The Knicks Win! So Does NYC, Big Merch and the NBA

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

**Sarah Holder** (0:09)
Guys, what an insane week for the NBA. Thank you both for being here.

**Randall Williams** (0:13)
Thank you for having me.

**Jason Kelly** (0:14)
Best week ever.

**Sarah Holder** (0:15)
Best week ever.

**Jason Kelly** (0:16)
Best week ever. We just won the NBA finals for the first time in 50 years.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:21)
The biggest fans have been waiting decades.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:25)
Your NBA champions, your New York City Knicks, are making their way through the parade route.

**Jason Kelly** (0:31)
Go New York! Go New York!

**Sarah Holder** (0:32)
Go!

**SPEAKER_5** (0:33)
I'm mad hype!

**Jason Kelly** (0:34)
The Knicks hit different in New York. I think you saw it just as a resident of the city. There is no team that galvanizes New York and the culture.

**Sarah Holder** (0:43)
Jason Kelly is the host of Bloomberg's The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly.

**Jason Kelly** (0:48)
You had a team of destiny in the Knicks, maybe one of the biggest stars will ever see, assuming he stays healthy in Wemba Nyama, a global superstar. It was everything the NBA wanted and it's going to be hard to top.

**Sarah Holder** (1:01)
I'd seen New York City erupt with joy after the New York Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs to take the NBA Championship Saturday night, after a 53-year drought.

**Jason Kelly** (1:12)
The ratings showed that through the first four games, double last year's viewership, the biggest viewership I think since 1998 I'm hard-pressed to think about finals that could have been any better for business.

**Randall Williams** (1:25)
The only thing that could have been better for the NBA is if this series ended at Madison Square Garden or it ended in seven games.

**Sarah Holder** (1:31)
That's Randall Williams, a co-host of Bloomberg's Business of Sports podcast.

**Randall Williams** (1:36)
The seven-game series is always going to do better. But at the same time, I want to say game one and game two and all of these games were probably watched more than game seven of last year. That is ridiculous.

**Sarah Holder** (1:49)
Yeah. I mean, I watched all the games and I'm not a huge basketball fan.

**Randall Williams** (1:53)
You're one of millions of viewers.

**Sarah Holder** (1:57)
I'm Sarah Holder and this is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, who's making money off the record-breaking NBA finals, and what it all means for fans, teams, and the league as it considers expansion.
There was a lot of money at play in the series, as we've already alluded to, starting with ticket prices, especially for Knicks games. We're talking $10,000 for Nosebleed, six figures for Courtside, Timothee Chalamet, Heim sisters. I'm not gonna ask why these tickets are so expensive. I think that might be a little self-evident, but where is that money going? How much is going to Jim Dolan and MSG?

**Jason Kelly** (2:44)
Oh, James Dolan. What a complicated figure on the New York scene, and across the broader sports team.

**Sarah Holder** (2:52)
MSG, of course, is Madison Square Garden. James Dolan controls Madison Square Garden Sports Entertainment, which owns the venue, and Madison Square Garden Sports, which owns the Knicks team.

**Jason Kelly** (3:04)
A lot of the money is going to MSG, for sure. A lot of money is going into the pockets of long-suffering season ticket holders for the Knicks or the Spurs.
The Spurs, despite probably being very grumpy about it, made a lot of money off of New Yorkers who were trying to buy tickets.

**Randall Williams** (3:22)
As you saw on the broadcast, there were plenty of Knicks fans at game five and game one and two.

**Jason Kelly** (3:28)
Yeah, totally. The economics, which I'm sure you've heard about Sarah, were such that it was substantially less expensive for people to buy a plane ticket, get a hotel room, and still get tickets to a Spurs game than it was to get into Madison Square Garden. We've talked to the head of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, who talked about hundreds of millions of dollars, probably upwards of half a billion dollars, maybe more, that are marginally going into the New York City economy.
That's just from bars who probably made their budget for the year, serving thirsty and excited Knicks fans all across the five boroughs.

**Sarah Holder** (4:10)
Yeah, not an empty bar to be seen. Any of these nights. Yeah, yeah.

**Jason Kelly** (4:15)
Nowhere.

**Sarah Holder** (4:19)
What about in San Antonio? Was there that level of economic stimulus there?

**Randall Williams** (4:23)
Definitely. I think so too. But they had three games and New York had two. And so when you think about that impact, yes, New Yorkers filled up San Antonio's arena, but at the same time, they were eating at these restaurants. They were filling up these hotel rooms. They were walking all around the city spending money. And that means money for San Antonio. Now, if you ask San Antonio, what was the best case scenario? Of course, they would have wanted a Game 7, not just so that they had an opportunity to win because it would have brought more money to the economy. James Dolan will tell you, I just want to win a championship. But in all reality, here in New York, a Game 6 in which the Knicks would have won in 6 would have been insane in the city. And that's what I was rooting for selfishly because I think that would have been the best story. However, the Knicks getting revenge on the Spurs, winning in 5 games the same way that the Spurs beat them in 1999, that's not so bad either.