Executive Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, MADISON SQUARE GARDEN SPORTS
James Dolan UNLOADS on NYC Mayor Over Knicks Chaos! Trump, Taylor Swift & MSG Madness EXPOSED
James Dolan joined Craig Carton and Chris McMonigle on WFAN and held NOTHING back. The Knicks owner blasted the Mayor's office over restrictions around Madison Square Garden, defended President Trump's NBA Finals appearance, predicted a Knicks championship, and even addressed Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, and the rumored MSG wedding. Plus, Dolan reveals why the outdoor watch party screens were SCRAPPED and guarantees a Game 4 victory!
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About James Dolan
James Dolan, executive chairman and CEO of Madison Square Garden Sports, spoke at several public events following the New York Knicks' 2026 NBA championship, which ended a 53-year title drought. At a championship parade at City Hall, Dolan thanked fans for their patience, saying "you all don't look older than 53 years" and that some fans "weren't born yet" when the team last won. He stated the team would "keep working to bring you even better basketball." During a subsequent radio interview, Dolan said he had not previously addressed the team before the playoffs, and that he told players the season required "10 weeks" of focus and "sacrifice" to achieve a championship. In other media appearances, Dolan discussed the team's culture change, saying he sought "the best collector of talent" rather than focusing on a specific strategy. He responded to a question about selling the team by stating "I don't think we're going to sell the team" and that he was focused on "repeating." Dolan also criticized the mayor's office over restrictions around Madison Square Garden, saying their decisions "makes absolutely no sense at all" and that he believed New Yorkers could handle the event.
Transcript (118 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
H
Host0:00
And happy to have a dear friend and the owner of the New York Knicks, Mr. Jim Dolan, coming by the studio. Jim, good to see you. You obviously know Chris over there. And Chris, how you doing today? You doing okay?
C
Chris0:12
Uh, you know, a little anxious, but I'm okay.
H
Host0:15
Before we get into all the stuff happening today, I want to take you back to our very first show, January 5th, 2026. You were kind enough to be our first guest. And I said to you back then, should we expect a big trade this year? Is Giannis coming here? What are your thoughts about this specific Knicks team and the fact we basically ran it back from last year?
J
James Dolan0:34
With a new head coach and Mike Brown, and you said don't expect anything major. This team's good enough to win a championship, and now here we are game four with a 2-1 lead. Your thoughts on what's transpired over the last six months, and more specifically the last month and a half.
H
Host0:50
Um, well, you know, I think it's what I said it was.
J
James Dolan0:53
Write it down there. There we go. You got it.
H
Host0:55
It's what I said it was.
J
James Dolan0:56
I got one right. Yeah, you know, look, Leon and I believe the team was good enough last year. And we were fortunately, I think, proving it right. And I expect to win tonight.
H
Host1:16
Being as if my predictions here come true, we're going to win tonight. We're going to win the finals.
J
James Dolan1:21
Now you're talking. All right, let's get into a couple things before I get to the watch party. And you know this frozen zone now around the Garden, which we saw for Monday night. I have to ask you, as the owner of the Knicks, your thoughts on the officiating in games two and three. And were you disappointed that the league did not retroactively give Wembanyama the flagrant one for the way he manhandled Jalen Brunson?
Yeah. Okay. So I'm a governor of the NBA, right? And I'm restricted and bound by the rules of the NBA, of which there are a lot. Okay.
H
Host1:58
So there's little that I can say. I will say if you read the cover of the New York Post today, I think they got it right.
J
James Dolan2:08
Okay.
H
Host2:09
Okay. Yes.
