MSG Sports to explore splitting Knicks and Rangers into separate companies
Madison Square Garden Credit: Associated Press/Nicolas Economou
Madison Square Garden Sports Corp., which owns the Knicks and Rangers, announced on Wednesday that its board of directors has unanimously approved a plan to explore a possible spin-off that would split the teams into separate companies.
MSG Sports, which is a publicly traded company, released a statement from executive chairman and chief executive officer James Dolan: “We are exploring the opportunity to further create value for our shareholders by separating our two professional sports franchises into distinct companies. 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.”
MSG Sports said there is no guarantee the spin-off will happen “at all” and added it “has not set a timetable for completion of this process. Completion of the transaction would be subject to various conditions, including required league approvals, receipt of a tax opinion from counsel and company board approval.”
If the spin-off happens, the New York Knicks company is expected to include the Knicks and the G League’s Westchester Knicks, according to MSG. The New York Rangers company would include the Rangers and the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack, the company said.
MSG Sports, when contacted by Newsday, said there will be no additional comment beyond the announcement.
After the announcement, MSG Sports Corp.’s stock closed with an increase of 16.44% on Wednesday.
In 2025, Forbes ranked the Knicks as the third-most valuable team in the NBA at $9.75 billion. The Rangers were ranked second in the NHL at $4 billion.
The proposed spin-off is not an indication MSG Sports is looking to sell either the Knicks or Rangers, according to Robert Boland, a sports law professor at Seton Hall who also concentrates on gaming, hospitality and entertainment. In his rare interviews, Dolan has repeatedly said that he is not looking to sell the teams.
“[Splitting up the teams] is an old idea that's being resurrected,” Boland told Newsday. “There have been a lot of restructurings around MSG as an enterprise in the last few years. It's almost not surprising in a lot of ways . . . It doesn’t indicate that [selling one or both of the teams] necessarily would be the outcome.”
Boland said the Knicks and Rangers as separate stocks might be worth more than the two together. It’s also possible the company would take the two new entities private, which could make it easier to attract potential investors.
“The leagues, both hockey and basketball, are allowing significant investment shares of private equity money into those enterprises,” Boland said. “So that would be another liquidity avenue that turns both teams into a bit of a cash register if they went private.”
MSG Networks, which operates the broadcast channels MSG and MSG Sportsnet and the direct-to-consumer streaming service MSG+, is a separately traded company from MSG Sports.
Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.
