All is well inside Madison Square Garden, the basketball mecca where the New York Knicks play. The team has won 10 consecutive playoff games and appears poised to return to the N.B.A. finals for the first time in more than a quarter-century.
But outside the Garden, the police said six people were arrested after the latest Knicks’ home game on Thursday. Brawls broke out and fans leaped police barriers and threw glass as an estimated crowd of 6,000 rang in another victory. Over-the-top fan celebrations are nothing new, but the raucous and occasionally violent scenes outside the Garden have worsened over time.
Now the party is over. New York City officials have canceled the gatherings outside the arena, leaving some loyal fans to rue that a beautiful tradition has been ruined by that ancient sports enemy: fake fans — posers — using the vivid scenes outside the Garden as fuel for viral videos.
Those videos have come to define Knicks fandom online and, increasingly, in person. Five years ago, Sidetalk — a popular cross-platform account specializing in man-on-the-street content — shot a video showing fans outside the Garden celebrating a double-overtime victory against the Boston Celtics too emphatically and crudely to even be linked to by The New York Times. Its crucial moment was its most brief and, perhaps, family friendly: A fan named Jordie Bloom shouted “Bing Bong.”
Before the existence of the social internet, the phrase, which refers to the sound the subway doors make as they close, might have been a shibboleth, an insider slogan Knicks fans traded after wins. But the video went viral. It’s been viewed more than 6 million times on YouTube and Instagram, and “Bing Bong” has become a catchphrase. And while rowdy postgame celebrations are a staple of professional sports, Knicks fans and N.B.A. insiders believe that the video helped supercharge the atmosphere outside Madison Square Garden.
“A lot of people now say its ‘Knicks for clicks.’ Everyone’s going crazy — they want their Knicks viral moment,” said Danny Safdeye, 33, a managing partner at SCL Footwear Group who appeared in the original video.
Mr. Safdeye added that he did not mind the imitators. “We had to walk for these people to run and go absolutely viral and change their lives,” he said.
Mr. Bloom, meanwhile, declined to comment, having leveraged his viral moment into a job with the Knicks’ business operations, which he said would prefer that he not speak on the record.
New York City has long been defined by the image of the crowd, a raw crush of people gathering in streets, parks and thoroughfares. In recent years, that natural tendency has been amplified by social media.
A Union Square “giveaway” planned by a Twitch streamer resulted in at least 66 arrests in 2023; a February snowball fight organized haphazardly by Sidetalk led to the police being pelted with snowballs. In November, fliers inviting New Yorkers to enjoy a cigarette with a 75-year-old social media star named Bob Terry drew more than 1,000 people to Washington Square Park.
The Knicks are part of the trend. As excitement has grown around the team, “Bing Bong” has become a rallying cry for a portion of the Knicks’ faithful — and, over the last two seasons, a major pain in the badge for the Police Department.
Last May, as the Knicks beat the Celtics to progress to the Eastern Conference Finals, Knicks fans took over Seventh Avenue outside the arena, tossing beer bottles and traffic cones into the air and even lighting flares, according to The Daily News. The police shut down subway entrances and threatened arrests in an effort to contain the crowd. Similar scenes followed other wins, ending only when the team was knocked out of the playoffs by the Indiana Pacers.
Then came this season, with the most promising Knicks team of this century making a run. Social media influencers have become bandwagon Knicks fans, capitalizing on how the formula has been shown to draw audiences. That, in turn, has led to grousing online. One Reddit user said last week that it felt like “half of the people” outside the Garden were just there to mug for the cameras.
“Everybody just wants to get a viral clip out instead of actually celebrating the win,” the user wrote, adding, “It just feels fake.”
Johnny Gaffney, an actor and content maker who was present at Thursday’s watch party said that most of those there appeared to be loyal Knicks fans. But he was still stunned by the number of man-on-the-street interviewers farming for content.
“New York energy is the export here,” he said. “That’s what ‘Bing Bong’ showed us. People going crazy, jumping around yelling — to me it’s a little overdone but that’s what gets these clicks.”
He noted that the clips could be profitable. A friend of Mr. Gaffney’s, Luke Manley, appeared in a memorable Sidetalk video. The director Josh Safdie saw the clip and cast Mr. Manley in his blockbuster movie, “Marty Supreme.”
Regardless of the career opportunities, the police were ready to shut it down after Thursday’s mess. The following day, according to a City Hall spokesman, the police informed the Street Activity Permit Office that they were recommending against any more watch parties. That day, the permit office denied applications for watch parties outside of the Garden going forward.
Norman Siegel, a civil rights lawyer and longtime free speech activist, said that the decision was wrongheaded. “You don’t penalize the overwhelming majority of people because of a few people who engage in illegal activity,” he said. “You don’t penalize all those people who are coming to celebrate the possibility of the Knicks winning the N.B.A. championship for the first time in 53 years.”
Mr. Siegel proposed alternative sites. He called on Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the City Council speaker, Julie Menin, to set up viewing screens at City Hall and central municipal buildings in other boroughs. He said he had written to the mayor and speaker’s office, telling them that sports belonged to the people and that the games should be made accessible to everyone, but had received no response.
“We’re going to be in the finals,” Mr. Siegel said. “We should all share it together.”
The Knicks are expected to host alternative watch parties at Radio City Music Hall and Brooklyn Bowl for a potential series-clinching Game 4 against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday.
A City Hall spokesman declined to comment on Mr. Siegel’s proposal.
The Knicks themselves are also staying mum. Jalen Brunson, the team’s star guard, was asked after Game 3 whether he wanted the Police Department to reconsider canceling the watch party. He took a long pause and exhaled audibly.
“That’s a tough one,” he said. “I’ll come back to you on that one.”
Kirsten Noyes and Georgia Gee contributed research.
Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in the New York region for The Times. He is focused on political influence and its effect on the rule of law in the area’s federal and state courts.
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