J
James Dolan2:09
Um, which hopefully won't get me in trouble. But look, in the end, it's not who we play and it's not the officiating. It's how we play. If the team that comes out on the floor tonight, the Knicks team that we know and love, if they come out, there's nothing that can stop them. Not missed calls, not 7-foot-4 aliens. Nothing will stop them if they play their game. I believe in these guys. I believed in them when I was here the first time. And everybody who's hearing should believe in them, too, because they can do it. And I think in fairness to what happened in game three on Monday night, the reality is that it's the worst game they played in a month and a half. They were a little sloppy. They didn't shoot as well as they've been shooting. And during that 13-game win streak, this reminded me of game two against Atlanta. They just had a bad game. Now, we could talk about the officials. I think it's a smaller part of it, but I think to a man, the Knicks would tell you, the players would tell you, that they didn't play up to their standard.
H
Host3:24
No, they didn't. They would tell you they didn't play the game they wanted to play. Bingo, right? The important part of that is that they know they can play that game. They know how to pull themselves together and play the kind of game that we saw in game three in Atlanta that we were up. I'm not predicting we're going to win by 40 points tonight.
J
James Dolan3:48
Would be nice though.
H
Host3:49
Well, it's also not supposed to be easy to win a championship.
J
James Dolan3:52
No. And San Antonio is not an easy opponent. No, they are not. So if our guys come out and play the game that they know they can play and they know how to play, we will win this game and we will win the series.
H
Host4:05
There you go. Talking to Jim Dolan, the owner of the Knicks and of course Madison Square Garden. Monday night, I think we all accepted the fact, well, not everybody loved it, that President Trump was going to be in attendance, and because he is the leader of the free world and there have been assassination attempts on his life throughout his presidency, there was going to be extra security. And I think we accepted, while we didn't love the fact that New York City was shut down from 29th to 35th going north and south and obviously 6th Avenue to 8th Avenue going west and east. But nobody expected that to happen tonight because the president is not in the building. I assume you like the rest of us were not expecting to have blockades around those same streets like we knew was going to happen on Monday night. Is that fair? You have an easier chance of getting into Area 51 today than you do into Madison Square Garden. When did you find out that that decision had been made? And was it the mayor's office or NYPD or both of them combined?
J
James Dolan5:07
For that's really important to say, right? We love the NYPD. We know the captains, we know the chiefs. They can handle this. They don't need this. And if you ask them and they were able to answer unfettered, they would tell you they can handle this. It's really the mayor's office. I cannot explain their decisions on this, but it makes absolutely no sense at all. And the real reason that I decided to call you up this afternoon to say, 'Look, I want to come down,' is because I know there's a lot of people who are in their cars right now headed down to the Garden and to the Midtown area. And I'm just telling you, as much time as you've allotted, you have not allotted enough time. The restrictions being put on this area, I mean, like I said, you would think we were guarding Fort Knox.
H
Host6:11
Well, we are guarding an alien, but yeah, it's incredible. Even if you come by train or subway, they're not letting you up. They're going to push you outside of the forbidden zone and make you come through magnetometers. And you're going to have to show that you have a reason to be there. This is all designed around stopping people from celebrating around Madison Square Garden. That's what this is about.
J
James Dolan6:48
Why would the mayor's office not want people to do what they've done without any major incident? There's been a couple of things happen.
H
Host6:53
Well, there was what happened in Brian Park, but Brian Park was not our party. Brian Park was the mayor's party. Now, why people acted up at the mayor's party, I don't know. But that could be it. But that's not Madison Square Garden. We've had tens of thousands of people celebrating outside of Madison Square Garden, and it's been relatively peaceful.
J
James Dolan7:23
I said they've been a handful of small incidents during the watch parties when the playoffs started. Nothing beyond like again, misdemeanor here, someone messes with a car there. The Brian Park thing was totally different. What I'm trying to figure out is, when the mayor's office tells your team and your executives and yourself, 'Hey, we're going to keep the policy in place from Monday night,' you guys have successfully had indoor watch parties at the Garden and Radio City. You've had outdoor watch parties at every home game prior to Monday night without any major incident. Why would they now think that your team and the police force that covers that part of New York City couldn't suddenly handle it again tonight? I don't know. But you can only conjecture. I don't think that they have faith in their own police force. We know they know what they're doing, but honestly, the mayor's office, and I'm sorry the commissioner too, do not have the experience to do this right.
