The Knicks’ playoff run that ended in a championship and parade is worth at least $380 million to New York City

The Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, the first Olympic Games were held in 776 B.C., James Naismith invented basketball in 1891, and the five boroughs of New York City were unified in 1898. And yet, in the time that’s passed, the New York Knicks had never once had a ticker-tape parade.

Until today.

When the team won titles in 1970 and 1973, then-Mayor John Lindsay passed on the downtown spectacle entirely. The ’70 team got a reception at Gracie Mansion; the ’73 squad got a luncheon and a City Hall ceremony that drew roughly 2,000 people. This year, Mayor Zohran Mamdani had no such ambivalence. Minutes after Jalen Brunson sealed the title in San Antonio last Saturday, he posted three words on X: “Parade. Thursday. Manhattan.”

By 7:30 a.m. Thursday, the NYPD had announced that all viewing pens were full, more than two hours before the first float moved, with subway service suspended south of Canal Street to manage the crush. At City Hall this afternoon, after the confetti crews were already at work, Mamdani explained what the run had meant.

“The Knicks did not just win for New York City,” he said. “They won like New York City. What is New York if not your back up against the wall, a dream that feels just out of reach, a rent payment you do...