The MSG network has been irrelevant since the collapse of the Knicks. No offense to the Ranger, but a championship caliber team with a fourth tier sports doesn’t get the fans juices flowing. At one point, MSG was the place to get your nightly sports news.

Losing the Mets and Yankees over a five year period was the final nail in the MSG coffin. Recently, they tried to come “back from the dead” by luring a big name into their franchise: Mike Francesa. Neil Best at Watchdog has been doing a fine job giving us a “behind the scenes look” at the man, the myth, the legend. Today he gives us some insight into the MSG negotiations that ended with YES matching the offer to keep Mike on their channel.

Best quotes MSG media president Mike Bair as saying they planned on making Francesa “a big part of the network”. He went on to say the following:

“It was disappointing not to have Mike join us. We think the world of him. He’s clearly one of the top voices in New York if not the country for local sports, and we just personally like him a lot, so that was quite disappointing.

“But it doesn’t mean we’re not going to continue with the relationship. We’re still in talks with him to do other things.

As much as I, and others, criticize Francesa making him the center part of MSG should bring back some of the “juice”. I think the Boomer Esiason show doesn’t get as much play because he needs a few star “anchor” shows to bring the viewers back. It starts with the Knicks, who finally seem to have a plan, and the rest should follow. If I were MSG I would try to get my network aligned with the 2010 plan. A good sports show, big personality, and competitive MSG teams would be a great start. Right now YES and SNY are so far ahead that it might make more then just two years to be in the ballpark. We all know how fickle the New York sports fan can be so a turnaround is not out of the question.

Since they lost out on the big fish, how about a rebuilding plan? Here is a crazy idea: If Mr. Bair wants to bring in some cheap talent why not pick up NY Baseball Digest? We will cost a fraction of the $2.5 million that Francesa recieved and maybe they could start to do some of the “foward thinking” media that SNY has already jumped into. At least they could have some baseball content on their network. Just a shameless, self promoting thought, but not crazy eh?

Tags: Mike Francesa, MSG Network, New York Knicks, New York Mets, New York Rangers, New York Yankees, WFAN