MSG renovations deflate corporate profits

Construction at Madison Square Garden (source: Madison Square Garden)

When complete, construction at Madison Square Garden will help push ticket prices up 50 percent, but for now, it’s depressing the public corporation’s earnings. Deadline.com reported that with the entertainment venue closed for women’s basketball, concerts and shows due to renovations, second-quarter profits were down 39 percent from the previous quarter and fell 21 percent below analysts’ expectations.

The renovation will continue over three summers and is expected to cost between $775 million and $850 million. The arena closed immediately after the end of the Knicks’ season in April and will re-open in October for all regular season games of its two most profitable tenants, the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers. The New York Liberty of the Women’s National Basketball Association had been forced to play its games at the Prudential Center in Newark as a result of the construction. The lower bowl is being renovated this summer, while next summer will focus on the upper bowl, and in 2013 two bridges will be added across the arena’s famed ceiling. The construction is expected to create the equivalent of 1,300 full-time jobs. [Deadline]