Contrasting Madison Square Garden (MSGS) and The Competition

Madison Square Garden (NYSE:MSGS) is one of 184 publicly-traded companies in the “Entertainment” industry, but how does it contrast to its competitors? We will compare Madison Square Garden to related businesses based on the strength of its profitability, risk, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, dividends and institutional ownership.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

68.9% of Madison Square Garden shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 36.1% of shares of all “Entertainment” companies are held by institutional investors. 19.1% of Madison Square Garden shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 23.5% of shares of all “Entertainment” companies are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Madison Square Garden and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Madison Square Garden	0	4	4	0	2.50
Madison Square Garden Competitors	1866	4488	9597	253	2.51

Madison Square Garden currently has a consensus target price of $471.20, indicating a potential upside of 21.68%. As a group, “Entertainment” companies have a potential upside of 23.58%. Given Madison Square Garden’s competitors stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Madison Square Garden has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Madison Square Garden and its competitors gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Madison Square Garden	$1.15 billion	$7.76 million	1,290.83
Madison Square Garden Competitors	$6.09 billion	$73.91 million	14.34

Madison Square Garden’s competitors have higher revenue and earnings than Madison Square Garden. Madison Square Garden is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Volatility and Risk

Madison Square Garden has a beta of 0.62, indicating that its share price is 38% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Madison Square Garden’s competitors have a beta of 0.96, indicating that their average share price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Madison Square Garden and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Madison Square Garden	0.67%	-3.47%	0.64%
Madison Square Garden Competitors	10.21%	-21.12%	-2.56%

Summary

Madison Square Garden competitors beat Madison Square Garden on 9 of the 13 factors compared.

Madison Square Garden Company Profile

Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. operates as a professional sports company in the United States. The company owns and operates a portfolio of assets that consists of the New York Knickerbockers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League. Its other professional franchises include development league teams, the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League and the Westchester Knicks of the NBA G League. The company also owns Knicks Gaming, an esports franchise that competes in the NBA 2K League. In addition, it operates professional sports team performance centers, the Madison Square Garden Training Center in Greenburgh. The company was formerly known as The Madison Square Garden Company. Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. was incorporated in 2015 and is based in New York, New York.