The NYC Economic Development Corporation estimated that a New York Knicks NBA Finals run could generate $832 million for the city.
The celebratory chaos in the vicinity outside Madison Square Garden last Friday night was gloriously unhinged.
The New York Knicks not only reached their first conference finals in 25 years, but did so at home with a 38-point evisceration of the rival Boston Celtics in Game 6, driving a stake through the defending champs’ hearts and sending their fanbase bing-bonging through the Midtown Manhattan streets. Fans climbed on top of billboards and traffic fixtures. Super fan and man of the people, Timothée Chalamet, opened his SUV window and hugged fans leaving the game. It was a palpably cathartic moment for millions of diehards who waited so long for a moment like that.
It was also an amazing night in a string of successes for the New York City economy. On Friday ahead of Game 2 of the NBA‘s Eastern Conference Finals against the Indiana Pacers (if you’re reading this, you probably know what happened in Game 1), New York City Mayor Eric Adams and NYC Economic Development Corporation President Andrew Kimball announced that Knicks home playoff games has the potential to generate a total of $832 million for the NYC economy across all five boroughs if they play all eligible Conference Finals and Finals games.
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The seven home playoff games the Knicks have played so far against Detroit, Boston, and Indiana have already generated an estimated $195 million in economic activity, and each home playoff game moving forward would generate an estimated $91 million for the city. Per the study, factors include direct impacts from visitor spending, including tickets, concessions, merchandise, transportation, lodging for out-of-town visitors, boosted food and beverage sales in bars and restaurants, and additional spending by stadium customers and employees. The $832 million factors in average ticket prices for games at MSG, which have been among the highest we’ve ever seen. Per TickPic, the average ticket price for Wednesday’s Game 1 against Indiana was $1,193, a record high for an NBA conference finals game.
“The Knicks have lifted our spirits and our economy,” Mayor Adams said in a press release, “so I’ll be joining fans across the five boroughs, and the entire region, in shouting the same thing over and over as we take on the Pacers this week: ‘Let’s Go Knicks’…and spend money!”
Angelina Katsanis / Getty Images
It’s also clear that this Knicks playoff run means more to the city economy than any of its other teams of late. Before their respective runs to the league championship series last October — the Yankees advanced to the World Series before falling to the LA Dodgers — the NYC EDC estimated that each additional Yankees home playoff game would generate $25 million to the economy, while Mets home games would generate $20.1 million. Each Knicks additional home game would double that combined baseball impact. While NYC loves its baseball, it’s clearly ready to spend big on the Knicks’ deepest postseason run in a generation.
The $832 million estimate is even more staggering when you consider an EDC estimate from late March. Ahead of MLB Opening Day, the EDC said that the total of 162 combined home games for the Yankees and Mets would generate $900 million for the city. The Knicks would come up $68 million shy of that total by playing as many as 14 home playoff games, assuming that the team maxes out with four home games against Indiana and another four by hosting a potential Game 7 of the Finals.
And in the event that the city maxes out on that $832 million potential, which could get even higher if ticket prices shoot up to absurdly astronomical numbers, and the Knicks hoist the NBA title for the first time in 52 years, no street in NYC would be safe from the raucous pandemonium that would ensue.
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Shlomo Sprung
Shlomo Sprung is a Senior Staff Writer at Boardroom. He has more than a decade of experience in journalism, with past work appearing in Forbes, MLB.com, Awful Announcing, and The Sporting News. He graduated from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2011, and his Twitter and Spotify addictions are well under control. Just ask him.