As New York celebrates the Knicks’ first trip to the NBA finals since 1999, controlling owner James Dolan has earned a newfound respect among the franchise’s notoriously critical fan base. And soon, the 71-year-old billionaire hopes to command the same respect from another tough crowd: stock market investors. For years, the value of publicly traded Madison Square Garden Sports—the entity through which Dolan owns both the Knicks and the Rangers, the city’s NHL team—has lagged far behind Forbes’ valuation of the two franchises. MSG Sports has an enterprise value of $9.9 billion while Forbes values the Knicks at $9.75 billion and the Rangers at $4 billion in the latest team valuations. Among New York sports fans, who have suffered through decades of mediocre play on the court and the ice, this gap has often been referred to as the “Dolan discount,” equating his mismanagement of the teams to a lack of business savvy. But historically, there has often been a loose connection between sports team values and how many games a team wins—let alone how many championships. In the first 20 years of Dolan’s tenure, the Knicks had the worst cumulative winning percentage of any team in the NBA yet led Forbes’ ranking as the most valuable franchise 16 times. Similarly, the Dallas Cowboys haven’t won a Super Bowl since 1996 but remain the NFL’s most valuable team (at $13 billion) while the Kansas City Chiefs, who have won three titles in the past seven years, are the 22nd-most-valuable franchise in the league. By Matt Craig, Reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices