NEW YORK -- The New York Yankees were losers in court Monday in their fight with Madison Square Garden.

The World Series champions were barred from forming a new cable television company with a division of the International Management Group to broadcast the team's games starting next season.

New York Supreme Court Justice Barry A. Cozier granted MSG's request for a preliminary injunction, agreeing with MSG's claim that the Yankees' agreement with IMG's Trans World International division violated the MSG Network's right of last refusal.

That clause was contained in a $486 million, 12-year contract to broadcast Yankees games, a deal that expires after this season.

While the team called the right a "skirmish" in the overall fight and said it would proceed with negotiating a new deal, the Garden was happy with the win.

"Madison Square Garden is gratified that Justice Cozier has upheld our position, ensuring that the Yankees Partnership will fulfill its contractual obligations," MSG president Dave Checketts said in a statement.

Under the proposed Yankees-TWI deal, the team's television rights would be held by a new company, 95 percent owned by the team and 5 percent owned by TWI. It would have paid the Yankees more than $800 million for TV rights from 2001-2010.

Cozier, who told the sides to keep the status quo until he formally issued the injunction in writing, said the offer was presented to MSG in a way that would make it impossible to calculate its worth, which would make the network's right to match "a fiction."

"This case is not even about half a loaf," Cozier said in a decision read from the bench following 70 minutes of oral arguments. "The Yankees have offered 5 percent and attempted to disguise that as a full loaf. ... Clearly what we have here is not a bona fide offer."

Cozier said the injunction would remain in force until a trial this fall, but he left the Yankees free to negotiate other proposals and present them to MSG, which is controlled by Cablevision Systems Corp.

"We must offer MSG 100 percent of what we initiate, not 5 percent," said Lonn Trost, the Yankees' chief operating officer. "We certainly are free to launch our own network. ... What the court basically did was give us a road map."

The Yankees said that if they wanted to launch their own network, they could have their investment bankers place a value on what the equity and any rights fees the network would pay would be worth to the team. MSG would then have an opportunity to match that dollar figure.

"Throughout the day a number of new opportunities have come before us from a number of new, interested parties," said Harvey Schiller, the president of YankeeNets, the Yankees' parent company. "It's clear the rights of the New York Yankees are extremely valuable in the marketplace today."

Cozier's ruling almost invites the Yankees to come up with a proposal that will enable the team's advisers to place a higher value on it than MSG's advisers, perhaps several billion dollars, according to one lawyer in the case who spoke on the condition he not be identified.

"We can do whatever we want with whomever we want, however we want, as long as we appropriately value it ... and present it to MSG," Trost said.

Yankees lawyers said they may appeal Cozier's ruling, but preliminary injunctions are rarely overturned.