H
Host8:27
That's Mayor Adams and Jessica Tisch, who's the police commissioner.
J
James Dolan8:30
I mean, they have never managed anything like this before. It's like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich coming out the sides. That's part of what we're seeing: a lot of fear from the mayor's office, a lot of anxiety. They're sitting there trying to say, 'Well, we're big Knicks fans.' But this isn't... They're not Knicks fans.
H
Host8:50
He called the Garden a stadium.
J
James Dolan8:52
How big a Knicks fan is he? He's not a Knicks fan. So let's get to the watch party. The mayor's office did respond to the second press release that you guys put out today. You had one out last night. You put a second one out today. And the mayor's office put out their own press release. They claim, for people catching up, they're having a thousand people max. The mayor's trying to claim, 'Hey, I did you a solid. I saved the watch party, max a thousand people. It's a ticketed event now.' And his office's claim was that in the permit you guys requested for the watch party outside of the Garden, which we've had throughout the postseason, your permit request was for 500 to a thousand people. And I said, 'That can't be right because every watch party you've had, you've had damn near 10,000 people.'
Don't get these things confused. Go ahead.
H
Host9:49
This is not really about a watch party. We put up two fairly decent-sized screens along the side. I don't think you can get much more than a thousand or so people to see the screen. This is about celebrating the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, the mecca of basketball. This is what the mayor's office and the commissioner's office are trying to kill. They don't want the celebration. I can't tell you why they don't want it. I'm not sure they know why they don't want it. But they clearly don't want it. And they're turning the entire area... and we should note this, it's basically the same area from when the president was here.
J
James Dolan10:37
29th to 35th, north and south, 6th Avenue to 8th Avenue, which is a big area.
H
Host10:44
I mean, if you're driving in right now, you can't park by Madison Square Garden. You'll have to park across town, walk, accept that you'll go through a magnetometer, get stopped, have your ticket verified. This will create a huge backup all around Area 51.
J
James Dolan11:10
It's going to take you over an hour to get into the building. That's what you're saying.
H
Host11:13
Once you stop your car, listen to me, folks, no less than an hour to get from there into the building. I hope you don't have any problems along the way. From the last game, we had people walking from Madison and Fifth Avenue all the way down with tickets in hand because they couldn't get any closer. This won't be any better.
J
James Dolan11:42
When that happened in game three, and we said we understood why the president's there, did you have a discussion with them about moving forward? Did they tell you this is how we're doing it for game three, expect the same, or did you completely get taken off guard?
H
Host11:54
They're very coy about that. They say, 'We'll see. We'll see.' But look, let's talk about game three. The Secret Service didn't demand this stuff.
J
James Dolan12:08
It was NYPD and really the commissioner's office.
H
Host12:12
It would have made more sense if it was the Secret Service, because we could accept that. But no, this was the commissioner's plan all along. She just used the president coming as an excuse to set it up.
J
James Dolan12:27
But what about all the previous watch parties? They went off without incident.
H
Host12:32
They prove that we can gather and enjoy ourselves without causing any problem. Absolutely. Look, this is New Yorkers, Knicks fans. No matter what the commissioner does, they're going to celebrate.
J
James Dolan12:55
Correct. They want to do it by the Garden. There's a lot of love around the Garden when we win.
H
Host13:01
Jim, it's the biggest sporting event in New York City this century. That's real. The Yankees in the World Series in '09, they won, but they've won 27 championships. The Giants in '11 didn't have many home games. This game tonight, with a chance to take a 3-1 lead, is the most important sporting event in this city this century. That's not hyperbole. You would think it would be embraced by those in charge. No.
