No Land Grab

Bloomberg, Dolan clashing over stadium

BY HARRY BERKOWITZ AND STEVE ZIPAY Staff Writer

November 21, 2004, 6:36 PM EST

Early last year, Michael Bloomberg shared bagels with James Dolan at the mayor's East Side townhouse, helped him settle a standoff with the YES Network, thanked the Cablevision chief executive for obtaining Madison Square Garden tickets and lauded his father for helping attract the Republican National Convention.

"He didn't have any inherent resentment against the Dolans," a City Hall source close to Bloomberg said. "The relationship was perfectly cordial."

This year, associates of Bloomberg and Dolan are shaking their heads in wonderment at how vitriolic that relationship has turned -- "hardball" has replaced "let's play ball."

Instead of trading compliments and courtesies, the two wealthy and powerful men have very publicly traded insults and invective, as an 8-month-old feud over plans to build a West Side stadium for the New York Jets continues to escalate. Although New York City mayors are no stranger to intense public battles, whether they be with union leaders, legislators, community activists or the press, the War of the West Side stands out as a remarkably emotional and intense clash between a mayor and a chief executive.

"I've never seen a public-private dispute over a sports facility more clouded by personal attacks, vitriol and emotion," said Rick Horrow, who teaches sports law at Harvard University Law School and has consulted on more than 100 similar projects across the country.

Calling Cablevision a "disgrace" and saying it put forth "outrageous" lies, Bloomberg has accused the Dolans of selfishly putting their interests above those of the public. He even urged that they should spend more on the struggling Knicks rather than on the anti-stadium ad campaign and that they should voluntarily forgo the tax breaks for Madison Square Garden, which Cablevision owns.

Dolan, for his part, has accused Bloomberg of "trying to hide a flawed and financially risky plan," by taking "cheap shots" at the company. Cablevision-backed ads have said the mayor is proposing to waste $600 million in tax money on a football stadium while cutting city services by $900 million.

"We've had feuds between mayors and chief executives, but we've never had one this public, using media in the way it has been used, both paid and free -- and the creation of a grassroots organization whose sole purpose is to derail the mayor's plan," said Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime Democratic political consultant. "It is absolutely a personal battle between two very strong-willed people, both of whom are rich and both of whom have their own variety of power."

Different styles, backgrounds

Associates of the two combatants say the feud has been fueled not only by the immensity of the issues involved and the sky-high stakes but also by their distinct styles, personalities and backgrounds. Some associates say that in the end, the public battling could cost the city the 2012 Summer Olympics and the expansion of the Javits Convention Center.

Bloomberg, who prides himself on bluntness but has had to struggle to boost his ratings in public opinion polls, is a self-made billionaire-turned politician who created an enormously successful financial information company from scratch.

He faces a re-election battle next year that makes him vulnerable to political attacks and he sees the $1.4-billion stadium project and the Olympics it might help attract as an economic boon and potentially key component of his legacy.

But for Cablevision, a West Side stadium with a retractable roof would put an end to the company's exclusive hold over the biggest indoor venues in Manhattan, which in addition to the Garden include Radio City Music Hall -- prompting Dolan to declare to Bloomberg in March, "You're killing me."

In Dolan, Bloomberg has found an especially appealing target, one who has been criticized for years by cable TV customers, Knicks and Rangers fans and Wall Street analysts.

"The mayor is not a pin cushion and feels the need and obligation to respond and get the facts out as he knows them to be," said former Mayor Ed Koch, who backs the stadium.

Associates of Dolan, however, say it was Bloomberg who first took the dispute public and they accuse the mayor of preferring to personalize the fight by demonizing Dolan rather than debating the issues or facing public sentiment.

Bloomberg associates say that if it weren't for Dolan, who maintains that the ad campaign Cablevision backs is largely a grassroots effort supported by civic groups, it would be smooth sailing for the project. And they say Dolan and his intransigence especially rub Bloomberg the wrong way.

"The mayor has a lot of respect for civic-minded people who are good corporate citizens, and Jimmy Dolan is the exact opposite," said City Hall spokesman Ed Skyler.

In contrast to Bloomberg, Dolan, whose style is often abrasive and pugnacious, gained his riches and his corporate titles at the metropolitan area's biggest cable company largely through his father, Cablevision chairman Charles Dolan. And as a cable company with exclusive franchises, Cablevision is often criticized as being a monopoly.

