Madison Square Garden Sports Corp.

Good morning, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Madison Square Garden Sports Corp fiscal 2024 fourth quarter and year end earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to Ari Daines, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning. And welcome to MSG Sports fiscal 2024 fourth quarter and year-end earnings conference call. Our chief operating officer, Jamal Hussain, 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 investor 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 four and five 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 Jamal.

Thank you, Ari, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to begin by saying how honored I am to step into this leadership role at MSG Sports. I look forward to working with my colleagues to continue to strengthen and build upon the legacies of our two iconic franchises, the Knicks and the Rangers. Both teams had exciting regular and postseason campaigns this past year, resulting in strong financial results for our business. For fiscal 24, MSG Sports generated revenues of over $1 billion and adjusted operating income of $172 million, both exceeding fiscal 23 results and setting new records for our company. These strong results reflect the robust demand we experienced from our fans and partners throughout the season, as well as the on ice and on court performance of our two franchises this past year. The Rangers won the President's Trophy awarded to the NHL team with the best regular season record, while the Knicks had their best regular season record in over 10 years, and both teams advanced to the playoffs, with the Rangers reaching the Eastern Conference final and the Knicks to the Eastern Conference semifinals. This offseason, Rangers have acquired a number of new players, including former Stanley Cup champion Riley Smith. The Knicks extended the contract of All-NBA guard Jalen Brunson and re-signed all defensive team forward OG Ananobi, while also acquiring Mikel Bridges via trade. As we look ahead to the 24-25 seasons, both teams have a number of key players secured under long-term contracts and are poised to build upon last year's success. Our fans' enthusiastic support for our teams this past year was evident in many areas of our business, from ticket sales and per-cap spending at the Garden to local TV ratings and increased engagement on social. At the Garden, both the Knicks and Rangers again played to at or near capacity crowds all throughout the year. This fan support has carried over in renewals for the 24-25 seasons, with the average combined season ticket renewal rate for the Knicks and Rangers at approximately 94%. For the upcoming seasons, we made the decision to not increase season ticket prices for our loyal, renewing season ticket holders. However, we will continue to opportunistically price new season ticket packages, as well as individual and group tickets, and expect to benefit from increased demand for our flexible ticket plans. Our fans' excitement also translated into higher in-arena spending during fiscal 24, as food, beverage, and merchandise per cap spending was up year over year. On the merchandise front, we partnered with premium brands and introduced several new offerings that resonated with our fans. For example, both the Knicks and Rangers partnered with Siegelman Stable to offer a unique line of hats this past season. At the same time, the Knicks launched a new collaboration with Saherty while also continuing its successful partnership with KISS. These offerings, along with two new Rangers jerseys, one for home games and one to mark the team's participation in the 2024 NHL Stadium Series, were a success, as merchandise revenue in the regular season hit new highs in fiscal 24. Beyond merchandise, we continue to pursue ways to strengthen our connection with our fans. This past season, we hosted several special events during playoff away games. including two watch parties at the Garden during the Nixon Rangers second round series, and a viewing party in Central Park for game three of the Rangers Eastern Conference Finals. These events included alumni appearances and photo opportunities, allowing us to directly connect with a range of fans from across the city. Our fans' excitement to watch their teams this season was also reflected in strong local viewership. Local ratings for both teams on MSG Networks up by a mid to high teens percentage for the 23-24 seasons. And throughout the season, we also amplified team activity on social media, where we added over 830,000 net new followers during the season, bringing the Knicks and Rangers combined following to over 19 million as of the end of the fiscal year. Going forward, we will continue to look for unique ways to engage with fans, and deliver compelling content throughout digital platforms. Turning to media rights. Last month, the NBA announced new agreements for the league's national media rights. These 11-year deals start with the 25-26 season and include a step up in average annual value compared to the current agreements, as well as increased annual escalators. The agreements also include an increase in the number of live game telecasts made available to national media partners. This will result in a corresponding reduction in the number of exclusive telecasts made available to regional sports networks. The RSN industry is already facing a challenging environment. The reduction in local telecasts further impacts this valuable part of our ecosystem, which teams rely upon to drive enhanced fan engagement through unique and tailored content for local markets. This evolving landscape impacts our local media rights partner, MSG Networks, which faces a significant debt maturity this October. In its 10Q filing this past May, MSG Networks provided additional disclosure on the status of its refinancing efforts, including the implications of not completing a refinancing. We continue to actively evaluate these developments including the potential impact on MSG networks and our corresponding local media rights revenue. Turning to marketing partnerships. This past year, we welcomed several new marketing partners, including Beyond Meat, Pfizer, Next Entire, and Oura Ring, among others. We have also gotten off to a good start in fiscal 25 in terms of new deals and expect to have more to share in the coming weeks. In terms of our premium hospitality business, this past fiscal year, we saw record suite revenues driven by strong demand, as well as the addition of two new event-level suite products, an event-level suite and a luxury event-level club space. Looking ahead to fiscal 25, we expect to benefit from continued renewals and new sales activity. We are also expanding the capacity of the event-level club space. And in partnership with MSU Entertainment, we are in the process of renovating a number of the event and Lexus level suites. This is in keeping with our goal of improving the guest experience and creating incremental revenue opportunities for our business. So to summarize, we are pleased with how our business has performed this past fiscal year. And while the media landscape is continuing to evolve, fan enthusiasm for live sports remains strong. and the popularity of our leagues continues to grow, which reinforces our confidence in the value of our franchises and our ability to drive long-term shareholder value. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Victoria.