[M.D. Holloway]

Great example of how not to run a team or company for that matter...

The Mismanagement of the Knicks Franchise
By Lori Deschene MBET.com

December 13th, 2007 @ 3:23 pm


Want to learn how not to screw up a fantastic opportunity to manage a well-known and much-loved brand? Take a pointer or two from The Knicks’ management. MSNBC broke it down nicely, explaining how the New York Knicks are becoming “the biggest punchline in American sports.”

Management deals poorly with labor costs. The franchise:

Pays tens of millions of dollars to Larry Brown, a former coach, and one-time players, like Jalen Rose, not to work.

Gives almost $20 million to guard Stephon Marbury who’s becoming most famous for his indiscretions with a Madison Square Garden intern.

Spent near $120 million — the most in the NBA — on languid players last year.
Their coach has a long history of management failures:

He led the Continental Basketball Association when it declared bankruptcy in 2001.

He was fired as the Indiana Pacers coach.

He lost a much-publicized sexual-harassment suit recently, and somehow keeps making millions damaging The Knicks’ reputation.

Cablevision hasn’t helped the cause:

They’ve never secured a naming-rights deal. Ratings for the first six games this season on Cablevision-owned MSG Network dropped more than 25 percent. Cablevision’s not doing so well overall, posting a quarterly loss of about $80 million in November

The author points out that Forbes named The Knicks the most valuable franchise in the NBA for the past three seasons, worth $600 million — but that’s bound to change soon. The team isn’t getting any breaks with bad ownership, management, and PR — and it doesn’t help that The Knicks keep losing.