St. John's AD Cragg: School in talks to play all Big East home games at Madison Square Garden
Marvin Clark II #13 of the St. John's Red Storm drives to the basket against Jaelin Llewellyn #0 of the Princeton Tigers during a men's basketball game at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York on Sunday, Dec 9, 2018. NCAA Basketball between Princeton and St. John's. Credit: Steven Ryan
WASHINGTON — St. John’s is in negotiations to play all of its Big East home games at Madison Square Garden next season, athletic director Mike Cragg told Newsday.
The Red Storm’s presence at the Garden has dwindled in recent years. Only four of this season’s nine conference home games are being played at the World’s Most Famous Arena: Georgetown, Providence, Villanova and Seton Hall.
Cragg, who became St. John’s AD in October after 30-plus years as a top athletics administrator at Duke, is working toward reversing that tide.
“We want Madison Square Garden to be our home,” he said at halftime of St. John’s 97-94 overtime victory over Georgetown on Saturday at Capital One Arena. “We look at our history and feel like that’s where we want to be. Kids want to play at Madison Square Garden — it’s magical.
“St. John’s is committed to [being a] championship-caliber program,” he added. “We are becoming that, and that should be attractive.”
And playing all those games at the Garden no doubt would be an excellent recruiting tool for coach Chris Mullin and his staff.
Cragg said that in talking with alumni and administrators, the consensus was a desire to play conference home games at the Garden. He added, “It was making an observation from my time in college athletics: People see the Garden and the St. John’s brand as tied together. Kids come to New York City and St. John’s to play there.”
Though he would not characterize the progress of the negotiations, Cragg said that what it would take to make the vision real is “making the partnership between St. John’s and Madison Square Garden better.”
He is negotiating with a familiar face in MSG’s Joel Fisher, executive vice president for marquee events and operations. The two have been doing business with one another for approximately 20 years, Cragg said, and “Joel and I know what a good partnership looks like.”
Fisher attended the Oct. 2 introduction of the AD, but Cragg said, “This doesn’t just happen because we are friends. At the end of the day, it will be a business decision for both organizations.”
