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Madison Square Garden Sports — the James Dolan-run company that also owns the NHL’s New York Rangers — notched a record high of $390.12 a share on Thursday, the day after the Knicks clinched a 105-95 Game 1 victory over the San Antonio Spurs. Shares in MSGS soared 1.4% Monday to hit a fresh intraday high of $391.79, ahead of Game 3. The stock has rallied 103% over the last year, giving the sports conglomerate a $9.3 billion market cap.
The cheapest resale tickets for the next game in that building would soon be available for the preposterous, plausible price of more than $3,000 apiece. Of course, New York has many teams in many sports that stir many unruly passions. Fans of Rangers hockey are avowed lunatics, but have a smaller footprint in a city where a public park’s netless hoop is something of an unofficial municipal logo. Baseball and football allegiances are split — Mets and Yankees, Jets and Giants — preventing even the most charmed playoff run from becoming a wholly unifying moment.
Mr. Trump has said in recent weeks that he remains a Knicks fan and has been following the team’s progress. “I really like Jim Dolan a lot, I’m really happy for him and the team,” Mr. Trump said of James Dolan, the owner of the Knicks, the New York Rangers and Madison Square Garden, on WABC-AM, known as TalkRadio 77. “I think it’s great.”
MSG Sports, which owns both the Knicks and the National Hockey League’s New York Rangers, jumped 3.7% in premarket trading Tuesday. Shares have climbed 37% this year and 86% over the last 12 months after stagnating for the previous eight years.
Madison Square Garden Sports has moved to split the New York Knicks and New York Rangers into two separate, publicly traded companies — a move analysts say could finally unlock billions in trapped franchise value tied up under James Dolan’s sprawling sports empire. MSG Sports said it confidentially filed an initial Form 10 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday as it advances a proposed tax-free spin-off that would separate the Knicks business from the Rangers business. The Knicks entity would include the NBA franchise and the Westchester Knicks G League affiliate, while the Rangers company would house the NHL club and the Hartford Wolf Pack.
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The New York Knicks have punched their ticket to the Eastern Conference finals for the second season in a row after last playing in the ECF in 2000, producing a windfall for Madison Square Garden Sports, which owns the club and the NHL’s Rangers. The Knicks have already played five playoff home games, which generated nearly $50 million in gross revenue before the NBA took its cut from ticket receipts. The team is likely in line for at least five more home games, as the heavy favorite versus whoever emerges in the other East series between the Detroit Pistons and Cleveland Cavaliers, which the Cavaliers lead 3-2. That would goose revenue to $140 million, assuming two home games in the NBA Finals.
“We are exploring the opportunity to further create value for our shareholders by separating our two professional sports franchises into distinct companies,” MSG Sports CEO James Dolan said in a statement. “Both the Knicks and Rangers are premier teams in their respective leagues, with storied histories and large and passionate fan bases. We believe this proposed transaction would provide each company with enhanced strategic flexibility, its own defined business focus, and clear characteristics for investors.”
New York Knicks owner James Dolan said in a rare radio interview Monday that he’ll consider anything short of an NBA championship this season a disappointment. “Yeah, we want to get to the finals and we should win the finals,” said Dolan, 70, who also owns the New York Rangers. “This is sports, this is business and anything can happen, but getting to the finals, we absolutely got to do. Winning the finals, we should win.”
Still, most Rangers and Knicks who had to make the walk with their former teams don’t miss it. “It’s a kind of challenging two minutes,” said Rangers defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov, who came to New York from the Los Angeles Kings as a free agent over the summer. “Legs get burning. I needed to catch my breath after that.” “It’s definitely a hike,” added Knicks wing Josh Hart, who went up the ramp while playing for the Los Angeles Lakers, New Orleans Pelicans and Portland Trail Blazers.
Mike Vorkunov: MSG Networks makes its debt restructuring deal official, via a SEC filing. It will reduce its annual media rights fee by 28% to Knicks and 18% to Rangers, and eliminate annual increase. MSGN also reduced rights fees to "certain other" teams. MSGN also broadcasts Sabres, Devils, Islanders, Gotham FC
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The sale of the Lakers at a record $10 billion valuation has at least one activist investor wondering whether the Knicks could go for more. Boyar Value Group believes the Knicks are leaving billions of dollars in value on the table by being part of Madison Square Garden Sports Corporation, a publicly traded entity that also owns the Rangers. Boyar Value, a shareholder in MSG Sports, urged James Dolan in a Tuesday statement to consider splitting up the company or even selling the Knicks outright.
The statement notes that while Forbes estimates the Knicks’ value at $7.5 billion and the Rangers’ value at $3.5 billion, MSG Sports trades at an enterprise value of $5 billion. As of Thursday morning, MSG Sports’s enterprise value was actually at more than $6 billion, perhaps due to a stock bump that can in part be attributed to enthusiasm about the teams’ value after the Lakers deal. “The Lakers sale highlights how cheap MSG Sports is relative to the value of its assets,” Jonathan Boyar, president of Boyar Value, tells Front Office Sports. “It’s a clear [comparison]. Both don’t own the arena, both are marquee assets with rich histories in major media markets.”
Under terms of the deal, MSGN — which carries the Knicks, Rangers, Islanders, Devils and Sabres and Gotham FC — will win a debt refinancing in which JPMorgan agrees to reduce it to around $600 million from a current bill of roughly $800 million, sources close to the talks said. In exchange, Knicks owner James Dolan — whose Sphere Entertainment owns and controls MSGN — would agree to reduce the rights fees MSGN pays the Knicks and Rangers, increasing the network’s ability to make its interest payment, the sources said.
Have you ever thought about what’s next? Would you ever want to walk away from the Knicks and Rangers?" James Dolan: "No. I could pass it on, right? But I could never walk away. We’re a control company. We’re controlled by my family—some of my offspring, my brothers and sisters, and their kids. The Knicks, the Rangers, the Garden—these are one-of-a-kind assets. My hope is that my kids grow up and take my place, just like I did with my dad. So yeah, I don’t see that happening."