The New York Knicks are throwing their first championship parade in more than five decades.
The team will be celebrated with a ticker-tape parade through Lower Manhattan on Thursday, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced after the Knicks closed out the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 to win their first NBA title since 1973.
Here’s what we know so far.
When and where
The parade is set for Thursday, June 18 — four days after Saturday night’s championship-clinching win in San Antonio. Mamdani’s office said the full schedule, including the start time and street closures, will be announced Sunday.
The parade will move up the Canyon of Heroes, the stretch of Broadway from Battery Park to City Hall in the Financial District that has hosted New York’s ticker-tape celebrations for more than a century. It’s the same route that’s marked the championships of the Yankees, Giants, Mets and Rangers — and the welcomes of figures from Albert Einstein to John Glenn.
This is a Ticker Tape Parade at Broadway and Wall Street celebrating the Mets becoming the world champions, There were about 2.2 million people, It took place in the Canyon of Heroes. (Photo by: Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
(Joe Sohm/Visions of America via Getty Images)
A City Hall ceremony will follow
Once the floats reach City Hall, Mamdani will preside over a ceremony to present Jalen Brunson and his teammates with the Keys to the City. The mayor, a lifelong Knicks fan, has been one of the team’s most vocal celebrators throughout the playoffs, including signing a tongue-in-cheek “executive order” repealing children’s bedtimes during the finals.
The city will light up that night
Three city buildings — Manhattan’s City Hall, the Dinkins Municipal Building and Brooklyn’s Borough Hall — will be lit up in Knicks blue and orange that night, the mayor’s office said.
How to watch
A livestream and TV broadcast plan has not yet been finalized. Major New York stations have historically aired ticker-tape parades live, and the Knicks’ organization is expected to share streaming details ahead of Thursday.
Why this matters
The Knicks haven’t had a championship parade since 1973, when Walt “Clyde” Frazier and Willis Reed led the team to its second title. A generation of New York basketball fans has grown up without one, making Thursday’s celebration the kind of citywide moment some Knicks fans have been waiting for their entire lives.
Brunson, named Finals MVP, scored 45 points in Saturday’s clincher to seal the championship. It matchedd Michael Jordan’s record for the most points scored by any player in a title-clinching game.
