Yankee Entertainment & Sports (YES) Network LLC: Team-Affiliated Television Networks

Cable industry veteran Leo Hindery hung up the telephone in disgust. It was June 2002, and he had just received a call from his lawyer Alan Vickery telling him that Cablevision had requested 660 days to prepare to defend the lawsuit filed against them by the YES Network. This stall tactic was not good news for Hindery, the CEO of YES. Each day that Cablevision did not carry YES was a financial dagger, since Cablevision’s nearly 3 million customers represented a major chunk of the region’s cable subscribers. Without Cablevision on board, YES was destined to lose out on approximately $65 million annually in subscriber fees and advertising revenue, nearly a third of their projected $200 million in revenue. Furthermore, 2.7 million New Yorkers were up in arms that they could not watch their beloved New York Yankees in 130 televised games on YES. As their first baseball broadcast season came to a close, Hindery, the Yankees, and YES were faced with one major obstacle blocking the path to success: Cablevision. In 2002, with the dispute still unresolved and a lawsuit in process, Hindery and YES were presented with several options – which should they choose?