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Transcript
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Operator
Operator
Good morning. My name is Christie, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to The Madison Square Garden Company Fiscal 2013 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Ari Danes, Vice President of Investor Relations for The Madison Square Garden Company. Please go ahead, sir.
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Ari Danes
Analyst · International Strategy & Investment Group
Thanks, Christie. Good morning, and welcome to The Madison Square Garden Company's Fiscal 2013 Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Joining us this morning are the following members of the MSG management team: Hank Ratner, President and CEO; Robert Pollichino, EVP and Chief Financial Officer; Ryan O'Hara, President, Content Distribution and Sales; Melissa Ormond, President, MSG Entertainment; and Dave Howard, President, MSG Sports. Following the discussion of the company's financial results, we will open the call for questions. If you do not have a copy of today's earnings release, it is available in the Investors section of our website at themadisonsquaregardencompany.com. Please take note of the following. Today's discussion may contain statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve risks and uncertainties, and that actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including financial community perceptions of the company and its business, operations, financial condition and the industry in which it operates and the factors described in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the sections entitled Risk Factors and Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations contained therein. The company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements that may be discussed during this call. Let me point out that on Page 5 of today's earnings release, we provide consolidated operations data and a reconciliation of adjusted operating cash flow, or AOCF, to operating income. I would now like to introduce Hank Ratner, President and CEO of The Madison Square Garden Company.
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Hank J. Ratner
Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Thank you, Ari. We concluded fiscal 2013 with a solid fourth quarter, capping off another record year of revenues and adjusted operating cash flow for our company, powered by the strength of our fully integrated Media, Entertainment and Sports business. On a full year basis, our company generated over $1.3 billion in revenue, up 4% versus the prior year, and approximately $356 million in total AOCF, a 26% increase versus fiscal 2012. Looking back at our first 3.5 years as a public company, we have significantly increased our company's overall profitability, as we have benefited from the increasing value of live content, the impact of the Transformation and from our strategically aligned assets that work together to deliver enhanced returns. These assets include legendary venues in major markets, compelling live sports and music content and local and national programming network distributions. We have delivered these results while executing against our plans for the Transformation, as well as carefully guiding our company through several significant events along the way, including the NBA and NHL work stoppages. In this regard, fiscal 2013 represented a significant inflection point for our company. With the NHL and its players association reaching a new collective bargaining agreement this past January, long-term labor agreements are in place for both NHL and the NBA. Coupled with our strong affiliation fee revenue base, we now have the clearest path in front of us than in any other point since our spin-off from Cablevision in early 2010. Another important milestone is just around the corner, as we near the completion of the historic Madison Square Garden Transformation this fall, followed by the reopening of the revitalized Forum early next calendar year. After the successful completion of these capital investments, our company's ongoing capital needs are expected to be much lower,…
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Robert M. Pollichino
Analyst · Macquarie Capital
Thank you, Hank. We are pleased with our fiscal 2013 results, which, as Hank stated, reflected another year of record revenues and AOCF for our company. Total company revenues were approximately $1.3 billion, up 4% versus the prior year. Consolidated AOCF of $355.6 million increased 26%, and operating income of $251.1 million grew 41%, both as compared to the prior year. With respect to fiscal 2013 fourth quarter results as compared to the prior year fourth quarter, total company revenues were $336.4 million, up 1%. Consolidated AOCF of $92.2 million and operating income of 61 -- $66.1 million increased 19% and 32%, respectively. MSG Media generated $176.8 million in revenue, an increase of $9.8 million or 6%. Affiliation fee revenue increased $7.1 million, primarily due to higher affiliation rates. Advertising revenue increased $5.8 million, primarily due to higher advertising revenue at both MSG Networks and Fuse. Other revenues decreased $3.1 million, primarily due to the expiration of a short-term programming licensing agreement this past April. MSG Media AOCF of $81.8 million was up 24%, primarily due to higher revenues and lower direct operating expenses. The decrease in direct operating expenses was primarily due to lower programming expenses at Fuse, partially offset by higher programming expenses at MSG Networks and other net increases. With respect to MSG Media results in fiscal 2014, there are 3 components that we'd like to note: First, fiscal 2013 included incremental other revenue and AOCF related to a short-term programming licensing agreement. As expected, this deal expired in April and was not renewed and will impact year-over-year comparisons in our Media segment in fiscal 2014. Second, while the NHL work stoppage had a negative impact in fiscal 2013 on total company revenues and AOCF, as well as Media segment revenues, it contributed to Media segment AOCF.