BILLIONAIRE CHUCK: The oncoming labor war has sort of obscured what was baseball's biggest off-field feud earlier this year, the one between Cablevision and the Yankees over the cable giant's refusal to carry the team's YES Network on its systems, a move that has resulted in Yankees games being blacked out in about a third of New York-area homes so far this season. Recently, commercials debuted which purported to be "Cablevision editorial meetings," in which the company's board of directors discussed their goals, strategies, etc. Though I ultimately realized that the ads were in fact pro-Cablevision PR/propaganda, I thought at first that maybe it was a subversive, YES Network-produced parody of the Cablevision bigwigs and their sinister motives, along the lines of Vince McMahon's infamous, anti-Ted Turner "Billionaire Ted" sketches. YES would still be wise to consider this- "so Mr. Dolan, what are we doing today?" "Why, the same thing we do every day- [turns to face camera] WE'RE TAKING AWAY YOUR YANKEES!"
Posted by Stephen Silver at August 12, 2002 12:46 AM