PLASTERED on the right-field wall in Yankee Stadium, in full view of everyone who can get the YES Network, is a billboard advertising a certain high-speed internet service provided by a certain Bethpage-based cable television monopoly run by a certain family of transplanted Clevelanders currently living in a palatial compound on the exclusive Gold Coast of Long Island.
It sits there like a taunt to anyone who buys into the premise that the YES Network and Cablevision (in case you hadn’t figured it out yet) are locked into some kind of blood feud over your right to watch a Yankee game on television.
If the blood is really so bad between YES man Leo Hindery and James Dolan of the Lucky gene club, then why haven’t the Yankees removed the billboard and thrown Cablevision back its dirty money the way fans who sit behind it will throw back an opponent’s home-run ball?
Likewise, why has the YES Network been so generous about providing Yankee highlight clips to MSG Network, another subsidiary of an outfit the Yankees profess to regard with the same disdain as Boston Red Sox fans reserve for the Yankees?
The answer, of course, is simple. The battle between YES and Cablevision really isn’t a feud at all.
It’s simply business. Hardball business, yes. But “Tell Michael I always liked him” kind of business, it ain’t.
When all the nastiness dies down – and it will – and YES and Cablevision finally come to an agreement – and they will – Leo Hindery and Jim Dolan will be toasting once again, and not with the $400 Dualit Combi Toaster 2+2 Hindery gave Dolan as a wedding present.
They will be sipping Cristal together and cracking up, because once again, the yoke is on you.
They know that no matter what, be it a player’s strike, an owner’s lockout or a cable TV blackout, you, the fans, will always come back.
They know you will grumble about paying more. They expect you to threaten never to attend another baseball game or even watch another one on television.
But in the end, they know you will dig a little deeper, swallow a little harder. And they know you will return, because you always have.
They’ll pat you on the head like an indulgent dad, listen to your complaints with what appears to be a brow furrowed in concern, cluck their tongues over the injustice of it all. Then, they will take your money and divvy it up, the way they always have.
But then again, maybe fewer of you will be coming back this time. Maybe there will be less of your money for the Dolans and Hinderys and Steinbrenners to split up.
I have heard talk that the “churn rate” – cablespeak for the number of homes who cancel their service each month, for whatever reason – has not been nearly enough to get the Dolans’ attention.
And yesterday, Cablevision released their official casualty report, the number of homes they claim have dumped the service specifically in response to the loss of 130 Yankee games.
This was done as a reassurance to Cablevision stockholders, who have been hemorrhaging money all year, that this latest fiasco is not nearly so bad as some have made it out to be. According to Cablevision, only 3,400 subscribers dumped their service in the month of April.
YES counters with its stock line that “figures lie and liars figure.” YES estimates Cablevision’s losses at closer to 30,000 subscribers.
And yet, it seems as if a lot less damage has been done to the Dolan Empire than the Yankees expected. And even with 3 million people blacked out, Yankee home attendance is down 2 percent so far this year.
Contrary to what the Yankees believed, contrary to what the YES Network expected, contrary to what I and many others have written, the vegging out in front of the television to watch professional sports is not nearly as important as previously believed.
And although everyone in New York seems to love the Yankees come October, it seems they can live quite well without them the rest of the year. This comes as great and reassuring news to me. It should come as terrible news to Cablevision and YES.
Here they are, “fighting” over how best to split up your money, and guess what? By the time they get done with this charade, there may not be much to split.