbel, Marv Albert, Jonathan Coachman, and Bill Daughtry.
The show however, gave expanded coverage to area sports teams that the channel holds game telecast rights; other New York City area teams were covered on the program, usually to a lesser extent. Along with coverage of Garden-related entertainment news, this was intended to prevent direct competition with SportsNite on SportsNet New York. MSG, NY was taped inside a street-level studio, with a window overlooking Madison Square Garden across the street. The program originally aired as a half-hour broadcast on Tuesday through Saturdays, at about 10 or 10:30 p.m. Eastern time, with the exact time dependent on sports events schedules, before expanding to an hour-long nightly broadcast in 2008, based on improved ratings over its predecessor Sportsdesk. The studio is also used by SiTV Media Fuse. The show was cancelled in January 2009, due to declining ratings; in its place, MSG usually offers team-specific post-game shows.