New York Knicks

There is no shortage of winners when it comes to the surprising ascent of basketball star Jeremy Lin: the Knicks; Madison Square Garden Inc.; the fans; the NBA; Linsanity T-shirt sellers. But the loser has been Time Warner Cable, and its losing streak could last awhile.

With Jeremy Lin's standout performances bringing a sudden shine to the otherwise lackluster New York Knicks, a number of companies have hitched their wagons to his star to buff up their brands. And with the value of such an association easy to see, why wouldn't they?

After months of bitter negotiations, NBA owners and players finally agreed to terms, and a pro basketball season will start on Christmas Day. So who besides players, owners and fans will benefit? Let's start with stockholders in these companies.

When it comes to the profit side of the pro basketball lockout, nobody wins -- except maybe basketball fans' savings accounts. Those fans and the money that the now-shuttered NBA stands to lose will not migrate to another sport.

Former NBA All-Star Stephon Marbury decided to re-up with a Chinese basketball team for three more years, according to reports. The Shanxi Zhongyu team is located in the industrial city of Taiyuan -- not exactly New York City, where Marbury once played as a Knick. And his current club isn't exactly...

Madison Square Garden shares were bouncing like a basketball this week amid speculation that NBA superstar LeBron James might join the New York Knicks, and they could still be active Friday in the wake of his announcement that he was leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers to join the Miami Heat.

There were a million reasons for LeBron James to join the Miami Heat: Pat Riley has a track record of winning; the combination of James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh is thought to be unstoppable and South Beach is just the kind of scene that James feels he deserves. But what about those millions of...

In addition to the potential to make any team a contender, the fervent courting of basketball superstar LeBron James also has a less emotional, more pragmatic reason: He's sure to bring his new home city plenty of cold, hard cash.

According to Bloomberg, an unidentified source reports that Cablevision (CVC) is getting ready to spin off its Madison Square Garden assets into a new company that will be called, oddly enough, Madison Square Garden. Cablevision stockholders will be given one share of the new company for every CVC...