# James L. Dolan

James Lawrence Dolan (born May 11, 1955) is an American businessman, and the executive chairman and chief executive officer of Madison Square Garden Sports and Madison Square Garden Entertainment, and executive chairman of MSG Networks. As the companies' chairman, Dolan oversees all operations within the company and supervises day-to-day operations of its professional sports teams, the New York Knicks and New York Rangers, as well as their regional sports networks, which include MSG Network and MSG Plus. Dolan was previously CEO of Cablevision, founded by his father, until its sale in June 2016 to European telecom conglomerate Altice.

## Early life and education

Dolan is one of six children of Cablevision founder Charles Dolan and his wife, Helen Ann Dolan, and nephew of Cleveland Guardians owner Larry J. Dolan. He is of Irish descent. After originally pursuing a career in music, Dolan eventually switched to a major in communications at SUNY New Paltz and began working for Cablevision in various capacities including sales before eventually being dispatched to Cleveland by his father to manage the launching of a sports radio station. In 1995, he was made CEO of Cablevision. Throughout his early adult life, Dolan battled drug and alcohol problems and was reportedly known for having a volatile temper. In 1993, he went to drug rehabilitation at the Hazelden clinic in Center City, Minnesota.

## Business career

Dolan opposed his father's proposed Voom satellite service, which became a polarizing controversy among Cablevision's board of directors. While supporters argued Voom could propel Cablevision into the future emerging satellite market and a wider customer base, opponents of the plan, including James Dolan, argued it was too expensive with no expense relief for the foreseeable future. In the end, the younger Dolan prevailed and Voom was shut down. This was an instrumental event in Dolan emerging from his father's shadow, albeit reluctantly, as a viable businessman.
His business career has included multiple failures, which include purchasing the failing Wiz electronics and entertainment chain, which ended up posting losses of $250 million before being liquidated, and the Clearview Cinemas chain which failed to generate any significant revenue.

## Philanthropy

Dolan fostered Cablevision's philanthropic partnership with The Lustgarten Foundation, a private supporter of pancreatic cancer research. Together with Charles Dolan and former Cablevision Vice Chairman and Madison Square Garden Chairman Marc Lustgarten. Dolan established the Foundation in 1998. In 2008, Cablevision made a multi-year commitment to underwrite the Foundation's costs, ensuring that 100 percent of every donation goes to researching this disease. With Dolan's backing, Cablevision used its assets to advance the curePC campaign, aimed at increasing public awareness of pancreatic cancer and is responsible for organizing the Holiday Rock & Roll Bash, the Foundation's annual fundraiser.
Dolan played a role in organizing the recent "12-12-12" benefit concert, which raised an initial $50 million for the victims of Hurricane Sandy, with additional money still coming in. Other benefit concerts included "The Concert For New York City," which generated more than $35 million in aid for 9/11 victims and heroes, and "From The Big Apple to The Big Easy," which raised nearly $9 million for Hurricane Katrina relief. Dolan supports MSG's ongoing commitment to the community, particularly through the Garden of Dreams Foundation, the non-profit charity that partners with MSG to help children facing obstacles throughout the New York metropolitan area.

## Sports management

In 1994, Paramount Communications, the owner of Madison Square Garden, was acquired by Viacom, who in turn sold the MSG properties to Cablevision and ITT Corporation, which had 50% ownership each. ITT sold its share to Cablevision three years later.
In 1999, Dolan was given an increased role in managing Cablevision's sports properties and is now the primary manager of these assets. The teams under his domain include most notably the National Basketball Association's New York Knicks, the National Hockey League's New York Rangers, the Women's National Basketball Association's New York Liberty, and the American Hockey League's Hartford Wolf Pack.
As Chairman of Madison Square Garden, he supervises day-to-day operations of its professional sports teams and regional sports networks, which include MSG Network and MSG Plus. He is a governor of the Knicks and Rangers to their respective leagues.

