Sixteen years after Cablevision sent Madison Square Garden out on its own, the collection of sports, media and entertainment assets once housed inside the cable company has been divided, recombined and divided again into an increasingly elaborate family tree of public companies.
Now the New York Knicks and New York Rangers are finally getting separate stocks.
Madison Square Garden Sports ($MSGS) publicly filed the Form 10 for its planned Rangers spinoff on August 14. The company expects to complete the transaction by the end of October.
If it does, the current MSG Sports will become MSG Knickerbockers Corp. and trade under $MSGK. The newly independent Rangers company will be called MSG Rangers Corp. and trade under $MSGR.
For investors who have followed the Dolans for a while, there is something almost inevitable about this. We called James Dolan a “serial spinner” back in 2019. Apparently, spinoffs are an uncontrollable urge for Mr. Dolan. The only question is how many more discrete pieces can be created from what is left?
What $MSGS Shareholders Will Get
The mechanics are straightforward.
For every two shares of MSG Sports owned on the eventual record date, shareholders are expected to receive one share of MSG Rangers.
Existing MSG Sports shares do not disappear. The parent simply changes its name and ticker to MSG Knickerbockers.
| Before the Spinoff | After the Spinoff |
|---|---|
| 2 shares of $MSGS | 2 shares of $MSGK + 1 share of $MSGR |
| 100 shares of $MSGS | 100 shares of $MSGK + 50 shares of $MSGR |
The same one-for-two ratio applies to the Class B shares controlled by the Dolan family. Fractional Rangers shares will not be distributed; shareholders otherwise entitled to fractions will receive cash instead.
The distribution is intended to be tax-free for U.S. federal income-tax purposes. No shareholder vote is required.
Exact record and distribution dates have not yet been filled into the preliminary information statement. Completion also remains subject to final board approval, league approval, the effectiveness of the Form 10 and receipt of the required tax opinion.
The businesses will divide this way:
| MSG Knickerbockers ($MSGK) | MSG Rangers ($MSGR) |
|---|---|
| New York Knicks | New York Rangers |
| Westchester Knicks | Hartford Wolf Pack |
| MSG Training Center in Greenburgh, N.Y. |
James Dolan is expected to remain Executive Chairman and CEO of both companies.
A Dolan Family Tree Built By Spinoffs
The Rangers spinoff makes more sense when viewed as the latest transaction in a corporate breakup that has been going on for most of this century.
When Cablevision spun off Madison Square Garden in 2010, the new MSG contained the Knicks, Rangers, regional sports networks, Madison Square Garden and other entertainment assets.
It did not stay intact for long.
| Year | Transaction | What Happened |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Cablevision → Madison Square Garden | The Knicks, Rangers, MSG networks, venues and entertainment businesses became a separate public company. |
| 2011 | Cablevision → AMC Networks | Another major Dolan-controlled asset left Cablevision. We covered the AMC spinoff at the time. |
| 2015 | MSG → MSG Networks + Madison Square Garden | The regional sports networks remained in the parent, renamed MSG Networks ($MSGN), while the sports and entertainment assets went into a new Madison Square Garden Company. Shareholders received one new MSG share for every three old MSG shares. |
| 2020 | MSG → MSG Sports + MSG Entertainment | The Knicks and Rangers remained in the company renamed MSG Sports ($MSGS). Madison Square Garden, entertainment operations and the developing Sphere business went to MSG Entertainment. |
| 2021 | MSG Entertainment + MSG Networks | One branch of the tree was grafted back on when MSG Entertainment acquired MSG Networks in an all-stock merger. |
| 2023 | MSG Entertainment → Sphere + MSG Entertainment | Sphere Entertainment ($SPHR) retained the Sphere and MSG Networks businesses while the traditional live-entertainment and venue businesses were separated into today’s MSG Entertainment ($MSGE). |
| 2026 | MSG Sports → Knicks + Rangers | The Knicks become $MSGK. The Rangers become $MSGR. |
The rationale has been remarkably consistent. Separate very different businesses and give public-market investors a cleaner way to value each asset.
