Frank Miller Jr. and his parents had planned to see a concert at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on March 24. (Frank Miller Jr.)
Frank Miller Jr. was strolling through security at New York’s Radio City Music Hall last week when a security guard suddenly halted his line and pointed at him.
“I thought we were about to get some special sort of upgrade,” Miller said.
Security guards pulled Miller out of line and led him to another part of the venue. There, he said, his excitement turned to confusion when they handed him a piece of paper titled “TRESPASS NOTICE.”
Miller, who was there with his parents to watch English singer Cleo Sol perform, didn’t understand. The letter said he was banned from every venue Madison Square Garden Entertainment owns.
Then, he said a security guard told him his trespassing was related to a 2021 incident.
That year, one of Miller’s friends went viral after claiming security ejected him from Madison Square Garden for wearing a shirt Miller designed that said “BAN DOLAN” — an objection to James Dolan, New York Knicks owner and Madison Square Garden Entertainment chief executive.
Miller said he suspected that Madison Square Garden Entertainment linked him to that event and added social media photos of him to its facial recognition technology, which has a history of spotting people the company doesn’t want in its venues.
“I found it a little comical that, you know, this shirt that I designed many, many years ago was so irritating, then or now, that I was added to a ban,” Miller, 44, told The Washington Post.
Madison Square Garden Entertainment has been mired in controversy since it began using facial recognition technology in recent years at its venues: Madison Square Garden, the Theater at Madison Square Garden, Beacon Theatre, Radio City Music Hall, Chicago Theatre and the Sphere in Las Vegas.
Attorneys who work for firms that have sued Dolan and his company have been turned away, including a New Jersey attorney in 2022 who had planned to see a Rockettes show with her daughter’s Girl Scouts troop at Radio City Music Hall. Madison Square Garden Entertainment identified lawyers via photos on their firms’ websites, using an algorithm that pored over images and suggested matches with guests at their venues, according to the New York Times.
“It’s social media scraping combined with the power of facial recognition [artificial intelligence] that together allow companies to essentially create dossiers on the public using our own bodies as tracking devices,” said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a security and privacy advocacy group.
New York City law allows companies to use biometric technology as long as they notify customers, but Madison Square Garden Entertainment has still faced lawsuits that allege its bans are illegal.
Mikyl Cordova, spokeswoman for Madison Square Garden Entertainment, said in a statement that Miller “made threats against an MSG executive on social media and produced and sold merchandise that was offensive.”
“His behavior was disrespectful and disruptive and in violation of our code of conduct,” Cordova said.
She didn’t respond to a question asking if facial recognition technology identified Miller, a Knicks fan who was born in Brooklyn.
Miller, who has lived in Seattle since 2014, said he had not been to a Madison Square Garden venue since he watched the Knicks beat the Boston Celtics in October 2006 with a colleague.
Miller was upset when former Knicks forward Charles Oakley was arrested at a home game in February 2017 after reportedly engaging in a verbal altercation with Dolan. Miller, a graphic designer, created a T-shirt that said “BAN DOLAN” above an orange basketball that he sold online.
He’s hardly the only person who has criticized Dolan in the past decade. Security escorted fans who chanted “sell the team” out of Madison Square Garden at a Knicks game in March 2020.
Miller’s shirt reached a national audience in March 2021, when his friend said he was ejected from a Knicks game for wearing it. The incident sparked a discussion between Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman on ESPN’s “First Take.”
The same day his friend was kicked out, Miller shared a photo of his shirt on Instagram.
“I made this because you gotta have an ego made of peanut brittle to toss the gawd Charles Oakley out the Garden,” Miller wrote, “and the biggest accomplishment you’ve ever had is failing up into being a billionaire after rehab because your daddy founded the company. Scrub.”
Dolan went to alcohol and drug rehabilitation in 1993 in Center City, Minnesota, and was chief executive of Cablevision, a TV company his father, Charles, founded, before it was sold in the mid-2010s. Miller denied threatening Dolan.
In December, Miller began planning a March trip to New York City to celebrate his parents’ 47th wedding anniversary. He said he spent about $1,300 on tickets to Cleo Sol’s concert for him, his parents and a friend.
On March 24 — the third day of the trip — the group ate dinner at Pastis before taking an Uber to Radio City Music Hall’s entrance on 50th Street. Miller wore an orange rugby shirt — “the only shirt I have with a collar,” he said — camouflage cargo pants, red and blue Air Jordan sneakers and a gray hat that featured his clothing line’s logo: FWMJ!
Miller and his parents took photos, scanned their tickets, moved to the far-left security line to enter the lobby and passed a sign that said the venue uses facial recognition technology. Before Miller stepped through the metal detector, he said, a security guard rushed over and stopped the line. Miller turned to his parents, Frank and Arlene, and recalled saying: “Oh well, we definitely got in the slow security line this time.”
Then the security guard pointed at him, Miller said, and about a half-dozen guards escorted him out of line to a different entrance. Arlene cried, Miller said, unsure what was going on. A few minutes later, a security guard handed Miller the trespassing warning, which said the ban was “a consequence of your misconduct.”
“You are not to enter or remain in any of the MSG Venues at any time in the future,” the paper said. “Should you attempt entry at any of the MSG Venues … Security and Law Enforcement will be contacted to secure your removal, and you will be subject to all penalties that are legally available.”
A security guard told him his ban was related to a 2021 incident at Madison Square Garden — without giving specifics, Miller said, and he led Miller out of the building.
Miller walked a few blocks to the restaurant Le Rock and drank martinis. His friend helped Miller’s parents settle into their seats at the concert before joining him. Miller scanned his email to see if Madison Square Garden Entertainment had warned him about the ban, he said, but all he found were promotional emails for the concert.
Miller said he didn’t want his experience to ruin the trip, so the next day, he and his parents visited Hudson Yards to climb the Vessel and attended a taping for “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
He had borrowed three tickets from a friend for him and his parents to watch the Knicks play the Dallas Mavericks at Madison Square Garden that night. A family friend used Miller’s ticket while Miller ate dinner alone at Din Tai Fung. They flew home Wednesday night.
Miller doesn’t plan to appeal his ban; he said if he wants to see the Knicks in person, he’ll watch them play the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center — or hope an NBA expansion team will come to Seattle.
While sharing news of his ban on Instagram on Thursday, Miller posted images of his “BAN DOLAN” merchandise, which includes T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats and even baby one-pieces.
“Here’s your chance to get the shirt that started it all,” he wrote.
He said about 20 items have sold in the past few days, compensating him for the concert ticket he never used.