Under a proposed plan, the Knicks and their G League club would become one company while the Rangers and their minor league team would become another. Mark Kauzlarich / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Feb. 18, 2026Updated 10:21 am EST
Madison Square Garden Sports’ board of directors approved a plan to explore spinning off its hockey and basketball clubs. The parent company of the New York Knicks and Rangers said Wednesday that they will consider splitting the two franchises into separate publicly traded companies.
Under the proposed plan, the Knicks and their G League club, the Westchester Knicks, would become one company while the Rangers and their minor league team, the Hartford Wolf Pack, would become another. MSG Sports said that there is no timeline in mind to complete the move and that it is not guaranteed to happen. It requires approval from the NBA and NHL, as well as other considerations.
“We are exploring the opportunity to further create value for our shareholders by separating our two professional sports franchises into distinct companies,” MSG Sports CEO James Dolan said in a statement. “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.”
The Dolan family became minority owners of the Knicks and Rangers in 1994 and soon took majority control.
Dolan has said publicly that he has no interest in selling the teams. While both Dolan and MSG executives have said they are open to selling minority stakes, including on an earnings call this month, an MSG executive has previously said there was nothing on the horizon.
This proposed move would be the latest in a series of financial transactions by Dolan. He spun off his professional sports teams from the Madison Square Garden arena and other entertainment properties in 2020. He then split his entertainment holdings again in 2023, when he put the Sphere and MSG Networks under Sphere Entertainment Co., while the arena and his live entertainment business were in a different publicly traded company.
Brandon Ross of Lightshed Partners speculated that the move could be a precursor to MSG taking the two teams, currently publicly traded, private.
Feb 18, 2026
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