Empty Feeling: Knicks Struggling To Stop Slide On, Off Court

Knicks’ Season-Ticket Base Down 15% From Last Season

There is no longer a “game-to-game guarantee” that the Knicks will sell out Madison Square Garden, according to Richard Sandomir of the N.Y. TIMES. The team did not sell out Saturday’s home opener against the Pacers until Friday afternoon, and while the Knicks reported attendance for Monday’s game against the Spurs at 18,333, “swaths of empty seats in the lower bowl made the Garden look short of more than 1,430 fans.” And even with LeBron James and the Cavaliers at MSG next Monday, the team is “still hustling to pack the house.” Knicks VP/Marketing Hunter Lochmann said, “We’ve got a ways to go but it’s progressing well. Monday nights are tough.” With the season-ticket base down 15% from last year, Sandomir adds the Knicks have been pushing the sale of individual game tickets to Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North and New Jersey Transit riders with an ad campaign featuring the team’s players (N.Y. TIMES, 11/9).

FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE: Cablevision stated its Q3 earning yesterday, and MSG’s losses increased to $24.6M compared to the year-ago period, while revenues fell 4.9% to $128.5M (AP, 11/8).

SETTLEMENT: The figures of the Knicks’ settlement with former coach Larry Brown were revealed yesterday in Cablevision’s Q3 SEC filing. The Knicks agreed to pay Brown $18.5M to “resolve their dispute — significantly less than the $53[M] Brown sought through arbitration.” Brown, who had $41M and four years left on his contract when the Knicks fired him in June, also asked for $12.5M in liquidated damages (N.Y. TIMES, 11/9). ESPN.com’s Marc Stein noted Brown has collected almost $26M in buyouts from his last two teams, the Pistons and Knicks (ESPN.com, 11/8).

BROWNE SANDERS UPDATE: GARDEN VARIETY: U.S. District Judge Gerard Lynch agreed to let Knicks President of Basketball Operations and coach Isiah Thomas and G Stephon Marbury “delay being deposed by lawyers” for former Knicks Senior VP/Marketing & Business Operations Anucha Browne Sanders in a sexual harassment suit until next month. Lynch ruled that Browne Sanders must let MSG “look at the diary she kept but [she] won’t have to give up her telephone and travel records.” Also, MSG “must give up records of any previous sexual discrimination or harassment cases that it has faced,” and Browne Sanders’ deposition is limited to two days “instead of the three-day inquisition [MSG] was demanding” (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 11/8).