Three days after the Knicks defeated the Spurs, 94-90, in Game 5 to clinch a 4-1 win at the NBA Finals, Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSG Entertainment) was served with a lawsuit filed in New York’s federal court.
It claims they did not fulfill their duty in terms of informing the aggrieved of a data breach that occurred on Monday, less than 48 hours after the championship win.
According to the lawsuit copy obtained by Front Office Sports’ Ben Horney, a cybercrime group, ShinyHunters, which claimed to have hacked the internal systems of MSG Entertainment, has now published the data online after they demanded that MSG Entertainment pay a ransom for the data.
The data includes biometric information like facial recognition data, as well as background check information on credit scores and social security numbers.
It is important to note that MSG Entertainment is the company that owns and runs Madison Square Garden, the venue. Meanwhile, Madison Square Garden Sports (MSG Sports) is a separate company that owns the Knicks and the Rangers. James Dolan is the CEO of both these companies. So he might be the only person in the Knicks’ organization affected directly by this lawsuit.
However, after establishing how these two are separate entities, the lawsuit points to MSG Entertainment for its controversial data collection in the past.
“Madison Square Garden, which is owned by the Defendant as well as its famous tenants (the NBA champion New York Knicks and the New York Rangers), is well regarded as one of the world’s most famous sports arenas,” the complaint reads. “The arena is the sole professional sports venue located within Manhattan in New York City, and attracts visitors from around the world.”
It points to MSG Entertainment’s “tempestuous history with respect to data privacy,” and claims “despite a slew of lawsuits regarding this conduct, as well as consternation from privacy advocates and legislators in New York, the Arena—at the direction of its owner James Dolan—continues to collect biometric information from each visitor.”
Examples of the type of data collected include the categorization of the actor, Ben Stiller, as ‘low risk,’ but the rapper A Boogie wit da Hoodie is deemed as a ‘high risk’ attendee.
Carlos Avalo, the plaintiff, says that when he went to a concert at MSG in September 2025, his personal data was gathered. He is “gravely concerned” about what was revealed and “reasonably believes” that his information was part of the recent data breach.
According to the lawsuit, MSG Entertainment has not sufficiently addressed the hack, including failing to notify those impacted. “The defendant’s response to the data breach has been woefully insufficient,” the suit claims.
As of now, James Dolan or any representative of MSG Entertainment has not made a statement on the course of action they have planned or any intel into the negotiations with the hackers. It is unfortunate how so many people’s sensitive and private information has been made available to the public. Let’s see how the Knicks’ owner responds to these claims.