J
James Dolan13:35
Common sense. I don't know what to say. I mostly wanted to come down and tell all the folks listening, because a lot of people listen, get there early. If you're planning on coming and going to, for instance, one of the bars around the Garden, you're pretty much not going to be able to. They're going to check for reservation. My son went to a place a block and a half away from the Garden for Monday night's game. The rank and file cops are doing their jobs. Don't be mad at them. They have orders to fulfill. I want to be clear about that. My son and his friends tried to go to a local bar to get the vibe, and the police officer said, 'Prove that you have a reservation.' He said, 'How am I going to prove it? I called the place and got a table.' They eventually got through. But they're serious. A guy called, the owner of Bravo Pizza on 30th, blocked from the Garden. He had an average night but normally does 3x business when the Knicks are in town, and didn't because of these draconian measures. These restaurants all hired extra staff and they're getting crushed. It's not fair. All I would say to the mayor and the commissioner is, believe in New Yorkers. We're the greatest city in the world with the greatest citizens and fans. They are not going to turn this into something bad.
H
Host15:14
So let me ask you an obvious question: Has Jessica Tisch's office or Mayor Adams's office reached out to you, or did they just make their announcement and say, 'Live with it'?
J
James Dolan15:24
No, they talked to us, but they kind of dictate to us. It's very political. Before game three, it was the president coming. We kept saying it's not the president coming. Oh, no, it's the president coming. And it was the Secret Service? They went to the Secret Service and said, 'Did you ask for this?' They said no. But you know, look, I can't fix the city. That's the mayor's job. All I can say is that we love Knicks fans and they should have the opportunity to celebrate this. I wish I could tell you it's going to happen again next year. I don't know.
H
Host16:09
Well, let's just win this year first and then worry about the dynasty and the repeat next year. We've been waiting a long time for this moment. Don't take it away from New Yorkers. Don't treat it like this. It's not right. Let people in. Trust your own police department that they can handle it. Then trust the fans themselves. They're enthusiastic.
J
James Dolan16:40
So do you think if this series, knock on wood, ends in five, but if it went to a sixth game at Madison Square Garden, do you think we should expect the same thing?
H
Host16:55
We got the permit for the watch party, which was littered with restrictions. No more than 999 people, everybody has to do this and that. We're not even putting up the screens because we're not about 999 people. We're about millions of people.
J
James Dolan17:20
So tonight you're not going to have the screens up for the watch party?
H
Host17:22
No, we're not going to have a screen up. I'm not...
J
James Dolan17:24
Well, it's kind of not even your party, right? Isn't the mayor claiming it's his party because he decided to bless it? It's a weird situation.
H
Host17:33
He gave us the gift of allowing us to screen 999 people and tell 20,000 no. Thank you very much. We do have a staff member, Anthony, checking, and tickets are sold? A thousand tickets out of something.
J
James Dolan17:51
Who's in charge of the tickets? No, there are no tickets sold. There are no tickets for this event. We issued no tickets. Our hope was that the mayor and the commissioner would change their mind, and we'd put the screens up. They clearly haven't. It's almost 5:00.
H
Host18:09
So you're going tonight to the watch party? You're not seeing the game. I was under the impression you could have a ticket, that there were going to be a thousand tickets.
J
James Dolan18:19
We never agreed to that.
H
Host18:21
Okay. So if you're going to the watch party, you're not watching anything. If you're just hanging out waiting for 9, there's a lot more than 900 people listening. Which ones would get tickets and which ones wouldn't? That's not what the watch parties are. They're an extension of the celebration of the Knicks. I wish I could get everybody into Madison Square Garden, but we can't. Watch parties were an idea to help people. Many other cities do it successfully. We're the best city in the world, so we can do it. I know our NYPD guys can handle this. This is really out of the mayor's office. He needs to change his mind. I doubt he'll do it for tonight, but there's game five on Saturday. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
J
James Dolan19:22
Are you opening the Garden up for an indoor watch party?
H
Host19:25
There's a concert at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, and the World Cup starts tomorrow. Should we win tonight, which we will, and then we win in San Antonio, you think anybody's going to want to come and celebrate at Madison Square Garden?