…
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Ryan O'Hara
Analyst
Thanks, Bob. During fiscal 2013, we continue to provide viewers with outstanding production, compelling programs and the best game telecast in sports, demonstrating once again why MSG and MSG Plus are best-in-class regional Sports networks. Our continued commitment to excellence and programming resulted in MSG Media winning 18 local Emmy Awards earlier this year for a total of 97 Emmys over the past 6 years, including 85 for MSG Network, the most of any single network or station in the region during that time. We broadcast a wide array of live sporting events annually, including the Ranger -- including the regular-season games of 7 professional sports franchises, the Knicks, Rangers and Liberty, as well as the New York Islanders, New Jersey Devils, Buffalo Sabres and New York Red Bulls. For the Knicks, the team's exciting 2012-'13 regular season again translated into strong viewership. With the exception of last year's shorted season, the 2012-'13 season was the highest-rated Knicks regular season in the 25 years that the network has been tracking household ratings. Sports fans also welcomed back hockey this year with strong increases in viewership. For the 2012-'13 season, this included an over 65% increase in Rangers average total household ratings versus the prior season, while the Islanders ratings were up over 100% and the Devils ratings were up over 40%. In fact, for the 1 year period ending in May with our last playoff telecast in the key demos during prime time, MSG network was the most-watched regional Sports network in the entire New York market. Strong consumer interest in the Knicks and Rangers also fueled solid increases in average per-game advertising revenue on MSG Networks this past season, and our strong ratings base, the result of multi-year increases in ratings for the Knicks and the Rangers, positions us…
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Melissa Miller Ormond
Analyst · Albert Freid
Thank you, Ryan. Over the years, our building has set the standard by which others are measured. And today, it includes some of the most celebrated venues in the world. In addition to serving as must-play destinations for a wide variety of acts that come to our markets, our best-in-class venues continue to earn critical acclaims. In 2013, Madison Square Garden was named Arena Of The Year by industry readers of Pollstar Magazine for the 11th consecutive year, an award The Garden has won 18 of the past 20 years. For 2012, Pollstar ranked Radio City Music Hall the #1 garden theater-sized venue worldwide, while 5 of our venues were listed in Billboard's Top 10 year-end rankings. The popularity and prestige of our venues plays a significant role in our ability to attract the biggest acts and shows. For example, last month, NBC's top-rated series, America's Got Talent, began broadcasting live from the Great Stage at Radio City with 2 shows each week and continuing into September. As the world's most famous arena, this past fiscal year, we hosted the historic "12-12-12" concert, benefiting victims of Superstorm Sandy, as well as many of the hottest acts on tour, including Madonna, Justin Bieber, One Direction, Swedish House Mafia, Pink, Maroon 5, Alicia Keys and The Killers, which on May 14 marked our last concert before we shut down for the third and final phase of the Transformation. Over its long history, The Garden has come to epitomize the very best in live entertainment, with an appearance at The Garden often representing the pinnacle of a performer's career. Our biggest challenge when booking events at The Garden continues to be not having enough date availability to accommodate every artist and event that wants to play at the arena. In fact, despite the…
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Dave Howard
Analyst · International Strategy & Investment Group
