Topline
The first NBA Finals appearance in decades for the New York Knicks comes with a hefty cost for fans, who will have to pay thousands of dollars for even the cheapest seats inside Madison Square Garden—rivaling the average monthly rent for a Manhattan apartment, the average price of an engagement ring and several transatlantic flights.
The Knicks are in the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999, drawing high demand for seats inside Madison Square Garden.
Getty Images
Key Facts
The Knicks first host the San Antonio Spurs at Madison Square Garden on June 8 for Game 3, with the cheapest resale ticket priced at $4,247, before the get-in price drops slightly to $3,728 for Game 4 on June 10, according to TickPick.
If the series extends to a Game 6, the cheapest price for a ticket to the late-series game rises to a Finals high of $4,917 for Game 6, according to TickPick.
Attending the NBA Finals will be much cheaper in San Antonio: Get-in tickets for Game 1 and Game 2 are priced at $1,149 and $1,310, respectively, while the cheapest tickets for Game 5 rise to $1,656 before jumping to $3,393 for Game 7, TickPick reports.
Here’s What Nba Finals Tickets In Madison Square Garden Cost More Than
If attending Game 4 at Madison Square Garden—the cheapest of all three Knicks home games—the average get-in ticket costs 10% more than the average monthly rent for a studio apartment in Manhattan, valued at $3,373, according to Apartments.com. That’s 86% more expensive than the average rental cost in the U.S. ($2,000). Fans could instead buy two 10-gram gold bars from Walmart, priced at $1,574 each, or cover most of the average price of an engagement ring, valued at $5,200, according to a 2024 study published by The Knot. The lowest price for a round-trip flight from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Paris is $775, according to Expedia data, meaning a Game 4 ticket would cover the cost of nearly five round-trip transatlantic flights. It’s also about five times more expensive than the average monthly loan payment for a new car in 2025 ($748), according to Experian, and 60% more costly than the average mortgage payment ($2,329), Rocket Mortgage data shows.
What To Watch For
President Donald Trump said last week he was invited to attend an NBA Finals game at Madison Square Garden by “multiple people,” including Madison Square Garden Company chair and majority Knicks owner Jim Dolan, adding, “I think I’ll be going.” Trump attended Knicks home games throughout the 1990s and 2000s, and he said he has remained a fan despite not attending a game since 2014. Trump—who did not say which game he planned to attend—has attended other sporting events throughout his two presidencies, including a Washington Commanders game in November and a World Series game in 2019, during which he was met with loud boos.
Key Background
The Knicks returned to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999 after defeating the Atlanta Hawks, Philadelphia 76ers and Cleveland Cavaliers in a dominant playoff run, winning 11-straight games heading into the Finals. Their championship berth marks a rematch from the last time the Knicks reached the NBA Finals, when they lost to the Spurs in five games. The Spurs are favored to win the NBA Finals at -200 odds (meaning $200 must be wagered to profit $100), according to FanDuel.
Leave a comment