The New York Knicks are two wins away from their first championship in decades. This NBA Finals series has united three generations of fans. But now, with the odds in the Knicks’ favor, the cost of sitting space in Madison Square Garden is turning out to be more than a fortune. It has reached the point where even the players need to acknowledge the severity of the situation. And like Jose Alvarado, Josh Hart has sympathized with the city’s sentiment in recent weeks.

“I kind of wish the ticket prices weren’t as crazy as they are,” Hart said of the ticket rates. “I feel like a lot of people who have been waiting for this moment for a very long time, unfortunately, aren’t able to get into the building. The cheapest ticket is $7,000 or $8,000. That’s ridiculous… We wish those were a little cheaper.”

Here’s the hard truth. Even though the NBA is fueled by its fans, it’s still a business. This past weekend, the get-in price for Game 3 at Madison Square Garden had reportedly climbed to $9,257, up from $7,142 just two days earlier. The median ticket price is $17,398, with the most expensive seats priced at $109,263! For Game 4, which could clinch the championship for the home team, the get-in price has already reached $13,159, with front-row seats listed at $112,158.

Game 3’s get-in price has surpassed the floor price for Super Bowl LVIII, which stood at $7,413 four days out from kickoff, a benchmark that was treated as the ceiling of live sports pricing.

Hart’s teammate Alvarado, who grew up supporting the Knicks, was gutted by the current reality. While his close family will be in the MSG building to witness possible greatness in New York, his friends are left with no choice but to pay the high rate or stay home.

“I see it’s $11,000 [each], I say no,” Alvarado admitted. “They know the love. They know what it is. [But] it’s a lot of money … I ain’t doing that. I tell you that much.”

“It’s a good thing and a bad thing, that means we got a fanbase that’s willing to do anything to come out and see us, and we’re grateful for that,” Alvarado continued. “We’re just seeing what we can do because not a lot of people can afford that… I’m gonna throw a watch party for my neighborhood [in Williamsburg]. Just improvise and be grateful for the situation we’re in. That’s what New York is all about.”

Speaking of watch parties, there won’t be one outside Madison Square Garden for Game 3. The NYPD and Secret Service made the decision in light of the presidential visit and the recent spree of arrests that have been triggered by violence and misbehavior outside James Dolan’s arena.

When Donald Trump confirmed he’d be attending the next Knicks home game, the moment drew mixed reactions from fans. But the most expensive lower-bowl seats reportedly dropped from $96,997 to $74,652. For the middle-class citizen, that is still beyond imagination. In comparison, in San Antonio, a get-in price for Game 1 was under $1,300, meaning MSG’s cheapest seat on Monday costs roughly seven times what it cost to watch Game 1…

The Knicks’ 2-0 series lead and the possibility of a championship celebration at the Garden (eventually) have only accelerated a pricing surge that was already historic before the series began. No team in NBA Finals history has come back from 0-2 to win without the series going the distance.

“Ridiculous,” and How the Numbers Back Every Word of It

For a game meant for fans, not all fans can get in to watch their favorite team play. The figure Josh Hart cited, $7,000 to $8,000, was not an exaggeration. It was, if anything, slightly conservative given where prices landed by Saturday. For context, the average American spends approximately $6,500 per month in regular expenses.

Now, it’s not ironic that a single seat in the upper bowl at MSG on Monday will cost more than that… But the fan who has worn a Knicks jersey through 27 years of irrelevance, who sat through the Isiah Thomas era and the triangle offense, and the years when MSG was the loudest building in the league for a 30-win team, that fan is, sadly, almost certainly not getting in.

The game’s demand may have played a role. It is the Knicks’ first Finals appearance in 27 years; there is the Wemby factor, where he will pull in neutral fans, and then there is a city-wide madness that has been building since the second round. That excitement, though, turned bad after Game 2. The NYPD made 26 arrests outside the arena. A few locals crossed the line and attacked cops. But Mamdani wasn’t staying quiet through all this. He issued a stern notice to every New Yorker ahead of Game 3. 

Pivoting back to the ticket prices, genuine demand and inflated resale economics are two different things, and the gap between what a ticket costs at face value and what it costs on the secondary market is a structural problem that ownership has never chosen to address.

James Dolan’s Madison Square Garden has consistently commanded the highest ticket premiums in the NBA, even in ordinary regular-season games, a practice that has drawn complaints from fans and fan advocacy groups for years, quietly, without a player’s microphone to amplify them.

Hart added his voice like every other fan. He didn’t call out Dolan by name. He didn’t make it political. He just said “ridiculous,” the word that every priced-out fan in the five boroughs has been using for weeks, and moved on to talking about basketball. The Garden will be sold out on Monday, and it will be everything Hart described: electric, deafening, 27 years of hunger erupting in real time.

The question now is whether the people who built that atmosphere over a quarter-century of waiting are the ones inside it. And based on the numbers, the answer is probably not.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​