Who

Jim Dolan is the fiery-tempered CEO of Cablevision, the media giant founded by his dad, Chuck Dolan.

Backstory

Jim's father, cable industry pioneer Chuck Dolan, used the proceeds from the sales of two previous businesses he'd created (Sterling Manhattan Cable and HBO) to found Cablevision in 1973. Jim joined the company after graduating from SUNY New Paltz in 1979, but he didn't move into a swanky corner office on his first day: He started out hawking cable subscriptions and later moved to Cleveland to help the company launch an all-sports radio station. He eventually returned to Cablevision's headquarters on Long Island, and although his climb up the company ladder was halted for a spell due to an early '90s bout with alcoholism and drug addiction, Dolan took over from his father as CEO in 1995. (Chuck remains the company's chairman.) Today Jim oversees Cablevision's considerable media assets: the fifth-largest cable company in the U.S.; cable channels like IFC, AMC, and the Sundance Channel; venues like Radio City Music Hall and the Beacon Theatre; the movie chain Clearview Cinemas; and the newspapers Newsday and amNY—but he may be best known to New Yorkers as the owner and chairman of Madison Square Garden and the teams that play there: the Knicks, Rangers, and Liberty.

Of note

While Dolan has long taken heat for the sports franchises Cablevision controls (see below), it's been a tumultuous few years inside the Dolan family as well. Father and son have publicly sparred over a number of issues, including the fate of Voom, the satellite business that Cablevision poured more than $1 billion into before finally shuttering in 2005. In fact, at one point the rift between Jim and Chuck was so pronounced that there was talk of splitting the company in two, with Jim assuming control of one half and Chuck, along with Jim's brother, Tom, taking over the other. Instead, the Dolans proposed taking the company private—on four occasions, no less—but their buyout offers have been repeatedly rejected by shareholders, most recently in October 2007. 

The discord hasn't prevented Dolan from expanding the Cablevision empire. In May 2008, he concluded a deal to buy Newsday from Chicago tycoon Sam Zell for $650 million, beating out bids by Rupert Murdoch and Mort Zuckerman. The deal also gives him control of the free daily amNewYork.

Drama

Over the past few years, Dolan has been a lightning rod for disappointed fans' fury as the Knicks and Rangers have gone from bad to awful. Reporters regularly describe him as the most incompetent owner in professional sports. And while the hot-headed Dolan has never hesitated to sack anyone—Latrell Sprewell, Jeff Van Gundy, and Marv Albert are all Dolan casualties—a number of his firings have come back to haunt him. Following the Knicks' disastrous 2005-06 season, Jim canned coach Larry Brown, after which NBA Commissioner David Stern ordered Dolan to pay Brown $18.5 million in a contract settlement. In 2007, Dolan made front-page headlines in the wake of the Anucha Browne Sanders debacle: An SVP of marketing, Sanders was fired by Dolan after she complained that then-coach Isiah Thomas verbally and sexually harassed her. She later filed suit and in October 2007 was awarded $11.6 million from a federal court, including $3 million from Dolan personally.

But Dolan's enemies extend well beyond the world of sports. In 2004, he and his father came out strongly against the proposed Jets Stadium on the far West Side, concerned that it would impact MSG's bottom line. Jim and his dad successfully sabotaged the proposal, earning the family the enmity of Mayor Bloomberg and Dan Doctoroff, who'd worked hard to push the stadium through. The Dolans appear to have thwarted another wide-reaching real estate proposal with their refusal to relocate Madison Square Garden one block west; in this case, they're foiling the plans of Vornado's Steve Roth and Related's Steve Ross, who had hoped to redevelop the area around Penn Station.

Soundbite

"He displays all the charm of a New York cabbie during rush hour," wrote one reporter of Dolan.

Vice

Dolan spent his thirties in a haze of alcohol and drugs, a period he's since described as "a festival of self abuse." A stint at Hazelden turned things around, he says, and he's been sober since the mid-1990s.

Off hours

Dolan has been playing the guitar since college and leads the band JD & the Straight Shot, a blues-rock ensemble that released an album called Nothing to Hide in 2005. Pal Edgar Bronfman Jr., the CEO of Warner Music, provided even hooked up the band with a record deal.

Personal

Dolan and his wife Kristin, a Cablevision exec, have five kids and live in a lavish 10,000-square-foot Colonial mansion in Oyster Bay next door to his father's even more lavish home. (Dolan also owns a smaller adjacent house, which he's converted into a music studio for his band.) In 2006, he put his main home on the market for $13.5 million but it didn't sell. He often commutes to the city aboard the Cablevision helicopter. For longer trips—or bigger groups—Dolan can always hop a ride on the company-owned Boeing 737.