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Madison Square Garden Company completes split into separate Sports and Entertainment companies

By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 21 April 2020

The Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp is now officially a thing, having spun-off from the Madison Square Garden Sports Corp – formerly known as the Madison Square Garden Company. Probably said Madison Square Garden too much in that sentence. Anyway, the newly created MSG Entertainment – as it wishes to be more succinctly known – has also appointed a CFO in the form of Mark Fitzpatrick.

“While the current environment presents significant challenges to our industry, we are confident in the future, and look forward to MSG Entertainment building on its reputation as a leader in live experiences”, says MSG Entertainment CEO James L Dolan. “We are also very pleased to welcome Mark, a talented corporate finance executive who brings extensive experience working with well-known companies. We believe he is the ideal executive to help guide MSG Entertainment as we continue to pursue excellence across our operations”.

Fitzpatrick joins from WeWork, where he had been Deputy CFO since 2016. Prior to that he was at Time Warner Cable for ten years.

The Madison Square Garden Company announced in November last year that it was planning to spin off its entertainment business from its sports business, after losses were higher than expected in its most recent quarterly figures. The company had planned a partial spin off – with the entertainment business retaining a third of the shares in the sports business – but it was decided that a full separation was necessary.

Earlier this month, the board of directors approved the separation, paving the way for the plan to be implemented.