Thank you, Melissa. MSG Sports delivered a solid fiscal 2013, as we guided the segment, the impact of the NHL work stoppage, while executing against our Transformation-related sales goals. And as we look ahead, we believe our ownership of key assets and brands positions us well for long-term growth. These assets, of course, include the legendary Knicks and Rangers franchises, along with Madison Square Garden, which is now both the most storied and historic arena in the world, as well as a fully state-of-the-art sports entertainment venue, a powerful combination that will continue to resonate with our customers and marketing partners. Our strong operating position is best exemplified by the momentum we have exhibited across ticket sales, suites and marketing partnerships. As we have discussed on recent earnings calls, the Knicks and Rangers again played to at or near capacity crowds each game at The Garden this past season, with Knicks season tickets sold out for the third consecutive year and Rangers for the sixth consecutive year. The 2013-'14 ticket sales outlook is equally as bright. As you know, we announced earlier this year that season ticket prices will increase an average of 6.4% for the Knicks and 4% for the Rangers. Renewal rates with season ticket holders have been strong this far, with an over 97% renewal rate for Knicks season tickets and over 92% for the Rangers, and we expect to achieve a full sellout of season tickets soon. We will also see a boost this fiscal year from an increase in The Garden seating capacity for Knicks and Rangers games by approximately 800 seats, largely due to the addition of the Chase bridges and the 1876 Balcony, bringing the seat count back to pre-transformation level. This past year, we continued the roll out of our premium hospitality…
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Ari Danes
Analyst · International Strategy & Investment Group
Thanks, Dave. Christie, can we open up the call for questions?
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Operator
Operator
[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from Rich Tullo of Albert Freid.
Richard Tullo - Albert Fried & Company, LLC, Research Division: Billboard ranked Barclays as the #2 rated globally. It looks like there's a discrepancy between Pollstar, we're more inclined to view the Pollstar numbers as being accurate. But nevertheless, the bigger picture here in our view is that the pie in New York is growing. And can you provide some color on the competitive dynamic that will be emerging between Madison Square Garden and Barclays in New York?
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Melissa Miller Ormond
Analyst · Albert Freid
Well, it's interesting that you referenced the Billboard rankings because when those rankings were published, we looked a little bit deeper into them. And as you know The Garden has been the top-grossing arena in the U.S., if not worldwide, for years and years. In fact, we were the top-grossing arena of the decade in 2010 according to Billboard. And we have gained that status by reporting concerts and family shows in these years and when we look at the rankings this year, we discovered that Barclays had announced -- had also included non-league and non-home team sporting events. So it's important to note that, number one, we had more concerts than Barclays in that 6-month period despite being closed for at least 2 weeks of that reporting period; and secondly, when you make the comparison between MSG and all the other arenas in the listing, apples-to-apples and included our non-league non-home team sporting events, we far outgrossed all our U.S. venues. So we're not seeing a significant impact from Barclays, and we look forward to the reopening of the transformed arena in October and full year operations resuming with calendar 2014.
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Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from Bryan Goldberg of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
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Bryan Goldberg - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division
Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Just a question on growth opportunities. You guys have done a great job identifying high ROI opportunities from the Transformation of The Garden to the L.A. Forum. From what we've observed, most of your recent moves to drive new growth from external sources look like they've been focused on the entertainment space. So with Nassau behind us now, how should we think about the buckets of external opportunity for the company going forward? Are they going to continue to be weighted towards Entertainment or do you see an equal amount of opportunity in Media and Sports? And if there is, if you can help us think about a reasonable amount of cash you need to have on hand to make sure you have maximum flexibility? That would be great as well.
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Hank J. Ratner
Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch
I think the opportunities that we seek are opportunities that are strategically related to what we do. There are things that we think that we can help make better. There are things that are connected to our core competencies, or things that actually can help us be better. So opportunities we can help or opportunities that can help us. Those opportunities could be in Media. They could be in venues. They could be Entertainment. They could be in Sports. So they can be in any of those places. We have to be nimble and we had to go look for them. People come to us. We have to find opportunities as well. And thus far, what you identified have been the opportunities that we have thought were worth pursuing. We'll continue to look but there is no real strong preference for one of the areas versus the other. It's really opportunity based and we're going to analyze what becomes available and get ourselves comfortable that the appropriate growth can be created on an integrated basis, and that's really the way we view it.