J
James Dolan19:47
I believe so. Yes.
H
Host19:49
What's going to happen?
J
James Dolan19:51
Well, they can't go to Penn Station without a World Cup ticket. That's going to be a problem. I'm not sure who's playing the Garden that night. I forget who the concert is.
H
Host20:00
Sold out anyway. So it's going to be a cluster for a lot of people. But the more important concern is tonight. If you're trying to go to the game because you have a ticket or you want to experience New York City with the Knicks playing at one of the watering holes that's having the game on, just know you're not getting close to 33rd and 7th. That's off the table because of the executive branch of the NYPD or the mayor's office. They don't want you to congregate.
J
James Dolan20:33
They don't want you near the Garden. They don't want you to celebrate.
H
Host20:35
Why? Ringing is okay apparently in Central Park, but Midtown's not okay.
J
James Dolan20:43
That's what they're telling you.
H
Host20:44
There's not a lot...
J
James Dolan20:45
You go to Brian Park, you can't come to the Garden.
H
Host20:47
Yeah. Did they really emphasize what happened the other night and the violence at Brian Park as part of their reasoning?
J
James Dolan20:55
We've heard that secondhand, but look, we're not Brian Park. That wasn't our party. That was the mayor's party. And you might be right. It might have been because we lost. I don't know. The NYPD has a handful of bad people, that special squad that handles that. I don't think they were on site when it happened, but they got brought in. That squad, by the way, is one of the mayor's initiatives to eliminate. He wants less cops and more social workers on the streets. What are the social workers going to do with the Knicks? Put on a jersey and celebrate a championship?
H
Host21:38
What was the experience like? You're normally sitting on baseline. And you've been very stoic during this playoff run. I assume that's a good luck thing. I don't see you cheering or smiling half the time. But you went upstairs to the suite. The president was here, a lot of other folks from the White House were in that suite. You were not in your normal spot.
J
James Dolan22:05
Nope.
H
Host22:06
I assume, with all due respect, your relationship with the White House and the president, you would have preferred to be in your normal spot where you sit baseline in front of the Knicks bench. Walk me through what that was like for you, going upstairs, sitting in the suite, being with the president. It may have looked like he shut his eyes for a long period during one part of the game.
J
James Dolan22:26
I was with him the whole time. He did not fall asleep. We were talking the whole time. Unless he was sleeping. He wasn't. He was very much awake, very much engaged. That's the first sitting president of the United States to ever go to an NBA Finals. That is a huge honor. And he's a New Yorker. Whatever you think about him, he's a Knicks fan. People don't want to hear this, but I think he's a great guy.
H
Host22:58
And you've known him a long time.
J
James Dolan23:00
I've known him for over 30 years. I'm not going to go on this show and start espousing the president. I'll just say that having him there was a great honor. I enjoyed sitting with him. He asked me a lot of questions.
H
Host23:21
Were we talking basketball?
J
James Dolan23:22
Yeah, we were talking basketball.
H
Host23:25
To be a fly on that wall. He knows basketball.
J
James Dolan23:28
Was he pissed when Wembanyama threw Jalen Brunson to the ground?
H
Host23:32
Can't tell you these things. We found out today that among the many celebrities that will be at the Garden tonight, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce will be in the building. I was wondering if that's part of the wedding deal. Is that your present to them? They get to go to game four in return for renting out the Garden for their wedding.
J
James Dolan23:57
Well, that's a nice conjecture. First off, you got half of it wrong.
H
Host24:02
What point did I get wrong?
J
James Dolan24:02
Well, Travis Kelce is in mandatory training camp.
H
Host24:07
So she will be there without Travis Kelce. Maybe.
J
James Dolan24:10
I didn't say that. You said that.
H
Host24:11
I said it. If she does come, I hope she would wear a Knicks shirt. I think Taylor Swift is very fond of New York.
