James Dolan Escalates Feud With NBA, Demands Budget Overhaul

James Dolan is still at war with the NBA, and the ongoing conflict is now taking on additional levels. 

Dolan, whose Madison Square Garden Sports controls the Knicks, is now pressing the NBA for additional clarity and transparency on league finances, and is also decrying what he sees as excessive staffing at NBA headquarters. He is proposing a resolution that would “adopt a zero-based method of budgeting operating costs, headcount, and capital expenditures for all league and affiliate league operations.”

“Despite the league’s swelling costs and headcount, the budget materials provided by the league during its annual September budget review are limited in scope,” Dolan wrote in a letter to the NBA league office and board of governors, and obtained by ESPN.

The issue could be addressed at NBA board of governors meetings set for this month. 

The latest broadside extends a bitter relationship between Dolan and the NBA that has stretched for several years. Among the other recent issues is a still-ongoing lawsuit against the Raptors regarding the alleged theft of proprietary files, a case that is headed this summer toward arbitration. Dolan also has repeatedly claimed that the NBA’s new TV deals reached last summer would render regional sports networks “unviable,” and that the league has engaged in a campaign of “harassment” against the Knicks. 

On the RSN subject, the Dolan-led Sphere Entertainment Co. on Monday said its MSG Networks is perhaps days away from filing for bankruptcy protection without a restructuring of more than $800 million in debt. Industry-wide cord-cutting is a key factor in the financial decline of MSG Networks, but the company again also pointed to the NBA national media deals that could take additional game inventory away from local outlets. 

“Our affiliation agreements generally require us to meet certain content criteria, such as minimum thresholds for professional event telecasts throughout the calendar year on our networks,” Sphere Entertainment Co. said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “The impacts of the NBA and NHL national broadcast agreements, including the new NBA agreements that are scheduled to begin with the 2025–2026 NBA season, could result in fewer professional event telecasts of our teams made available to us for broadcast and impact our ability to meet these criteria. If we do not meet these criteria, remedies may be available to our distributors, such as fee reductions, rebates, or refunds.”