Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. (NYSE:MSGS) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript August 12, 2025
Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $-0.07, expectations were $-0.37.
Operator: Good morning. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. Fiscal 2025 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to turn the call over to Ari Danes, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Ari Danes: Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to MSG Sports Fiscal 2025 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Earnings Conference Call. Our Chief Operating Officer, Jamaal Lesane, will begin this morning’s call with an update on the company’s strategy and operations. This will be followed by a review of our financial results with Victoria Mink, our EVP, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. After our prepared remarks, we will open up the call for questions. If you do not have a copy of today’s earnings release, it is available in the Investors section of our corporate website. Please take note of the following. Today’s discussion may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Please refer to the company’s filings with the SEC for a discussion of risks and uncertainties. The company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements that may be discussed during this call. On Pages 4 and 5 of today’s earnings release, we provide consolidated statements of operations and a reconciliation of operating income to adjusted operating income, or AOI, a non-GAAP financial measure. And with that, I’ll now turn the call over to Jamaal.
Jamaal T. Lesane: Thank you, Ari, and good morning, everyone. Today, MSG Sports reported fiscal 2025 full year results with revenues of more than $1 billion and adjusted operating income of $38 million. Driven by sustained consumer and corporate demand for the Knicks and Rangers, we saw increases in key in-game revenue categories, including ticketing, sponsorship and suites. This year’s results also reflect the partial year impact of our recently amended local media rights agreements with MSG Networks, as well as our investment in our teams. And as we look ahead, with the company’s marquee assets and strong business fundamentals, we believe we are well positioned to drive long-term value for our shareholders. Now let’s discuss our operations in more detail.
The Knicks capped off their season with a run to the Eastern Conference finals, which generated the highest per game gate revenues in team history. Since then, the team has welcomed Two-time NBA Coach of the Year, Mike Brown. On the hockey side, the Rangers have also had a productive off-season, including naming Two-time Stanley Cup winner, Mike Sullivan as Head Coach. We are looking forward to the ’25, ’26 seasons for both teams. Supporting the Knicks and Rangers along the way has been their loyal fans. This past regular season, both combined average ticket yield and average paid attendance were up, which helped drive growth in ticketing revenue. And for the upcoming 2025, ’26 seasons, the average combined season ticket renewal rate is currently at approximately 90%.
I would note that while we made the decision to not raise season ticket prices for the Rangers as the team did not qualify for the playoffs, we did raise season ticket prices for the Knicks. In addition, we will continue to optimize pricing and mix of individual and group sales to maximize revenues in the year ahead. Fan enthusiasm also translated into higher food and beverage per cap spending at the arena for fiscal ’25 as compared to the prior year. In terms of merchandise, while in arena per cap spending was up modestly in fiscal ’25, overall merchandise revenues, including online sales did not reach last year’s levels, which had included the positive impact of two New Jersey launches for the Rangers as compared to none in the current year.
That said, we introduced several unique offerings this past season that resonated with fans, including exclusive merchandise drops with existing partners such as New York or Nowhere and Siegelman Stable. In fact, with the team’s post-season performance, in-arena single game Knicks merchandise sales hit new highs during the Eastern Conference finals. Beyond the arena, the thrill of the Knicks playoff run could be felt across the city where we hosted a number of special programs for our fans. That included numerous watch parties at various locations, including The Garden and Radio City Music Hall, as well as outdoor venues such as Central Park and the Fan Plaza outside the arena. Throughout the playoffs, we also continued our efforts to deliver compelling content on social media, which helped drive over 775,000 net new followers across the Knicks and Rangers throughout the year.
The team’s combined following was almost 20 million as of the end of fiscal ’25. This year, we are gearing up for the Rangers 100th anniversary season and have special offerings and initiatives planned throughout the season to celebrate the team’s centennial year. This is one way we will continue to forge stronger connections with our fans in the year ahead. Turning to media rights. As a reminder, the NBA’s new national media deals with Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon begin this upcoming season and will be reflected in our fiscal ’26 results. The NHL also recently announced a new 12-year agreement with Rogers Communications for the league’s Canadian national media rights, which will start with the ’26, ’27 season. In addition, at the end of June, our local media rights partner, MSG Networks, completed a restructuring of its credit facilities.