### Controversies
#### New York Knicks

Like the Rangers, the Knicks performed abysmally in the early 2000s. Unlike the Rangers, they have yet to fully recover, which fans mostly blame on Dolan's management missteps. Although the Knicks made the NBA Finals in 1999, they did not post another winning season until the 2012–13 season. Furthermore, the Knicks did not make the playoffs at any point between the 2003–04 and 2010–11 seasons, which both ended in the first round with four-game sweeps of the Knicks. In 2007, NBA Commissioner David Stern criticized Dolan's management of the Knicks, saying "they're not a model of intelligent management."
In 2007, Dolan was named as a defendant in a sexual harassment lawsuit submitted by a former Knicks executive, Anucha Browne-Sanders. Browne-Sanders accused Dolan of firing her out of spite after she complained about sexual harassment from Isiah Thomas. The court ruled in favor of Brown-Sanders and Dolan had to pay $3 million of the $11 million settlement. MSG was responsible for paying the remainder of the settlement.

#### New York Rangers

After winning the Stanley Cup in 1994, the Rangers saw a decline in performance in the wake of Dolan's increased role in managing the team and failed to make the playoffs from the 1997–98 season until the 2004–05 NHL lockout, despite leading the league in payroll in most of those years. This was the longest playoff drought in the franchise's history, in part due to questionable, expensive free-agent signings, such as Eric Lindros, Pavel Bure, and Theo Fleury. However, since the resolution of the NHL lockout in 2005, Dolan allowed general manager Glen Sather to rebuild the team from the ground up. That rebuild led to a revival of the club and the organization. The improvement was obvious when the team made it to the Eastern Conference finals in 2012, for the first since 1997. The team finally made it back to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2014, 20 years after they last won the cup.

#### Facial recognition to ban "enemies" from venues

In 2022, it was reported that Dolan had instituted a policy of using facial recognition at his venues to prevent admission to attorneys whose law firms were engaged in legal disputes with Dolan and his businesses, even when those attorneys had legitimate tickets to the show or event. This led to lawsuits and an investigation into whether Dolan's venues should be stripped of their state-issued liquor licenses.

#### New York Liberty

On May 5, 2015, Dolan announced that Isiah Thomas would be president of the WNBA's Liberty. Considering Thomas' history being both a failed President/GM of the Knicks and Thomas being implicated in the Anucha Browne-Sanders sexual harassment incident, Dolan's judgment was questioned by many fans and members of the press.

## Media policies

Dolan rarely speaks with members of the media and communicates to the press through released statements or in interviews with MSG Network. In 2000, Dolan instituted media training for all Garden employees who might deal with the press and instituted an ironclad rule against team personnel criticizing others in the organization via the media. Under Dolan's watch MSG implemented controversial media policies limiting access to players. Some of these measures included prohibiting reporters and Knicks' beat writers from interviewing players without an MSG public relations official present, forbidding one-on-one interviews, and banning writers who write articles critical of the organization. The policies also forbid the MSG Network from being critical of the Knicks and the Rangers, regardless of their performance. Such measures were not standard practice for other NBA teams.

## Personal life

Dolan lives on Long Island with his wife Kristin, whom he named the chief executive officer of AMC Networks in 2023. He has been married twice and has six sons. He contributed to Donald Trump's 2020 presidential reelection campaign.

### Hobbies

Dolan performs blues-inspired rock as the singer for JD & the Straight Shot; their seventh studio album The Great Divide was released in March 2019. The band has been described as a vanity project.

### Sexual assault lawsuit

On January 16, 2024, a sexual assault lawsuit was filed against Dolan in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by Kellye Croft, a former massage therapist who alleged Dolan pressured her into giving him "unwanted sexual intercourse" when his band JD & the Straight Shot was touring with the Eagles in 2013. Kellye stated that she was employed for the Eagles in 2013 during the band's History of the Eagles – Live in Concert tour, which JD & the Straight Shot opened concerts for; Dolan was believed to have provided a large sum of money for the tour as well. In her lawsuit, Croft also alleged Dolan set her up to be molested by Harvey Weinstein in January 2014.