The San Antonio Spurs defeated the New York Knicks, 115-111, on Monday night at Madison Square Garden in front of President Donald Trump and numerous A-list celebrities. While the result ended the Knicks’ 13-game playoff winning streak—the NBA‘s second-longest ever in a single postseason— New York still maintains a 2-1 series lead.
Off the court, the Knicks have also been on a huge hot streak, with shares in the publicly traded Madison Square Garden Sports, which owns the Knicks and NHL’s Rangers, up 101% over the past year, handily beating the S&P 500 gain of 23% and stock market darling Nvidia (47%).
The MSGS share spike isn’t even the best performer in the universe of James Dolan, who is also CEO and controlling shareholder of Sphere Entertainment, which includes the Las Vegas Sphere and MSG Networks. Its shares are up 265%.
Dolan’s other sports property he controls and runs is Madison Square Garden Entertainment, which operates Madison Square Garden, Beacon Theatre, Radio City Music Hall and Chicago Theatre. It has also been on a heater, with a 91% stock gain. Outside of sports, the Dolan family also controls the publicly traded AMC Global Media and James serves as chairman. Its shares have gained 49% over the past 12 months.
MSGS shares were basically flat in the seven years leading up to June 2025, and shareholders lamented a “Dolan discount” for the stock trading at a steep deduction to its enterprise value. A year ago, the EV of MSGS was 47% below Sportico’s then $11.55 billion combined valuation of the Knicks and Rangers.
MSGS’ stock hit a new high on Friday, and the enterprise value is now $10.3 billion after the recent share price run-up. It still represents a 24% discount to Sportico’s valuation for the Knicks and Rangers, which both jumped in our latest NBA and NHL reports to $9.85 billion (Knicks) and $3.65 billion (Rangers).
There are several factors that have investors flocking to MSGS. A pair of NBA teams were sold last year, and both deals set records for a pro sports team. William Chisholm led a group that bought the Boston Celtics for $6.1 billion, and months later Mark Walter agreed to buy the Los Angeles Lakers at a $10 billion valuation.
The Lakers’ deal almost certainly contributed to Madison Square Garden Sports’ plans to explore separating the Knicks and Rangers into their own public companies, continuing a long history of the Dolan family splicing up their business empire to unlock shareholder value.
In February, the MSGS board approved a plan to explore a split. The stock popped 16% on the day of the news. “We believe this proposed transaction would provide each company with enhanced strategic flexibility, its own defined business focus and clear characteristics for investors,” Dolan said in announcing the potential separation.
In an April research note, Seaport Research Partners analyst David Joyce wrote that the spin “enhances the possibility of raising capital, and [it] makes minority stake sales easier.” The idea is that there are investors that would want a stake in either the NBA or NHL team, but not both.
Sportico also spoke with multiple investors who think Dolan could move beyond just an LP stake deal and sell one of the teams outright. Someone familiar with the spinoff details pushed back on the premise of a control sale of either team.
Sphere shares are up 466% from their 2025 April low, when leisure stocks were dragged down by an escalating trade war, and Sphere faced potential bankruptcy for its MSG Networks division.
MSG Networks and its lenders ultimately completed a debt restructuring that had lenders forgo $514 million of the original $804 million in debt. Sphere has crushed earnings estimates in recent quarters, fueled by its latest Sphere Experience hit, The Wizard of Oz.
Sphere also made progress this year on Dolan’s vision for a global network of similar venues. In January, it announced plans for a mini-Sphere in Maryland’s National Harbor, 15 minutes south of Washington, D.C. A 20,000-seat, $1.7 billion Sphere in Abu Dhabi is expected to be completed by the end of 2029.
The Sphere and MSG stock runs have benefited longtime Dolan-backers Ariel Investments and GAMCO. Ariel recently took some Sphere profits off the table by selling 700,000 shares, or 22% of its position, during the first quarter. Ariel still ranks as the third-largest institutional holder.
MSGE is the biggest holding in Ariel’s portfolio, while Sphere ranks fifth and MSGS is just outside the top 10. The firm invested ahead of the various spinoffs and $1 billion renovation of Madison Square Garden that was completed in 2013.
“We saw sports as a media play,” Ariel co-CEO Mellody Hobson said at Sportico‘s 2025 Invest in Sports event. “We also said you can not build Madison Square Garden in New York today … if I could own something that can’t be rebuilt in the middle of New York City with [those] brands, would we want to own it? And we said yes.”