Knicks stock’s first day: MSGK closes at $305.42, values the champions at about $7.35 billion, and the filing shows Dolan’s $10 million award

The New York Knicks spent their first day as a stand-alone stock on Tuesday, Oct. 27, and the market liked them more than the hockey team they used to share a ticker with. MSG Knickerbockers Corp., the renamed Madison Square Garden Sports Corp., opened at $280 on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MSGK, touched $307 and closed at $305.42. MSG Rangers Corp., trading as MSGR, opened at $176, rose as high as $194.15 and closed at $177.61.

The split itself was completed on Monday, Oct. 26, when every two shares of the old company brought one share of the new Rangers company. Measured that way, the first day was a small win for shareholders. Two shares of MSG Sports were worth $768.78 at Monday’s close of $384.39. On Tuesday, the same holder had two Knicks shares and one Rangers share worth $788.45 together, about 2.6 percent more.

What the market says the Knicks are worth

MSG Sports had 19,550,424 Class A shares and 4,529,517 Class B shares outstanding at the end of July, about 24.1 million in all. The Class B shares, controlled by the Dolan family, do not trade, but at Tuesday’s price the whole company was valued at about $7.35 billion. The Rangers company, with about half as many shares, finished its first day at roughly $2.1 billion.

That $7.35 billion is well short of what private buyers pay for top NBA teams. Kurt Badenhausen’s 2026 NBA valuations, published Oct. 9, put the Knicks at $12.8 billion. On day one, public investors priced the reigning champions at a little under 60 percent of that private estimate. Debt does not explain the gap: the Knicks company keeps $242 million of borrowing under its revolving credit facility and about $145 million in cash, so its enterprise value is only about $100 million higher than its market value.

Part of the discount is control. Buying MSGK shares does not buy a say in the team, because the Dolan family’s Class B stock elects most of the board, and the private valuations are based on control sales. That gap is the test the spin-off was meant to set up, as WhyNBA explained when it looked at how the Rangers spin-off was set up.

The New York Knicks and Rangers are now two separate publicly traded companies. MSG Sports completed its spinoff today.

It changed its name to MSG Knickerbockers Corp. and now trades on the New York Stock Exchange under "MSGK."

MSG Rangers Corp trades under "MSGR." pic.twitter.com/hC7ShbtgTo

— Mike Vorkunov (@MikeVorkunov) October 27, 2026

The Knicks’ own numbers, for the first time

A filing the company made with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday separates the two teams’ results for the first time. For the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2026, the year of the Knicks’ championship run, the Knicks side of the business had revenue of $816.6 million, up from $707.2 million a year earlier and $625.6 million two years earlier. The Rangers brought in $337.3 million.

At about $7.35 billion, MSGK traded at roughly nine times that revenue. Profit is thinner. On the filing’s continuing-operations basis, the Knicks company earned $14.8 million in operating income last year after an operating loss of $4.3 million the year before. After adjustments for the new arrangements with the Rangers company, the pro forma operating income rises to $51.1 million. The biggest adjustment is $28.1 million a year in costs the Rangers company will now pay back under a transition services agreement, along with $14.5 million in lower executive pay costs.

Some of the new deals cost the Knicks money. The Rangers company now owns the MSG Training Center, and the Knicks lease their part of it. The filing puts the cost at about $2.3 million a year in lease expense and about $3 million in operating costs. The Knicks also pay the Rangers company a commission to sell their group tickets, about $1.9 million on last season’s sales. The Knicks contributed $19.1 million in cash to the Rangers company at the split, and the company expects about $8.6 million more in separation costs since June 30, mostly accounting, legal and advisory fees.

A $10 million award for James Dolan

The same filing shows the board’s compensation committee approved a one-time cash award of $10 million for James Dolan on Oct. 23 “in recognition of his significant efforts and leadership in connection with the Distribution.” It was paid on Monday, the day of the split. Dolan remains executive chairman and chief executive of the Knicks company, and his amended Knicks contract sets a base salary of at least $1,016,000 and lowers the target value of his yearly long-term awards to $4,953,000, since the Rangers company will now also employ him.

The company also amended contracts for chief financial officer Paul DiCicco, chief legal officer Jamaal T. Lesane and executive vice president David Granville-Smith. Before the split, the two companies signed a transfer consent agreement with the NHL on Oct. 23 covering the move of the Rangers into the new company.

What to watch

The first full trading week will show whether Tuesday’s prices hold once index funds and longtime MSG Sports holders rebalance between the two stocks. The next marker is the company’s results for the quarter that ended Sept. 30. The Rangers will be shown as discontinued operations starting with the quarter that ends Dec. 31, which makes that report the first clean look at the Knicks alone. On the court, the Knicks’ results now matter more to MSGK than they did to the combined stock, since playoff home dates helped push last year’s revenue past $800 million.