Does Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon’s top executive, fancy himself the next media mogul with a pro-sports team, a la Mark Cuban, the Dolan family and Paul Allen?

He hinted as much at the Dow Jones Media and Money conference  conference in New York. The trouble is the team he mentioned — The New York Knicks — are owned by Cablevision, a chief rival of Verizon. So pretty much kiss that idea goodbye.

Seidenberg hinted at the very, very unlikely possibility of buying the Knicks during a back and forth at the conference Michael Burgi of MediaWeek. Burgi asked Seidenberg to discuss his “content strategy.”

“People keep asking, when are you going to go vertical and add a lot of content?” Seidenberg said. “Content gets to the customer in a lot of (ways). We like to think of ourselves as bundling it, packaging it, formatting it, helping to store it if that’s what you need, helping to send it … to your PC, to your television (and so on).”

Burgi then asked whether Verizon was actually interested in creating content.

 “No,” Seidenberg answered. “Having said that, if somebody came up with the perfect killer service, that we could invest in, we can do it. It’s not necessarily a strategic imperative that we do it — we’d do it to annoy the hell out of everybody.”

At that point, Seidenberg said that it wouldn’t be in the shareholders’ best interest to buy just any content, but if the right thing came along he’d look at it. And here’s the killer quote…

“If I could buy the Knicks and fix them, I would do it. But we can’t do it.”

(Allow me take a moment with a message for Mr. Seidenberg. Millions of Knicks fans — especially rabid, win-starved ones like yours truly – would welcome, how do I say it, new leadership for the legendary team. We have not had a winning season since 2000-2001. You’re a local product. I can tell that you’re are fan, too. So, hey, don’t give up the dream. That’s all.)

(Photos: Reuters)

Poor Jamie Dimon. He bought Bear Stearns like he was told to by the Fed back when the financial crisis was just a shadow and a threat. Now JPMorgan, the bank he heads, is being lumped in with the rest of the herd in being put on $250 billion of bailout steroids that he probably doesn’t need or want. At best, this may just save the other players. At worst, it makes them stronger just when he’s in a position to run them over. 
 
The New York Times said four of the banks getting injected will receive investments of $25 billion each: Citi, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will get $10 billion each, it said.
 
The U.S. banks had to be convinced to participate in the plan. “There was some arm twisting,” a source tells us. The non-voting, preferred shares being sold to taxpayers don’t directly challenge management, but they do come with executive comp restrictions. Perhaps bank CEOs fear the whole thing could be rewritten to be more expensive under a more liberal or maverick White House. 
 
The head of the Treasury’s $700 billion financial rescue program, Neel Kashkari, said the program would be designed to encourage healthy banks to participate, and he sounded almost conciliatory to the sector. “The equity purchase program will be voluntary and designed with attractive terms to encourage participation from healthy institutions. It will also encourage firms to raise new private capital to complement public capital,” he told a banking group. It’s not like banks aren’t out to raise money in the private sector anyway.
 
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had previously opposed the idea of Washington buying stakes in banks, which is also permitted under the bailout law. But officials say they are now retooling the aid package to provide a direct capital injection. And there are reports that Dimon may be tapped for Treasury Secretary if Barack Obama wins the presidency. Paulson was strong-armed into the job, but Dimon is reportedly interested in it. If you can’t beat ‘em…

Deals of the day:

* India’s Ranbaxy Laboratories , which has agreed to be taken over by Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo for $4.6 billion, expects to close the deal by the end of December, its chief executive said.

* JP Morgan has taken an equity stake in the Dubai Mercantile Exchange, the market said in a statement.

* South Korea’s POSCO said it would go ahead with bidding for Daewoo Shipbuilding after consortium partner GS Group suddenly dropped out of the contest on Monday.

Showing that a suitor can wait only long before walking off in a huff, United Technologies Corp, whose companies make everything from military aircraft to elevators, has withdrawn its $2.64 billion bid for automated-teller machine and voting machine maker Diebold. United Tech complained that Diebold’s management had stymied its efforts to negotiate a deal. Diebold had rejected the $40 per share bid as too low.

Meanwhile, Waste Management, the top U.S. trash hauler, withdrew its bid for No 3 trash company Republic Services, but for different reasons. Waste Management’s offer was not spurned, but it got cold feet from the looming world economic downturn, and did not want to be saddled with a heavy debt load heading into the economic storm.

In a sign that the markets are cheering the prospects of unions that were unthinkable mere days ago, General Motors shares jumped today on news that it had been chatting with Ford and Chrysler about possible joining of forces to survive the downturn.

OTHER DEALS OF THE DAY
** Personal-care products maker Helen of Troy Ltd said it bought haircare products label Ogilvie from bankrupt Ascendia Brands Inc.

** Toy company Jakks Pacific Inc said it bought the children’s product businesses of Hong Kong-based Tollytots Ltd and Massachusetts-based Kids Only Inc and its Hong Kong affiliate Kids Only Ltd to strengthen its product portfolio.

** Greece’s fourth largest lender, Piraeus Bank, said it had agreed to buy a 26.6 percent stake in Proton Bank in a share swap, with a view to acquiring all of its smaller rival.