As part of that restructuring, the Knicks and Rangers amended their respective local media rights agreements, which reflects ongoing changes across the RSN landscape. Those amendments included 28% and 18% reductions in annual rights fees payable to the Knicks and Rangers, respectively, effective January 1, 2025, along with an elimination of annual rights fee escalators. They also include a shortening of the contract expirations to the end of the 2028, ’29 seasons. Turning to marketing partnerships. This past year, we welcomed several new marketing partners. That included Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism and its Experience Abu Dhabi brand as the official patch partner of the Knicks, as well as Lenovo and its subsidiary, Motorola.
In addition, we reached multiyear renewals with Verizon, Pepsi and Benjamin Moore. As we look to fiscal ’26, we believe we are well positioned to drive growth in this area of our business. In terms of our premium hospitality business, we saw another year of record suite revenues in fiscal ’25. We benefited from the expanded event level club space as well as a number of event and Lexus-level suites that were renovated ahead of the seasons. On the heels of this successful initiative, several more suites are in the process of being renovated, which we believe will again drive incremental revenue for our business in fiscal ’26. So in summary, we are pleased with how our business has performed this past fiscal year. And with recently announced franchise transactions at record level valuations across the professional sports landscape, we remain as confident as ever in the value of owning two iconic sports franchises.
With that, I’ll now turn the call over to Victoria.
Victoria M. Mink: Thank you, Jamaal, and good morning, everyone. For fiscal ’25, we generated total revenues of $1.04 billion and adjusted operating income of $38.2 million. Our results for the fiscal ’25 fourth quarter reflected strong consumer and corporate demand for our teams as they completed their ’24/’25 regular seasons, followed by an extended playoff appearance from the Knicks. Our results also reflected a combined one fewer Knicks and Rangers regular season home game and six fewer playoff home games in our fourth quarter as compared to the prior year period. As a result, total revenues for the quarter were $204 million as compared to $227.3 million in the prior year period. Event-related revenues of $140.3 million, which mainly consists of ticket, food, beverage and merchandise revenues, inclusive of the playoffs, decreased 8% year-over-year.
Suites, sponsorship and signage revenues, also inclusive of the playoffs, were $31.9 million, a decrease of 8% year-over-year. In addition, national and local media rights fees of $27.8 million decreased 2%, which included the impact of our amended local media rights agreements with MSG Networks. Adjusted operating income decreased $73.3 million to an adjusted operating loss of $16.8 million, primarily due to higher direct operating expenses and to a lesser extent, the decrease in revenues. AOI for our fiscal ’25 fourth quarter includes $2.1 million of noncash arena operating lease costs as compared to $2.4 million in the prior year period. The increase in direct operating expenses primarily reflected higher net provisions for certain team personnel transactions, higher team personnel compensation and corresponding luxury tax as well as higher revenue sharing expenses net of escrow.
These increases were partially offset by lower playoff-related expenses as well as other cost decreases. As we look ahead, we believe our business is poised to deliver revenue growth across all in arena categories in fiscal ’26. In addition, our results will reflect the impact of the NBA’s new national media rights deals, a full year of our amended local media rights agreements as well as our continued investment in our teams. Turning to our balance sheet. At the end of the quarter, our cash balance was approximately $145 million, and our debt balance was $291 million. This was comprised of $267 million under the Knicks senior secured revolving credit facility and $24 million advanced from the NHL. So in summary, we are pleased with the strong demand we continue to see for our teams and remain confident in our ability to drive long-term value for our shareholders.
I will now turn the call back over to Ari.
Ari Danes: Operator, can we now open the line for questions?
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