By Hellen Zaboulani
A giant private equity firm has its eyes on purchasing a large stake in the New York Knicks basketball team, and the NY Rangers hockey team.
As reported by the NY Post, Silver Lake Partners, one of the largest technology investors in the world, is taking strides to purchase more stakes in both teams, before the teams are spun off into a publicly traded company. Silver Lake Partners, based near Silicon Valley, is well known for its investment in Tesla, Broadcom, Dell, Alibaba, Go Daddy, Skype, and NASDAQ. It has a big stake in Endeavor, which owns half of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Boasting over $43 billion in combined asset, the fund also already holds close to 10 percent ownership in Madison Square Garden, which owns both the NY sports teams, making the fund MSG’s biggest outside investor. MSG, which also owns Radio City Music Hall and the Tao nightclub empire, is run by CEO and executive chairman James Dolan.
Dolan, a billionaire, is the son of Cablevision founder Charles Dolan, and he himself served as CEO of Cablevision till its sale in 2016. Dolan, who is notoriously unpopular with the teams’ fans, has repeatedly denied plans to sell the teams but has also whined about owning them, including in a November 2017 video he made for news site Deadspin. “You know I own a basketball team. For most people that would be a dream,” Dolan sang in the video with lyrics he wrote. “For a trust fund kid, it’s a living hell. Always some a—hole telling me to sell.”
In June 2018, MSG announced a planned spinoff of the company, which it reiterated in a public filing last week. It says it would separate MSG into two separately traded public companies, but no timetable is given as to when the change will take place.
Silver Lake wants to own more of the sports teams but not MSG’s other assets. Silver Lake, which is also a major investor in the Fanatics sports-licensing business, has reportedly approached MSG with multiple plans to take on a bigger share of the teams, while keeping Dolan as head of the Knicks and Rangers for the foreseeable future. One possible plan would involve a private sale of some of MSG’s stakes in the teams to Silver Lake at the time of the spinout.
Forbes values The Knicks at $4 billion, and the Rangers at $1.55 billion. The teams each have the honor of being the priciest sports franchise in their respective leagues, notwithstanding of their losing records, and disgruntled fans.
