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Madison Square Garden’s James Dolan Is Spending Big on New York’s Governor Race
Bruce Blakeman, the Republican nominee for New York governor, promised last November to erect a wall of spy gear, license plate readers, and biometric surveillance between the city and the suburbs. He has since received millions of dollars in donations from the family and businesses of James Dolan, the owner of Madison Square Garden, where a network of cameras capture the faces of (nearly) every patron who walks in the arena and corporate security forces hunt for critics of the boss.
Dolan’s support of Blakeman, the executive of suburban Nassau County, could be seen as something of a counterintuitive move in a state long run by Democrats, and in a year when political surveys are picking up indications of a blue wave. He’s down by nine points or more in most polls.
Blakeman, however, backs data centers, AI deepfakes, Flock surveillance, ICE, private militias, and president Donald Trump. All of which makes him at least somewhat simpatico with Dolan, the Trump-allied magnate operating the sports world’s best-known surveillance state. Dolan has long been a mercurial presence in the political game, and in fact, as Politico notes, he supported Blakeman’s opponent, Governor Kathy Hochul, during the last election. Dolan’s sheer amount of spending in the race could also benefit him, even if his preferred candidate loses.
Long an outsized force in sports and entertainment, Dolan now has a chance at a major political role, too.
“Dolan can step into the breach and become the biggest player in [New York’s] Republican politics, donor-wise, and I'm sure his people are smart enough to know that,” one veteran strategist tells WIRED.
James Dolan has given heavily before, including nearly a million dollars to Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee in the 2020 election cycle. But the New York governor’s race represents another level, a review of city, state, and federal databases shows.
The Dolan family has given $108,000 to Blakeman’s campaign directly and another $970,000 to the local Nassau County Republican party, which in turn has become Blakeman’s single-largest contributor. But that’s just for starters. MSG entities have contributed another $2 million to a political action committee supporting Blakeman’s run. That super PAC, Strong and Safe New York Inc., which lists Madison Square Garden’s top government relations executive as an officer, has raised $5.3 million overall. That helped make up for a 9-to-1 cash advantage that the governor’s campaign reported over her challenger’s at the last filing deadline in July.
Dolan and MSG’s bankrolling of Blakeman could come with risks, however. Opposition to Dolan’s use of facial recognition has hit a new peak locally, where a majority of the City Council are now in favor of a bill to rein in biometric surveillance. State lawmakers introduced a bill to end the property tax break that has been worth over a billion dollars to Madison Square Garden. The federal government has agreed to take over the $8 billion renovation of the train station below Madison Square Garden—a project that could pay Dolan’s company $500 million or more. But multiple sources note that state and local authorities will likely continue to have a say.
Meanwhile, the New York attorney general’s investigation into MSG’s deployment of facial recognition continues to progress, a source familiar with the matter tells WIRED. And while mayor Zohran Mamdani’s critiques of Dolan’s security practices have been muted, so far, there are signs that may be changing. One of his commissioners said last month that “this kind of mass surveillance opens the door to abuse and discrimination.”
(Madison Square Garden, which did not respond to a request to comment for this story, filed a defamation suit in July against WIRED and this reporter over our coverage of its operations.)