Dough-lan’s Knicks are worth $3B
JAMES Dolan has his own version of Powerball — it’s called the Knicks.
And no matter how much they lose — they have won just one playoff series since 1999, after all — Dolan just keeps on rolling in the cash.
On Wednesday, Forbes released its annual list of NBA team values and the Knicks sit atop the standings at a whopping $3 billion.
The Knicks are followed by the Lakers ($2.7B), Bulls ($2.3B), Celtics ($2.1B) and Clippers ($2B). The Nets, which Forbes reports is the only team that did not turn a profit in 2015, are valued at $1.7 billion, seventh in the league.
Winning certainly was not factored into the list as the Knicks dropped a franchise-record 65 games last season and have been mired in ineptitude for the better part of two decades.
At least this year there is finally a ray of hope as rookie sensation Kristaps Porzingis — who fell into the Knicks’ lap with the fourth pick in the draft this summer — has superstar written all over him and Carmelo Anthony appears to have bought into the team concept.
It’s all turned out to be quite an investment for the Dolans, who paid $1.1 billion in 1994 for the Knicks, Rangers, Madison Square Garden and MSG Network, and have kicked in another $1 billion in recent Garden renovations.
Forbes credits the Knicks’ valuation to “a new cable deal and the highest premium-seating revenue in the league at almost $90 million.”
It’s a 20% increase from a year ago and puts Dolan’s team behind just the Cowboys ($4 billion), Patriots ($3.2 billion) and Yankees ($3.2 billion).
The league-wide growth is due to a variety of factors, the biggest being a nine-year, $24 billion TV deal that was struck in 2014. Renewed sponsorships with some old partners and new, richer deals with new partners — like Nike’s billion-dollar jersey contract — also help paint a rosy fiscal picture for the league.
Thirteen of the league’s 30 teams are worth at least a billion dollars and the average worth of an NBA team is now $1.25 billion.
— Bernie Augustine