Madison Square Garden sent its own employees a fake offer of Knicks championship rings in September, then made anyone who clicked the link sit through mandatory cybersecurity training. The company now admits the stunt was a misstep, even as it says the exercise was a direct response to a real hack that hit the organization earlier this year.
The mass email, sent to staff in late September, appeared to offer complimentary championship rings and let recipients choose between two ring designs, according to NBC New York. The message included a graphic of the two ring styles and told employees, “Congratulations, your Employee Championship Ring is here,” per a copy reported by Yahoo Sports. It was, in fact, a simulated phishing test designed to see who would click.
Madison Square Garden acknowledged the backlash in a statement reported by The Athletic: “Using the rings as a lure to gain employees attention was an unfortunate mistake.” Workers who took the bait and clicked through were required to complete cybersecurity training, the same report notes.
A Real Hack Prompted the Fake One
The timing wasn't random. MSG said the simulated phishing email to its corporate team was meant to strengthen security against hackers after the organization was actually hacked and extorted, with an intruder gaining access using an employee login and password obtained through a similar phishing attack, the company said. The exercise, in other words, was built around a similar kind of attack that had already succeeded against it once.
Phishing scams of this kind remain a significant and growing problem nationally. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that losses tied to internet crime complaints surpassed $20 billion in 2025, according to the bureau's annual report.
Real Rings, Real Ceremony, Real Snub
While the fake email caused the stir, the actual championship rings were handed out for real. Knicks players received the rings they earned by winning the NBA championship on Tuesday night, before the team's season-opening game against Philadelphia, which the Knicks lost, per Yahoo Sports. An Associated Press photo from that night showed Knicks guard Jalen Brunson showing his ring to his father, Rick Brunson, ahead of the game in New York.
Not everyone walked away with a ring in hand that night, however. Some Knicks assistant coaches did not receive their rings during the ceremony and were instead presented with ring boxes, with the actual rings expected to follow later, NBC New York reported, citing The Athletic's account of Tuesday's event.
MSG Sports said it is gifting more than 275 championship rings and jewelry pieces to players, coaches, employees and other members of the Knicks family, valuing the gifts at more than $3.7 million. The company said the rings and jewelry recognize recipients' contributions and celebrate the achievement. Separately, Ars Technica, citing The Athletic, reported that many longtime Madison Square Garden employees, including some who work in the Knicks' business operations, will not receive rings at all.
The episode, first detailed in The Athletic's Thursday report and later covered in an Associated Press account published by KXAN Austin, has left the organization in the odd position of apologizing for a security test built around the very prize its employees celebrated at a ceremony weeks after the late-September email.
