Joe Cohen Inducted into Cable Hall of Fame By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Monday, April 28, 2025 - 5:19 pm
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Joseph Cohen, president of The Switch Sports Group and former president of MSG Network, co-founder of USA Network, and CEO of Hughes Television Network, was inducted into the 2025 Cable Hall of Fame during a ceremony held by the Syndeo Institute at the Cable Center on April 24 in New York City.
Pictured (l-to-r): Eric Fleiss, JoJo Fleiss, Caroline Fleiss, Joe Cohen, Rita Cohen, Goldie Fleiss, Gaby Cohen, Mary Cohen, and Benji Fleiss at Joe Cohen's induction into the Cable Hall of Fame.
Sports is the king of content and I've been privileged to be a part of it, said Cohen during his speech. To paraphrase the Eagles' Joe Walsh, when I was 20 in the seventies this was fun. Now that I'm 70 in the twenties, it's a little bit different, but it's still fun. That's true for me and I continue to enjoy my work daily and enthusiastically. It's a true honor to receive this recognition.
Cohen, who was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2016, began making a difference in the cable industry in 1977 when he was named president of MSG Network. With Bob Rosencrans and Kay Koplovitz, Cohen, as president of MSG Network, co-founded USA Network as the successor to Madison Square Garden Sports Network. The trio negotiated the first-ever cable broadcast contracts with the NBA, NHL, and Major League Baseball for USA Network, prompting the leagues to re-think copyright ownership and facilitating more nationwide league distribution contracts.
That is among the achievements I'm most proud of and the delivery of games nationally by satellite caused the leagues to transfer copyright ownership from the teams to the leagues and change the dynamic forever, he said during his acceptance speech. I'm also proud of pioneering HDTV with 150 live telecast in 1998 and scrambling backhaul signals to enable the professional sports leagues to create out-of-market packages like Sunday Ticket that further change the dynamics of all sports broadcasting.
As CEO of Hughes Television Network in the late 1970s, he implemented scrambling of backhaul signals, which allowed the major leagues to create out-of-market TV packages.
Cohen left MSG and MSG Network in 1985 to launch an investment group that bought Hughes Television Network and took him to the west coast and ownership of Z Channel. From 1993 to 1995, he was back in hockey as chairman and co-owner of the LA Kings. Keeping the team afloat through the first NHL lockout was one of the biggest challenges of his career.
My companies have helped launch NESN, MASN, Altitude, Sports Time Ohio, and, yes, MLB Network, he added. After the recent fire took our Pacific Palisades home my daughters returned to discover my enscribed New York Rangers hockey stick, battered but intact. It symbolizes endurance like our industry, our communities, and all of us.
Cohen returned to Madison Square Garden as executive vice president in the late 90s. He was again responsible for MSGN, sparking the acquisition and integration of Fox Sports Net New York, and MSGN's pioneering development of HDTV, closed captioning and secondary audio.
It all begins with family and my deepest thanks to my incredible wife, partner, friend, and love of my life Rita as well as our four daughters and four precious grandchildren, he added.
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Joe Cohen Inducted into Cable Hall of Fame By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