That was already the argument when MSG first contemplated separating its sports assets more than a decade ago. In 2014, we wrote about MSG exploring a sports and media spinoff after Steve Ballmer’s $2 billion purchase of the Los Angeles Clippers helped highlight the gap between private sports-franchise values and MSG’s public-market valuation.
Twelve years later, the Clippers sale looks quaint.
The Rangers Are Worth Billions. The Rangers Business Is Losing Money.
The Form 10 gives investors something they have never previously had: stand-alone financial statements for the Rangers business.
They are fascinating.
| Fiscal Year | Revenue | Operating Income (Loss) | Adjusted Operating Income (Loss) | Net Income (Loss) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | $401.5 million | $26.8 million | $37.1 million | $7.4 million |
| 2025 | $332.0 million | ($23.3 million) | ($14.2 million) | ($23.0 million) |
| 2026 | $337.3 million | ($30.5 million) | ($18.9 million) | ($26.4 million) |
The swing between 2024 and the following two years was largely hockey.
The Rangers played eight home playoff games in fiscal 2024. Those games generated approximately $64.4 million in playoff-related revenue and $34.6 million of playoff-related expenses.
They missed the playoffs entirely in each of the next two seasons.
This is a fascinating glimpse at how critical economically playoffs and championships are.
Revenue fell by $69.5 million in fiscal 2025, with $64.5 million of that decline attributable to the loss of playoff revenue.
The new company’s own risk factors are unusually direct: MSG Rangers says it is unlikely to be profitable in the near term unless the Rangers make an extended playoff run.
That is quite a sentence to find in the registration statement for a sports franchise estimated to be worth billions of dollars.
It also neatly captures the strange economics of professional sports. The franchise can appreciate enormously in private-market value while the annual business generates thin profits, or losses, after player costs, league revenue sharing, arena expenses and corporate overhead.
A $4 Billion Franchise With $337 Million Of Revenue
Forbes most recently estimates the Rangers at $4 billion. Its latest estimate for the Knicks is $9.75 billion.
That puts the headline value of the two franchises at approximately $13.75 billion.
MSG Sports, by comparison, entered the weekend with a public equity value of roughly $9.8 billion.
Those numbers should not simply be subtracted from one another and called the discount. Forbes’ franchise estimates are enterprise-value estimates, while MSGS’s stock-market capitalization is an equity value. The public company also has debt, lease obligations, corporate costs and a controlled-company structure.
But the gap helps explain why this stock has attracted sum-of-the-parts investors for years.
The Knicks’ value has become particularly interesting after winning the 2026 NBA Championship. Meanwhile, record prices for other major sports franchises continue to reset what trophy assets may be worth.
The spinoff will give the market something it has never had before: a daily public quote specifically for the New York Rangers.
Instead of trying to decide what portion of $MSGS belongs to the Knicks and what portion belongs to the Rangers, investors will be able to make that judgment directly.
In a world where the price of sports franchises has been skyrocketing with every new sale, the opportunity to have a clean public value for two premier franchises is interesting indeed.
The Rangers Will Start With Cash And An Undrawn Revolver
MSG Rangers is not being loaded up with a large new spinoff term loan.
As of June 30, the Rangers had a $250 million senior secured revolving credit facility that was completely undrawn. The facility runs through November 2030.
There is one other meaningful piece of funded debt. The Rangers received a $30 million advance from the NHL in 2020. The remaining balance was $16.5 million as of June 30.
MSG Sports also expects to put cash into the new company before separation. The preliminary Form 10 says MSG Rangers should have approximately $60 million in cash after the distribution and settlement of certain related-party receivables.
That gives the Rangers a reasonable opening balance sheet, but it also reflects a practical issue raised throughout the filing: once independent, the hockey company will no longer be able to rely on cash generated by the Knicks.
