MSG Networks, Altice trade blame as Knicks, Rangers blackout drags on for 1M Optimum subscribers

It has been a long, cruel January for Knicks and Rangers fans — if you’re an Optimum subscriber, that is.While both teams have notched spectacular wins at Madison Square Garden this month, more than 1 million Optimum customers have been blacked out for three-plus weeks because of a stubborn standoff between MSG Networks and cable giant Altice USA.Both sides on Friday continued to trade blame in the so-called carriage dispute, signaling that the blackout may not end anytime soon.Fans will continue to be real the losers in the game — forced to either wait it out, switch to another cable service if they can, or shell out for a pricey streaming app.“This can end today if Altice is willing to agree to binding arbitration with a neutral third party, and the games customers are missing will be back on Optimum immediately,” Knicks and Rangers owner James Dolan, who also owns MSG Networks, said in a Friday statement to The Post.That was after Marc Sirota, the chief financial officer for Optimum’s owner Altice USA, claimed in an interview that Dolan last week had nixed a proposed agreement that would have seen his cable channel return to Optimum subscribers after the two sides came close on terms.“I thought we were making pretty constructive progress with MSG leadership,” the Altice USA CFO told The Post.When asked to provide the terms of the nearly-agreed-upon deal, Altice declined.

“I did get on a call and was told that Jim was in the room and he said he was here to shut this down, which I expressed that we were disappointed to hear that,” Sirota said, adding: “We thought we were making constructive progress.”On Friday, MSG officials denied this in a statement to The Post, saying an agreement was never close.What really happened, according to an MSG spokesperson, was that Dolan “jumped on the phone and was reiterating our position – which they swatted away.”MSG on Friday said its position called for either a renewal of the contract on the exa...