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Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from John Tinker of Maxim.
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John Tinker - Maxim Group LLC, Research Division
Analyst · Maxim
I think you mentioned that the Forum might be a meaningful contributor going forward. Can you just give us a little more of an -- the detail in terms of sort of what it may have cost and how should we think about the revenues in terms of trying to quantify this?
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Melissa Miller Ormond
Analyst · Maxim
Well, as to the cost, we stated it's approximately $100 million inclusive of the acquisition of the property, acquisition cost purchase price, acquisition costs, your revitalization of the venue net of a loan from the city of Inglewood that we expect to be forgiven, as well as certain tax credits. And we believe this $100 million is commensurate with the opportunity presented to us by the Forum and presented to us in the Los Angeles market. We feel strongly that the music industry is welcoming the return of the Forum as are fans and ticket buyers in Los Angeles. Our focus is, as we stated, entertainment primarily concerts, family shows, award shows, special events. We will host some sporting events like boxing and tennis, and think it will become a meaningful contributor to Entertainment.
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Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from Amy Yong of Macquarie Capital.
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Amy Yong - Macquarie Research
Analyst · Macquarie Capital
Can you actually clarify how you're accounting for the Brooklyn Bowl investment, and then just sort of normalize -- or how do you think about CapEx next year, inclusive of the Transformation and the Forum?
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Robert M. Pollichino
Analyst · Macquarie Capital
The first part of your question about Brooklyn Bowl is, we're going to be reporting it as an investment, and we continue to do that analysis and it looks like on the equity basis. Amy, what was your second question again?
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Amy Yong - Macquarie Research
Analyst · Macquarie Capital
How do we think about CapEx? I think you mentioned that the Transformation is not going to exceed $1.05 billion or $1.50 billion. I mean, how do we think about, between the Transformation and the Forum, what CapEx will look like for next year?
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Robert M. Pollichino
Analyst · Macquarie Capital
Well, you have remember for fiscal '14, we had the balance of the Transformation, so you have to take that into consideration. You have to take into consideration the majority of what you've heard Melissa say about the cost associated with the Forum. And then as you look past that, you have to think about normalized maintenance CapEx, and we're not really providing that information on the call. But I think if you go back historically and look at some of our pre-Transformation financials, you'll get a sense of what that could be. And it's probably tens of millions versus hundreds of millions. So that's sort of the scale of what we're talking about.
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Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from Michael Morris of Davenport & Company.
Michael C. Morris - Davenport & Company, LLC, Research Division: Hopefully, a couple of quick ones. Trying to reconcile Hank's comments about your free cash profile, the next chapter, new opportunities and specifically, I'm thinking about the level of cash flow generation you have relative to your incremental investments, which have been much smaller following the Transformation. So specifically, number one, do you have a specific investment in mind as you look at your capacity? Number two, is there any opportunity or could you invest in Major League Baseball? And then number three, what is your outlook for return of capital? Do you have any intention to buy back shares this year?
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Hank J. Ratner
Analyst · Davenport & Company
In the investments, there's nothing we've discussed specifically. Again, we look for opportunities to grow the company. We think one of the beautiful things about the company is its integration and the way we can get multiple businesses feeding each other and get enhanced returns as a result. So again, we're going to continue to look at growth opportunities where we can take advantage of the assets and infrastructure that we have, knowing our core competencies and the world-class infrastructure in order to help grow the company. As far as Major League Baseball, there are no impediments for us getting involved in Major League Baseball. But other than that, it's somewhat of a hypothetical that I'm not sure how to respond to and would prefer not. And then lastly, we talk about our looking for growth. We continue to evaluate the possibility of return of the capital program but when you do -- keep in mind that our priority is growing the company going forward.
Michael C. Morris - Davenport & Company, LLC, Research Division: Can you just help -- I guess if there's anything pointed you can say? I mean, you're investing, let's call it, roughly $300 million to $350 million in the Transformation. That's behind us now. The Forum investment is much more modest, but your cash flow generation is much higher. Are you expecting an opportunity of the magnitude of the Transformation? Do you see something like that out there somewhere?
