Shares in Madison Square Garden Co. continued to rally today amid considerable investor delight that Chairman James Dolan is considering spinning off the New York Knicks and Rangers into a separate company, a move that could be a prelude to selling the teams.

A day after rising 14%, MSG's stock price was up 4 percentage points in mid-afternoon trading today, lifting the company's market value by roughly $1 billion in two days.

That big move reflects Wall Street's confidence that Dolan is making a smart move in laying the groundwork to sell the teams. For a long time analysts such as Rich Greenfield at BTIG Research have wondered how long it will be before the cord-cutting that is sapping ESPN translates into lower broadcasting rights for sporting events.

Dolan has already called one big media cycle right, selling Cablevision three years ago for $10 billion to a European company whose stock price has been cut in half since making the deal. Dolan invested that money into the concert business and now is building two cutting-edge venues in Las Vegas and London for $1 billion each. MSG's stock has outperformed the bull market for nearly three years, so Dolan generally gets the benefit of the doubt from the Wall Street crowd.

MSG's stock spike is also partly propelled by some unquantifiable but very enthusiastic belief that Dolan will keep the Garden but eventually sell the Knicks and Rangers, a prospect that clearly rocked the Reddit crowd.

"I think I would actually cry," one fan wrote.

Perhaps he shouldn't get his hopes up too high. An MSG official said, “There are no plans to sell the Knicks or the Rangers.”

If the Knicks and Rangers were sold, it also could open the way for the Garden to be relocated so a new Penn Station could rise. The arena seats 19,000 for basketball games, while 500,000 people sweat it through the rabbit warren of a train station beneath it every day.

A new Garden might sound unrealistic, but it's not unreasonable. The Garden operates thanks to a "special permit" granted by the city in 1963. The permit was renewed in 2013. Dolan wanted it extended in perpetuity, but the City Council voted 47 to 1 to extend it by only 10 years. That means in 2023, the city could evict the world's most famous arena.