The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden’s Surveillance Machine

Her movements were tracked, over and over. When she sat down. When she ordered a drink. When she went to the bathroom. When she took the elevator. Nina Richards went to New York Knicks games quite a bit, and the security forces at Madison Square Garden used the arena's network of cameras to follow her.

New Yorkers have known for a long time that going to a game or concert at the Garden meant surrendering some privacy. That, as you watched the show, the Garden in a real sense watched you. Since 2018, there have been reports of the venue deploying face-recognition technology in what critics believe are increasingly intrusive ways. Owner James Dolan has watch lists of basketball fans who dared criticize his management. He keeps a close eye on his other venues too, including Radio City Music Hall and the Sphere in Las Vegas. Last March, Dolan’s security team blocked a graphic designer from seeing a concert; the designer, years earlier, had printed and sold a half-dozen T-shirts reading “Ban Dolan.” He's locked out whole firms’ worth of lawyers, even keeping out a mom who was trying to take her 9-year-old girl scout to a Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall; the mom's coworker had pissed him off.

But the true extent of Dolan's panopticon has only been caught in glimpses. A 2025 lawsuit by a former member of the MSG security team lifted the veil, just a bit. We started our own digging into the Garden's operations. We discovered that Dolan’s security teams obsessively tracked Nina Richards, a trans woman, over a two-year period, monitoring her movements through the venue down to the second. (WIRED is using a pseudonym in this article out of respect for her privacy.) Dolan's biometric surveillance is so extensive that a New York City police officer’s photo was added to a face-recognition database, and a child triggered an alert at one of Dolan’s properties. According to that lawsuit and our sources, Dolan’s head of corporate security takes such an expansive view of his mission that his employees will functionally cosplay as cops—patrolling the neighborhood, snooping on protesters if they happen to be in the area. You don't have to enter a Dolan venue to be under his watch.

For this story, we spoke with seven current and former employees of Dolan's security service. We reviewed some of their confidential internal reports and Signal group chat messages. Behind the scenes, the atmosphere is so rooted in paranoia that former Knicks players warn one another about rooms being bugged, and staffers worry about being watched when they go out to local bars. “People are afraid, top to bottom. You can't look at Mr. Dolan when he's walking past. No, you can't look at him,” one current member of the MSG security team says, adding that his bosses will sometime say, “ You're too close to One—that's what we call Mr. Dolan, ‘Executive One.’”

MSG Entertainment declined to specifically comment on WIRED's reporting about Dolan and the activities of his security teams. A company spokesperson said in a statement that “this story is built on false, misleading and unverified allegations, including claims drawn from lawsuits filed by rapacious litigators. We categorically reject such reckless reporting and are actively evaluating our legal options against WIRED.”

There’s a long and well-documented history of controversy in pro sports’ executive suites. In just the past few years, NBA owners have been accused of being either an open racist, a sex pest, an alleged fraudster, or some combination. Dolan, who owns both entertainment venues and sports teams, is at the vanguard of a different, and perhaps more disturbing, trend. Companies are now routinely collecting massive amounts of highly personal data on their customers, from their finger and palm prints to their faces. Executives across industries are enlisting private enforcers and former government intelligence operatives. All of which makes Dolan something of a pioneer, and a proof point. He’s showing that with enough money and motivation, any mogul can create his own deep state, and build a sprawling surveillance enterprise with him in the middle.

Over the past few years, Jim Dolan has been on a high. His Knicks are a celebrity magnet and an on-court success. His Rangers are the second-most-valuable team in hockey, with a $4 billion valuation, according to Forbes. His Sphere is a Vegas must-see, a novel kind of high-tech, immersive entertainment. Dolan, at nearly 71 years old, serves as CEO and executive chairman of three public companies, and is the chairman of a fourth. Their combined market cap of roughly $15 billion has more than doubled since 2022, according to one estimate, with Sphere Entertainment alone valued at more than $4 billion. Dolan has joined the upper ranks of media and tech moguls, with all that entails, from the corporate spooks to the MAGA connections. (Dolan's Trump bona fides go further back than most; he got married at Mar-a-Lago in 2002.)

But for decades, Dolan was seen as anything but a winner. He came into much of his empire from his father, and was portrayed in New York media as a punch line: the thin-skinned, perpetually mad owner of a pair of hapless sports franchises; the nepo baby fumbling his dad’s largesse; the fedora-wearing frontman for a less-than-awesome Americana band. (One signature song: "I Should’ve Known," about Dolan's former friend Harvey Weinstein.) If Dolan was seen to have a strong suit in those days, it was generating fear. Multiple MSG executives have told reporters over the years that a "culture of paranoia" pervaded Jim Dolan's Garden. As far back as 2001, staffers reportedly feared their phones had been bugged.

The media became an early enemy. Dolan bragged that his PR department kept dossiers on journalists; other reporting showed that their conversations were monitored by Dolan’s minions. Adrian Wojnarowski, then the dean of the NBA press corps, was tailed inside the Garden, says one source with direct knowledge of the matter. (Wojnarowski declined to comment.) Another prominent basketball reporter shared with WIRED their concerns about connecting their phone to MSG's Wi-Fi network; maybe the Garden's staff could access the data inside. "It's the gulag," is how one New York Post columnist described covering the Knicks in 2007. It could also be a clown show. While reporting on a story in 2013, one of us—Silverman—witnessed a Knick chowing down on a huge tub of popcorn in the locker room. Silverman was hustled off to the side by an MSG communications staffer, who promised that if this detail found its way into the piece, "our relationship is over!" while jabbing a finger into Silverman's chest.

Fans were next to face Dolan’s wrath. In 2014, a Wall Street trader was ejected from his Garden seat and ultimately arrested after shouting “You stink!” at Knicks star player Carmelo Anthony with 24 seconds left in the game. According to a court filing, MSG informed the trader’s employer that he'd been “belligerent” and used “offensive language,” and he lost his job. In 2017, a season ticket holder said he told Dolan to sell the Knicks—and was tailed by security for several blocks. Even the team’s most famous fan, Spike Lee, claimed he was “being harassed by James Dolan.” (In response, MSG said at the time that “the idea that Spike Lee is a victim … is laughable.”)

MSG employees got the Dolan treatment too. In 2006, MSG marketing executive Anucha Browne Sanders accused the Knicks' then general manager, Isiah Thomas, of sexual discrimination—and, according to a complaint she filed, was fired in retaliation. A jury found the defendants, including MSG, liable for discrimination and they eventually settled with Sanders, paying her more than $11 million. Close to a decade afterwards, Dolan intimated that Browne Sanders was an opportunistic liar trying to squeeze MSG for a quick buck. Dolan was also known for lashing out at subordinates. Take the time in 2013 when an MSG secu