Collapse
Empire Sports thrived until March 2002, when the Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating accusations of internal corruption and securities violations by Adelphia executives (including John Rigas and his son, chief operating officer Timothy Rigas), leading up to the company's subsequent bankruptcy filing, as Adelphia was mired in off-balance-sheet debt totaling $2.3 billion.[5] With Adelphia in freefall and under temporary bank-appointed management, Empire was unable to renew its carriage agreement with Time Warner Cable, its largest non-Adelphia customer and the primary cable provider for nearly all of upstate New York, in the fall of 2002; TWC continued to carry Empire on its Syracuse system for eight months without a carriage deal in place, later announcing plans to replace it with the Outdoor Life Network on May 1, 2003.[6][7] Empire Sports and Time Warner Cable struck an agreement in April 2003, which would significantly reduce its coverage by migrating the network from TWC's analog service to a digital sports tier in Syracuse and Binghamton.[8]
The network continued to operate, but was dealt another severe blow in 2003 when Adelphia's board of directors appointed William Schleyer as its new chief executive officer and Ron Cooper as its chief operating officer. With questions surrounding whether Adelphia was even still interested in being in the lucrative regional sports business and if Empire Sports would survive its parent's ongoing collapse, the company laid off 27 full-time employees and all freelancers on August 19. The staff cuts forced Empire to immediately eliminate the popular news/call-in show Fan TV,[9][10] but the network itself was still able to survive for another eighteen months.
The lockout that wiped out the entire 2004–05 NHL season served both as a blessing and a death blow. Financially, the lockout benefited the network because it was not required to pay the Sabres its annual rights fee of $9.5 million. The Sabres had acted as a loss leader for Empire, and without them, the network had no core programming (incidentally, Empire Sports nearly lost the Sabres telecasts when its previous broadcast deal expired in 2003; however, due to the absence of other offers, the Sabres chose against exercising an option to pay Adelphia $1 million to terminate its agreement with the network).[11] Further complicating matters, Time Warner later decided to drop Empire from its systems in Syracuse, Rochester and Binghamton on December 1, 2004,[12] leaving Empire available only in Western New York and the city of Utica, although it remained on the sports tier packages of DirecTV and Dish Network across the country. Howard Simon's radio-TV simulcast show was among the last local programs (other than the nightly sports report) that aired on the network.
From the time Adelphia decided to sell WNSA, the network also streamed online until the closing of its sale to Entercom Communications, which purchased the station in May 2004 for $10.3 million; when the station was sold, Empire Sports merely switched the Internet stream from WNSA to Empire's feed. Empire's partnership with WNSA ended in the fall of 2004, when Entercom switched its format to classic rock under the brand "107.7 The Lake". Simon's show, however, continued on WLVL (1340 AM) in Lockport until November 2004, when he was recruited to host WGR's morning show.
Under the watch of Schleyer and Cooper, on January 24, 2005, Adelphia announced that would shut down Empire Sports on March 7, instead of selling it to several interested parties, citing severe financial losses.[13] Adelphia resisted offers from outside interests to purchase Empire – including a $17 million cash bid by Joshua Pollack (a native of Buffalo and founder of New York City-based media company NXT Communications),[14] a failed bids by the Hamister group (which would have also included the Sabres) and the Buffalo Bills was also interested in purchasing Empire Sports – desiring instead to pocket the retransmission consent fees (totaling an average of $1.98 per subscriber) that would have gone to Empire's new owner had the network been sold off.[1] Tom Golisano and Larry Quinn decided against buying Empire Sports in their purchase of the Sabres.
Despite concerns from viewers and local political leaders, Adelphia announced on January 19, 2005, that it would shut down Empire altogether.[15][16] On January 23, the network laid off all but two of its 30 employees.[17] The network cancelled its original programming, replacing it with a continuous tape loop, showing highlights from the network's history. Empire signed off for good on March 7, 2005, with Adelphia replacing it on its former analog channel slot on its Western New York systems with the NFL Network.[18]
