Monday Morning Politics: Public Safety Post-Knicks Win, and Congressional Primaries

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
And joining us now, Errol Louis, Political Anchor for Spectrum News, New York One, host of Inside City Hall there, weeknights at 7, and his national politics show, The Big Deal with Errol Louis, Friday nights at 8 He also does the podcast, You Decide. And as some of you know, we and Bridger Bergen co-moderated the New York 12 primary debate last week with five candidates hoping to succeed, Gerald Nadler and Errol and I and Katie Honan co-moderated two mayoral election debates last year. Errol, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

**Errol Louis** (0:43)
Great to be with you, Brian.

**Brian Lehrer** (0:45)
Any thoughts from you, first of all, on why the city has gotten this into the Knicks?

**Errol Louis** (0:50)
I'm a little surprised, I got to tell you. I mean, I can't quite remember what it felt like. I was only about 10 or 11 when we won in 1973 You know, it was all consuming for my household, but I had no sense of what the rest of the city was thinking. I mean, these guys, back then, their names rang out the same way kids in every house today are talking about Jalen Brunson. It was Walt Frazier and Bill Bradley and Earl of Pearl and those guys back then. But look, it brings everybody together.
Let's be clear, there's a fairly large chunk of the city that is not part of this and we should recognize that. In a very particular way, as a Brooklynite, I will tell you, some of my fellow Nets fans grudgingly extended grace to the Knicks, but then there were others who would just kind of folded their arms and said, eh, our turn will come.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:53)
Yeah. Although from a purely sports perspective, some of the narrative, and I think it's accurate, has been that if it was the Nets or the Yankees, there would be a lot more of the fans of the other folding their arms and turning away, you know, if it was the Jets or the Giants. But there just aren't that many Nets fans. And so the Knicks are still like a unifying thing.

**Errol Louis** (2:16)
Well, I mean, also, look, the roster turns over so much, you know, Mikal Bridges was on the team the last game I went to a couple of years ago. You know, I mean, it all moves around so much. So I'll still call him Brooklyn Bridges, which is what we would chant whenever you took the floor.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:33)
Going from the nets to the Knicks.
We invited readers of our newsletter to write in with a time when sports made you emotional and try to explain why you think the games move you. Regina on Staten Island wrote, Why? Sports unite us. They are alive and real. We get to believe and be united. Carol in Toronto, though originally New Yorker writes, There's nothing in this tough time that beats connection and the simple joy of a game. Sharon in Manhattan, at the simplest, most basic level, sports move me because they are real, not virtual. I wonder if there's something to that. It is something happening in real life when so much happens on our screens.
Even though most of us weren't there in person.

**Errol Louis** (3:20)
It plays out a drama. I mean, it's not a complicated story in most cases. If one team wins, one team loses, there are backstories for all of the players. You can pick the one that you like whether it's for Carl Anthony Towns or for Jalen Brunson or whoever, even for Wemby. Just like the mayor was saying a minute ago, you can identify for a lot of different reasons. How the team was built, how the team plays, how the team performs, how they relate to each other off the court, the charity that they do. Then in the course of four quarters, there are ups and downs and they're good guys and bad guys, and there's drama, and there's anticipation, and somebody wins and somebody loses.
So we don't all go to the movies the way half the nation saw Gone With The Wind or whatever it might have been, the blockbusters of the past, but this is basically like a blockbuster playing out in front of you. I mean, I remember thinking after game four, it's everything that a parent wants their kid to absorb about never giving up and fighting back even if you're down 29 points.

**Brian Lehrer** (4:24)
And if you look at TV ratings in recent years, at least kind of conventional TV, I think 93 of the 100 most highly rated shows last year were NFL games.