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Hank J. Ratner
Analyst · Davenport & Company
Well, I don't look at the Transformation as sort of the benchmark to judge anything else against. The Transformation was a unique opportunity to take the most iconic venue in the world and build a brand-new one inside the iconic exterior of the other. I mean, we went forward with that very ambitious product, and we're very pleased to date from its financial results, to aesthetic results. And really every which way, we think we hit it out of the park. Going forward, we're going to look at opportunity, each one in and of itself, and assess its possible returns and its growth, and our main focus always will be what's in the long-term interest of creating shareholder value.
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Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from Ben Mogil of Stifel Nicolas.
Benjamin E. Mogil - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., Research Division: So a little bit of a follow-up, I guess, on Michael and Brian's question. From a RSN perspective, are there any real synergies of owning an RSN outside of the New York market or are they pretty limited?
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Hank J. Ratner
Analyst · Stifel Nicolas
Well, there are always synergies in owning multiple cable networks. There's a lot of back-office infrastructure from your transmission and your production. There's also your affiliate sales group. That's also the ad sales group. So there are many efficiencies in the infrastructure and efficiencies in the expertise.
Benjamin E. Mogil - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., Research Division: Okay. That's great. And then flipping over to sort of looking into Sports for next year, so fiscal '14, if you strip out the playoffs and just sort of strip out the revenue and EBITDA that you guys mentioned, and if you assume that the NHL had a full schedule in '13, which I know they didn't, but you can kind of triangulate around that, given the NBA luxury tax, do you think Sports EBITDA on those parameters would be up or down?
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Robert M. Pollichino
Analyst · Stifel Nicolas
We're not in a position right now to give that specificity of an answer, but when you think about next year, I think you've got most of the right points, which is we are going to benefit from the full regular-season schedule of the Rangers and get the impact from the additional benefits coming out of the Transformation. But you had to keep in mind, again, that there's going to be a -- which we anticipate a substantial increase in luxury tax expense that's really driven by 2 things: One is the higher projected team compensation cost, but you should also have in mind that the -- there's an implementation of the NBA's new progressive luxury tax system, so there's more detail in the K when you get a chance to look at it. But what's happening to that system is the luxury tax system is moving from a system in where there's dollar for dollar. So $1 in taxes for every dollar a team is over the luxury tax threshold. And now it's going to a system where luxury tax expenses escalate; the higher above the luxury tax threshold that you go. So there's some detail on the K; you can get a sense of that. And then the last thing is sort of based on some good news, too, is that we anticipate a substantial increase in our net provisions for the NBA and the NHL revenue-sharing expense, and that's really driven by a couple of factors: one is our expectation for future revenue growth, which drives that -- what we talked about, is the return of hockey to the full regular-season schedule; and also our expectations around player salary escrow [indiscernible]. So I think you got pieces there to think through a little bit.
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Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from Michael Senno of Crédit Suisse.
Michael Senno - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Just wanted to look at Sports for a second. You guys have seen a nice pickup in some of the Transformation-related revenue. With the third phase coming on and Chase Square and the bridges, where -- what stage are we in selling sponsorship inventory within what's the potential of the entire new Garden is?
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Ryan O'Hara
Analyst
Well, as we mentioned on the third phase, we're excited about what's going to happen over the next several months, where in the new lobby we'll see Chase Square, which we think is phenomenal; new Chase Bridges and then Anheuser-Busch's 1876 Balcony, which will help us drive revenue growth in 2014. But the way we look at it, is we have great suite of world-class brands that we partner with and with them, there's ways to grow our business. You're seeing it with the Forum with Chase, where they made a significant commitment, and we're continuing to talk to our current partners about growing with them across our asset base. But in addition to that, we're also talking to other partners in other verticals where we think there's an ability to drive incremental revenue across the base of arenas, teams and also the assets.
