Knicks, Rangers owner solicits donations from staff for NYC mayoral candidate: Report

New York City mayoral candidate Joe Lhota may be an underdog in the polls (some pollsters are already making the Rocky comparisons), but it's not for a lack of financial support from his former employer at Madison Square Garden.

Sources told the N.Y. Post that MSG/Cablevision head honcho Jim Dolan sent e-mails to his top staffers, asking them to donate $2,500 each to support their former colleague Lhota’s campaign. The Republican candidate was once an executive vice president of Cablevision for five years and, in 2010, he was appointed chief administrative officer at Madison Square Garden.

Though Dolan — no stranger to long-shots himself — sent the e-mail to employees back in March, some were still chuckling about the political solicitation, particularly as Lhota trails about 40 points behind Democratic opponent Bill de Blasio in the polls.

Another source minimized Dolan’s request, telling the Post: “I assume some people did donate, but it was a small thing.”

But remember, Dolan is the same owner who fired an MSG security guard who refused Dolan entry to a VIP suite last year when she didn't recognize her boss. So there has to be some trepidation within the ranks.

However, reports say employees of Cablevision, including those solicited by Dolan, have raised a healthy $94,000 for Lhota’s campaign.

Dumping money into a losing cause sounds about right for ol' Jimmy. 

A rep for MSG declined to comment.

New York Giants Game Blacked Out. World Series To Follow?

By Tony Mangia

CABLEVISION AND FOX BATTLE OVER FEES

If you are a NewYork Giants fan and missed yesterday's game against the Detroit Lions, you weren't alone. A fee dispute between Cablevision and the News Corp meant that the Fox network yanked channels 5 and My9 from the cable giant over the weekend.  Monday will mark the third day of the blackout.

The cable company looped a message blaming the "greed" of Fox for denying over three million subscribers access to the the Sunday afternoon Giants-Lions game and both Saturday and Sunday's Phillies-Giants NLCS games.  It is the longest station blackout in a large market and is threatening to carry over until the World Series.

Football fans flocked to bars all over new York City and New Jersey in order to catch the game.  Both sides in the dispute are using the pissed off fans as pawns in their battle for control.  Fox said Cablevision is already charging its viewers "for free, over-the-air broadcasting," while Cablevision said,"They want more for Fox than we pay CBS, NBC, ABC combined." Cablevision says it pays $70 million annually for the Fox stations and will now be gouged for $150 million a year.  They claim Fox is holding the NFL and baseball playoffs as hostages.

Fox countered by saying Cablevision is "hypocritical" and claims it charges other cable companies even more for its two MSG channels than it pays for 12 Fox stations.

Fox aired a commercial during the Jets game on CBS informing viewers that the blackout would likely last until at least the World Series--which begins on October 27.  For a while, on Saturday, the News Corp. temporarily blocked Cablevision's customers from accessing Fox shows on the video website hulu.com.

The battle lines have been drawn and both parties are set to meet today but said they remain "far apart.".  If these corporations think football are baseball fans are angry, just wait until the "Glee" contingent organizes and protests.  Nothing like a bunch of riled up 'tweens with their tweets and twitters to get things in motion.