Leo Hindery Jr., the YES Network chairman and campaign finance manager for likely mayoral candidate Fred Ferrer, opposes the stadium but said the approach the Dolans have taken could backfire.

"It's gratifying, on the one hand, that Cablevision agrees with my conclusion, but from first-hand experience, I sadly know that their conviction is borne out of self-serving corporate interests rather than the interests of the women and men of the five boroughs of New York," Hindery said. "There are a hundred ways and a thousand people who would have fought this fight, and the Dolans could have just given some money. But to put yourself out there as the leader just once again shows the impolitics of the family."

Forces behind, against project

Dolan and Cablevision "set themselves up as a lightning rod," said Bob Gutkowski, chairman of Criterion Sports and Entertainment and a former Madison Square Garden president. "So the mayor's kicking sand in their faces."

According to a source who has consulted with players on both sides of the controversy, Dolan rejected suggestions that he tone down the battle and said the civic coalition called the New York Association for Better Choices, which Cablevision is funding, would not have known how to wage the anti-stadium campaign without the company's help.

"You've got to play hardball with these guys," Dolan said of the pro-stadium forces, according to the source. "They are not interested in compromising."

The anti-stadium forces say they appreciate Cablevision's backing. "MSG has played an important role in giving voice to the stadium opposition and our community in raising awareness of the serious flaws in the mayor's plan," said Anna Levin, a member of the New York Association for Better Choices and the Hell's Kitchen/Hudson Yards Alliance, a coalition against the project.

Associates of Dolan say that if his father, who is a tough and stubborn negotiator but takes a much more gentlemanly approach to negotiations, were leading the effort, it would not be as confrontational, even though Charles Dolan clearly has not vetoed his son's tactics.

"Chuck would meet with Bloomberg and they would hassle over it but it would be low key," the source who has consulted with both sides said. "He was never one to be confrontational."

Some backers of the stadium plan have tried to persuade the forces on the mayor's side, who include Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff and Jay Kriegel, chief executive of New York's Olympics bid, NYC2012, to soften their approach and propose a backup site for the stadium, possibly in Queens, sources said.

But the Jets, who are contributing $800 million to the plan, have not been willing to consider another site, and leaders of the Olympics bid don't believe they could win if the stadium were in Queens, a source close to the mayor said. "If Jimmy gets his way, we don't get the Olympics," the source said.

Even if Jets owner Woody Johnson III tried to defuse Dolan by offering to replace the state and city's $600 million by himself, the opposition wouldn't disappear and the bitterness between Dolan and Bloomberg would linger, said Rob Tilliss, the chief executive of Inner Circle Sports, the Stamford, Conn., firm that underwrote the plan for the San Francisco Giants' $330-million Pacific Bell Park, which was privately financed after residents voted down public financing. "I don't think it's that simple here, given all the other issues," Tilliss said.

Public opinion

Even though New York City voters overwhelmingly want the 2012 Olympics, they disagree, by 47 percent to 39 percent, with the claim that the Olympics bid depends on the West Side stadium, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll. And they don't want a West Side stadium, by 55 percent to 39 percent.

Even Bloomberg backers acknowledge Cablevision has had some success in swaying public opinion and possibly the State Legislature.

Cablevision and Madison Square Garden have spent more than $8 million in corporate money on ads and lobbying on the issue.They lined up a heavyweight roster of lobbyists and consultants including former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato and Arthur J. Finkelstein, a former pollster for Gov. George Pataki. Stadium supporters have spent more than $3 million. Jets lobbyists include former Pataki spokesman Michael McKeon and Ken Sunshine, a former staffer of state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

To move the stadium project ahead, the State Legislature must pass legislation to expand the Javits Center, a prospect that is uncertain. Also, the Public Authorities Control Board, which is controlled by the governor, Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, must approve the sale of air rights to the Jets.

Whatever the outcome of the Jets stadium fight, Horrow and other sports business consultants predict the next battleground will be downtown Brooklyn, where developer Bruce Ratner, the principal owner of the New Jersey Nets, is building a $435-million arena as a centerpiece of a $2.5-billion office, shopping and residential development that is backed by Bloomberg.

Dolan lobbied NBA owners against the sale of the Nets to Ratner. He likely will try to sway owners who must eventually approve the transfer of the franchise to Brooklyn and also oppose Ratner's project. "That'll be the second fight," said Horrow, "because it will impact the Garden more than the West Side stadium."