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Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from Vasily Karasyov of Stern Agee.
Vasily Karasyov - Sterne Agee & Leach Inc., Research Division: I have a couple. One, just to follow up on the potential of capital returns. Has it -- can ask I ask you if your view of that possibility or magnitude of that return changed since it started -- it became a point of discussion a couple of quarters ago? And then if yes or no, do you expect to firm up your opinion communicated to the street maybe within next fiscal year? And what are the milestones that you're waiting to happen?
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Hank J. Ratner
Analyst · Stern Agee
Well, as we've been saying for a while, our priority is growing the company. Again, what we said, that isn't necessarily mutually exclusive with a capital return, and that we had not made a decision as to whether there would or wouldn't be any capital return, but emphasize and continue to that priority is growing during the company. So that hasn't changed. That's where we are, and that's where we remain.
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Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from David Miller of B. Riley & Co.
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David W. Miller - B. Riley Caris, Research Division
Analyst · B. Riley & Co
Could you guys just address this permit issue, which was sort of a bomb that got dropped on the stock back on July 26. It seems like you guys have a lot of options at your disposal in addressing the issue. And then within that, correct me if I'm wrong and maybe we're just naïve over here on the West Coast, but isn't The New York City Council an elected body which turns over every 4 years, which would potentially turnover this November? And couldn't you wait for a newly elected New York City Council to be a little bit more sympathetic to your position to be realized, and then kind of reapply for a permit extension at that time? Would love any thoughts you have on the matter.
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Hank J. Ratner
Analyst · B. Riley & Co
As the West Coast seems to be similar to the East Coast, I don't think there's any geographic disadvantage in your question. Remember that the permit process is a zoning process, and we went through that zoning process. It's critically important for everybody to understand that we own the land, and we own Madison Square Garden. So we are the owner that went through a zoning process. There's another one that now is scheduled to happen 10 years from now. We've been at this site for 45 years. It is the most iconic of all arenas throughout the world. It's created great memories for people, and we expect it will continue to do so. And we're fine where we are right now, and we look forward to a long future here.
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Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from David Joyce of International Strategy & Investment Group.
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David Carl Joyce - ISI Group Inc., Research Division
Analyst · International Strategy & Investment Group
A couple of questions. First, if you could provide a little bit more color about the 2 new bridges. Is that a premium-priced product? Could you break out the number of those 800 seats between that and the other balcony? What's the pricing like? What's the access to those bridges? And then secondly, if you could help us think about the Forum for the rest of the year. Would the rest of the renovation and investment be all in the CapEx? Or would there be OpEx and how would that phase until the opening?
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Dave Howard
Analyst · International Strategy & Investment Group
I will address first your question about Chase Bridges. They are a spectacular new addition to the fully transformed Garden. They are unique in any arena in the world in terms of what they present in terms of a seating opportunity, both in terms of the sideline, which run parallel to the court and the rink, as well as with regard to their location on the bridge level, which is this amazing new concourse. The bridges will connect the 1876 Balcony to the West Balcony, creating this full internal circulatory concourse that allows people to remain connected to the action in the arena. It is going to be a spectacular aspect of the unveiling of the fully transformed Garden. It -- they do represent a substantial portion of the approximately 800 seats that will be coming back online into our inventory this fall, and return us to the pre-Transformation levels. And we are on sale, both with regard to the 1876 Balcony, as well as the bridges, both with regard to partial season plans as well as group tickets for both the Knicks and the Rangers at this point. They are being received extraordinarily well, and we are very confident this product will sell extremely well this season.
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Hank J. Ratner
Analyst · International Strategy & Investment Group
Then I think, there was a question relating to the Forum?
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Robert M. Pollichino
Analyst · International Strategy & Investment Group
Yes, I think one part of that question was operating expenses. So we've seen in our financials or we talked about in our financials that operating expenses for the Forum have hit and they've been unfavorable. So as we continue to staff up to run and operate the building, getting ready for launch, the operating expenses will continue to grow, both in pure operations of the building, as well as the staffing to booking and doing all that we need to accomplish. You heard Melissa talk about the $100 million, and the vast majority of that will be spent prospectively as we head towards an opening in the middle of January. So that's sort of the plan for the Forum.