J
James Dolan24:25
Well, she's played the Garden and she has an apartment in Tribeca. She's a pseudo New Yorker at this point.
H
Host24:33
If she came to the Garden and rooted for the Knicks, maybe that makes her a real New Yorker.
J
James Dolan24:38
Maybe it does. Tonight, I think I was right assuming they are getting married at the Garden. The only other wedding was Sly and the Family Stone, but that was during a concert and predates you.
H
Host24:52
No, there were other weddings. The mass wedding.
J
James Dolan24:57
The mass wedding, which was like... I want to say it was a religious Chinese group, hundreds of couples got married.
H
Host25:05
Thousand people? 2,500 couples married at the same time. I wonder how many are still married.
J
James Dolan25:11
Probably less than half.
H
Host25:14
That would be the going statistic. But this will be the first wedding of its kind at the Garden.
J
James Dolan25:20
It's not a public event.
H
Host25:22
I don't understand. Is there a watch party outside? Is the mayor going to allow that? You going to put screens up?
J
James Dolan25:28
Why don't you ask the mayor? I'm sure there will be a lot of fans. She's a great star, great singer. We're really happy to have her. I was looking at our celebrity wrist list today. Crazy. And of course, at halftime tonight, what's happening?
H
Host25:48
Wu-Tang Clan at halftime.
J
James Dolan25:50
The reunification of the whole Wu-Tang Clan. We had Cardi B at halftime for the third game. The reunification of Wu-Tang for the fourth game. And San Antonio had a dog on a beach ball during their halftime.
H
Host26:08
Were you bothered by the circus music they played when they introduced Knicks in San Antonio? Is that just part for the course now?
J
James Dolan26:15
Yeah, I didn't expect a friendly welcome. They were cordial, and the back and forth between the two offices was basically cordial. What you do for us, we'll do for you. There's some truth that had the Cavs come back here, Dan Gilbert was sitting in the nosebleeds.
H
Host26:40
No, because we would have given him the same treatment. I know Dan a long time, and he needs to be taken care of because he's not always well.
J
James Dolan26:57
And by the way, it was a Fat Joe thing. Not having you sit in the nosebleeds. They just didn't want Fat Joe sitting courtside, as I understand.
H
Host27:05
Yeah, well, I don't know that was Dan, but it probably was.
J
James Dolan27:10
Probably not. All right. So before I let you go, I appreciate you coming in. I give you a chance one more time to appeal to New Yorkers who are going to be in the area trying to get into the area. Say what you said and let them hear.
H
Host27:22
If I were you at this time, what is it, close to 5:00?
J
James Dolan27:27
Just almost 4:30.
H
Host27:29
Go now. Legitimately. I'm not kidding. If you're thinking you'll have dinner uptown and then come downtown, call up the local restaurants, make a reservation there. Go now so you can be there for tip-off.
J
James Dolan27:49
Got it. And you'll be back in your normal baseline seat tonight.
H
Host27:52
I will be.
J
James Dolan27:52
You will be there. And your prediction again is a Knicks win tonight.
H
Host27:55
Absolutely.
J
James Dolan27:56
And I think you said a Knicks win for game five?
H
Host27:58
Five will be harder, but yes. Close out games are the most difficult. They haven't been for you guys this year. But it's not who we play, it's not the referees, it's how we play. We know how to play this. If we come out ready to play, I guarantee you we will win.
J
James Dolan28:24
And the lead ref is from Brooklyn, so that doesn't hurt. Just putting it out there. Grew up a Knicks fan.
H
Host28:31
And you're 5-0 this year with that ref. I appreciate you. Thank you for coming. I think it's important that you spoke to your fan base and cleared everything up. Good luck tonight. Fingers crossed we don't have to go to a game six, but if we do, I'll see you there. Appreciate you coming in.
J
James Dolan28:46
Thanks guys, everybody. I'll take a quick break. Him right back after this.