If the Rangers continue to miss the playoffs, the revolver may become more important.
The Rangers Still Won’t Own Madison Square Garden
An investor buying $MSGR will own the Rangers. He will not be buying Madison Square Garden.
The Garden is owned by MSG Entertainment ($MSGE), another Dolan-controlled public company.
The Rangers operate at the Garden under a long-term arena license agreement with MSG Entertainment. The companies also share economics around suites, sponsorships, merchandise, concessions and other commercial relationships.
That means the latest spinoff creates a new public company without completely disentangling the underlying Dolan ecosystem.
MSG Rangers will also continue to have a significant relationship with MSG Networks, now part of Sphere Entertainment ($SPHR). The Rangers’ local television agreement with MSG Networks expires after the 2028-29 NHL season.
The economics of that deal have already deteriorated. Stated annual local-media-rights fees fell to approximately $35.5 million in fiscal 2026 from $39.3 million a year earlier after MSG Networks restructured its obligations.
The national-media calendar also matters. The NHL’s current U.S. agreements with Disney and Warner expire following the 2027-28 season.
So within a few years of becoming independent, $MSGR investors could be evaluating both a new national television package and a new local-media arrangement.
The Spinoff Does Not Spin Off Dolan Control
There is one part of the corporate structure that has survived every branch of this family tree: Dolan control.
MSG Rangers will have the same basic dual-class structure familiar to investors in the other Dolan companies.
Class A shares will carry one vote each and elect at least 25% of the board. Class B shares will carry ten votes each and elect as much as the remaining 75%.
The Dolan family will own all of the Class B shares.
MSG Rangers will consequently qualify as a “controlled company” under New York Stock Exchange rules. James Dolan will be Executive Chairman and CEO. He will simultaneously remain Executive Chairman and CEO of the Knicks company.
For investors hoping that separating the franchises is a precursor to Dolan relinquishing control, the Form 10 provides no such indication.
But separation does create strategic possibilities that are harder when the two teams are housed in one public company.
A minority investment in one team, financing tied to one franchise or an eventual transaction involving one club would all be mechanically cleaner once the Knicks and Rangers have separate corporate structures.
There is no announced plan to sell either franchise. In fact, Dolan has historically said his family does not want to sell them. But the spinoff gives each team its own currency and makes its market value much harder to obscure.
What Investors Should Watch
The Rangers Form 10 turns what had been mostly a sports-franchise valuation story into a more complicated standalone-company question.
The central issues are now fairly clear:
- What value will the public market assign to $MSGR? A $4 billion private-franchise estimate would be enormous relative to the operating earnings disclosed in the filing.
- How large will the Knicks discount remain? Once $MSGK owns essentially one major trophy franchise, the sum-of-the-parts calculation becomes much simpler.
- Can the Rangers generate acceptable standalone cash flow without deep playoff runs? The last three years suggest postseason performance can change the economics dramatically.
- What happens to media rights? The local MSG Networks contract expires after 2028-29, while the NHL’s U.S. national agreements expire one season earlier.
- Will either separate company eventually pursue a strategic transaction? Nothing has been announced, but the new structure gives management more options.
Back in 2010, Cablevision began breaking itself into pieces partly so investors could place clearer values on businesses that did not naturally belong together.
That process produced Madison Square Garden. Then MSG Networks. Then MSG Sports. Then MSG Entertainment. Then Sphere.
Now even the Knicks and Rangers apparently require separate tickers.
If the transaction closes as planned, an investor who owns $MSGS today will end up with two very different public stocks: a championship-winning basketball franchise trading as $MSGK, and a hockey franchise with roughly $337 million of annual revenue, volatile playoff economics and an estimated private-market value measured in billions trading as $MSGR.
After sixteen years of Dolan spinoffs, the market is finally going to tell us what it thinks each team is worth.
Disclosure: The author holds no position in any stock mentioned