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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
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."
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MSG Networks, which shows the Knicks and Rangers, is grappling with both the broader media industry turbulence and the NBA’s new national media contracts that could claim more game inventory. Dolan has long complained about those deals, even as they greatly increased revenues across the league, and those objections were renewed in the latest SEC filings.
Over his decades-long career, Trautwig covered the Knicks, Yankees, Rangers, New York Marathon and the Olympics. Trautwig worked for ABC and NBC, covering a total of 16 Olympics. He then went on to have a 30-plus year career as a studio analyst for MSG Networks where he was known for his unique approach to sports coverage and pregame shows for Knicks and Rangers games.
Mike Vorkunov: MSG Networks and Optimum have reached a deal to get MSG channels back on the cable subscriber, the two companies announced. That will put Knicks, Rangers, Devils, Sabres and Islanders games on air.
James Dolan’s MSG Networks in talks on deal to avoid bankruptcy
MSG Networks, the embattled cable TV station that airs New York Knicks and Rangers games, is in talks to reach a deal to avoid bankruptcy as soon as Friday — and insiders speculate that help could be coming from a deep-pocketed media player like Amazon, The Post has learned. The sports channel controlled by billionaire Knicks owner James Dolan — currently blacked out for about 1 million New York-area subscribers because of a contract dispute with the Optimum cable network — is scrambling to restructure its debt with a group of lenders led by JPMorgan who are owed $829 million.
New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin joined New York AG Letitia James and Connecticut AG William Tong and other government officials in “imploring Altice USA and MSG Networks to reach a deal” to resolve its dispute that has taken the networks’ programming off Optimum’s lineup since Jan. 1, according to a statement Friday released by MSG. “MSG Networks agrees with the Attorneys General,” the statement read. “We don’t want Optimum subscribers to miss another Knicks, Rangers, Islanders or Devils game. That’s why we offered to submit the matter to binding arbitration. “If Altice USA agrees, MSG Networks can immediately bring back the games Optimum subscribers are desperately missing while MSG Networks remains off the air.”
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George Kalinsky, the legendary photographer who captured everything happening at Madison Square Garden for more than five decades, has died. He was 88. Kalinksy shot historic sporting events, including hobbled Willis Reed’s emergence from the tunnel for the Knicks in the 1970 NBA Finals, Muhammad Ali’s “Fight of the Century” against Joe Frazier and the Rangers winning the Stanley Cup in 1994.
Knicks and Rangers games on Optimum were set to go dark Wednesday as contract talks between the cable operator and MSG remained at an impasse ahead of a deadline before the ball drops. As of press time Tuesday, neither side seemed willing to budge much over the carriage fees paid by Optimum parent Altice to broadcast MSG Networks, which is run by Knicks and Rangers owner James Dolan.
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against New York Knicks and New York Rangers owner James Dolan filed by a woman alleging that Dolan pressured her into sex a decade ago. In a ruling issued Tuesday, U.S. district judge Percy Anderson stated plaintiff Kellye Croft did not provide sufficient evidence to “allege a commercial sex act” as defined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.
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