![MSG Sports & Entertainment Chairman James Dolan attends a New York Knicks game.](https://i0.wp.com/www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GettyImages-1160691008.jpg?w=749&ssl=1)
MSG Sports & Entertainment Chairman James Dolan attends a New York Knicks game.
Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images
James Dolan isn’t going anywhere.
The sports and music mogul signed three-year contract extensions with the companies he and his family own – MSG Sports, MSG Entertainment and Sphere Entertainment. All three announced their new deals a few weeks ago, with Sphere filing for the extension just before the Fourth of July holiday.
MSG Sports owns the NBA team New York Knicks (Dolan has sometimes been criticized by fans for the team’s performance) and the NHL team New York Rangers. MSG Entertainment operates entertainment venues such as Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall and the Beacon Theatre in New York. Sphere owns and operates the Sphere in Las Vegas, as well as the cable channel MSG Network, which broadcasts Knicks and Rangers games.
According to the SEC filing, Dolan will receive a total salary of just over $3.1 million across the three companies: $1.6 million from MSG Sports, $1.5 million from MSG Entertainment and $230,000 from Sphere.
He also has a target annual bonus of $6.2 million, which is 200% of his salary with the three companies. His contract also includes participation in the MSG Sports and Entertainment Long-Term Incentive Plan (LTIP), which includes $8.6 million from MSG Entertainment and $7.8 million from MSG Sports.
Dolan’s deal with Sphere will include around 2.8 million performance-based vesting options in the company (which will require shareholders to approve the new employee share plan at their next annual meeting), or an LTIP worth $11.77 million if shareholders do not approve the new plan.
The three contracts could total approximately $37.5 million per year if Dolan receives long-term bonuses from Sphere, or a nine-figure bonus if he receives performance options, depending on Sphere’s stock price at the time.
Dolan and his family, of course, hold controlling interest in all three companies, owning more than 70% of the voting stock in each (though the companies’ dual voting structure makes their financial influence much less.) Dolan also controls AMC Networks, where his wife, Christine Dolan, is CEO, and serves as chairman.
All of these companies were spun out of the Dolan family’s cable business, Cablevision, which was sold to European telecommunications giant Altice for $17.7 billion in 2016.
Dolan has been working to restructure the business for the past few years, in part to help launch his passion project, the Sphere, including separating its sports and venue businesses. (Pro sports teams have soared in value in recent years, but Madison Square Garden’s future is uncertain given its current lease with New York City and plans for an expansion of Penn Station beneath the venue.)
Having MSG Networks within the Sphere also provides a steady cash flow to the business as the RSN business continues its slow decline.
Dolan, a musician himself (he fronts the band JD & The Straight Shot), spent $2.3 billion to build the first sphere in Las Vegas and plans to build more around the world.
While Sphere’s MSG Network division is responsible for much of the company’s profits, the venue has seen success hosting acts like U2 and Dead & Company, as well as screening director Darren Aronofsky’s first original film. Postcards from Earth.
While live events such as concerts and the upcoming UFC Fight Night are its biggest source of revenue, the Sphere also garners recurring revenue from film and marketing ventures (with companies eager to secure sponsorships to be projected onto the Exosphere, which has become a Las Vegas tourist attraction).
Sphere recently appointed former Warner Bros. COO Carolyn Blackwood to run Sphere Studios, where she will develop new original programming for the property and work with artists to figure out how to best utilize the building’s giant screens.