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Ari Danes
Analyst · International Strategy & Investment Group
Thanks for your question, David.
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Operator
Operator
Your final question comes from Martin Pyykkonen of Wedge Partners.
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Martin Pyykkonen - Wedge Partners Corporation
Analyst · Wedge Partners
Hank, if I just rephrase on the permit, it sounds like this is what you're saying. I just want to clarify that the New York City Council, whoever they are in change can vote all they want but they basically can't enforce anything because you do own it. And then I'm just curious in terms of that ownership of the land, you actually owned the below-grade property essentially and does Penn Station effectively pay you a lease? I know that's really oversimplifying it probably, but is that kind of the picture? And then secondly, probably more for Melissa or Bob, on the Entertainment segment, everything you're saying, Cirque du Soleil, tough comps right now, The Garden reopens for the calendar Q4, the L.A. Forum kicks in next year, it sounds like, and I know you won't put any number to this, that the Entertainment could be sustainably positive AOCF going forward by the end of this year and into next year? Is that a reasonable assumption? And then one last math question, more for Bob. If I go back to last year's playoffs and this year, I just want to see if I get this math right, that the incremental direct contribution per game, per playoff game, last year was about $1.3 million, this year about $1.5 million, a little more tilted to the Knicks, more seats and higher prices due to the second phase being done. Is that math and those drivers the right way to think about it?
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Hank J. Ratner
Analyst · Wedge Partners
Four-part questions should be a little difficult to remember. So we'll counter you and we're going 16 parts in our answer. They're not going to be sequential so we're going to just kind of bounce around. Your first thing relating to the city council, the city council is a very important body in the city of New York. We're very respectful of the city council. We're very respectful of their opinions, and we're very respectful of the job they do in protecting New York City. We expect, as we did this time, to work amicably and to work to resolution on anything that comes in front of us. We do own Madison Square Garden and what we do own is that there is a pad that sits on top of Penn Station on ground level. We own the ground-level pad and we own all the air rights above it. Part of those air rights are where Madison Square Garden sits, and they continue beyond Madison Square Garden itself. We don't own below the pad. That's separate and that's owned by, I guess, the government or the Port Authority, whatever is the entity involved with Penn Station itself. That was question 1 and 2 I think.
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Melissa Miller Ormond
Analyst · Wedge Partners
So entertainment segment. You touched on a lot of the major points, so we can report in New York [indiscernible]. I think we feel good about the bookings, 3-year bookings that we have for fiscal 2014 at this point. And we are thrilled about the Transformation conclusion, as well as the opening of the Forum. But it's important to remember that the Forum opens in the middle of January, so we have the benefit of that in this fiscal year for 5.5 months, and The Garden has been closed for these first months of the fiscal year. And we really only gain the benefit of the latter half of May and June in this current fiscal year in terms of the Transformation. So we are looking for normalized results in Christmas, and we feel good about our new show, but there's a lot of moving parts in this fiscal year. '15 is where we're going to see some -- the full year impact of all of our initiatives.
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Robert M. Pollichino
Analyst · Wedge Partners
And part 15a through 16b I think was about the playoffs. So you did the math right. If you looked at it last year, it was -- based on a home game division, it was about $1.3 million. I think the number is now about $1.49 million. And remember what we're talking about is the direct contribution. And we said before, in excess of $1 million because of definitely some expenses running around when we do playoffs, that we can't possibly, specifically quantify. So -- but that's really the direct contribution that you're seeing, you got it right.
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Operator
Operator
I would now like to turn the call back over to Ari Danes for any closing remarks.
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Ari Danes
Analyst · International Strategy & Investment Group
Thank you for joining us. We look forward to speaking with you on our next earnings call in November. Have a great day.
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Operator
Operator
Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may now disconnect.