The Big Lead

HBO, Cablevision founder Charles Dolan pioneered sports broadcasting before ESPN

By J.P. Hoornstra

May 12, 2016; Oxnard, CA, USA; HBO Sports executive vice president Peter Nelson (left), Hard Knocks coordinating producer Ken Rodgers (second from left), Hard Knocks director Matt Dissinger and Los Angeles Rams coach Jeff Fisher at press conference at the Residence Inn Oxnard River Ridge.
May 12, 2016; Oxnard, CA, USA; HBO Sports executive vice president Peter Nelson (left), Hard Knocks coordinating producer Ken Rodgers (second from left), Hard Knocks director Matt Dissinger and Los Angeles Rams coach Jeff Fisher at press conference at the Residence Inn Oxnard River Ridge. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
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In 1972, HBO — then a fledgling cable network primarily focused on movie broadcasts — took a bold step into the world of live sports coverage, marking the beginning of its long and often pioneering involvement in the field. Its first telecast was in fact not a movie, but a hockey game between the New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks.

This decision was, in large part, the vision of Charles Dolan, HBO's founder and an influential figure in cable television's early development. Dolan, who pioneered sports broadcasting via the launch of HBO, Manhattan Cable Television, and Cablevision, and held controlling stakes in the companies that owned the New York Knicks and Rangers, died Saturday. He was 98.

Forbes estimated Dolan's net worth at the time of his death at $5.5 billion. An early entrant into the business of cable TV, Dolan's Manhattan Cable Television Network brought a package of sporting events into subscribers' homes 10 years before ESPN went live.

In May 1969, Manhattan Cable Television offered subscribers a package of 125 sports events from Madison Square Garden including the Rangers, Knicks, college basketball regular season and tournament games, tennis, karate, wrestling and even the Westminster Kennel Club dog show.

Shortly before selling his stake in the pioneering cable channel he launched (HBO) Dolan founded the Cablevision Systems Corp. in 1973. Beginning with a base of 1,500 subscribers in New York, Cablevision grew to a nationwide company.

Cablevision's subscribers got sports through HBO. The popularity of the games would resonate not just with the creation of ESPN but in the regional sports network model itself. In 1976, Cablevision launched the precursor to what would become the country's first RSN (SportsChannel), now known as MSG SportsNet.

By 1984, Dolan was listed among The Sporting News' 50 most powerful people in sports. As a sports media pioneer, his legacy — and his family's net worth — lives on for generations.

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