New York City has always been a hot-ticket town. Once upon a time it was an orchestra seat at the musical “Hamilton,” a Saturday night reservation at Nobu or the first spot in line for a fresh-baked Cronut. But no ticket in the city is hotter right now than a courtside seat for the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
It was already nearly impossible to get any ticket to a home game in the N.B.A. finals against the San Antonio Spurs, with even the nosebleed seats starting at just under $2,000 per seat. Getting a spot right on the floor? For regular folk, that requires money, but for those at the intersection of superstar and superfan, courtside seats are most often a gift from the Garden gods.
Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Tracy Morgan and Chris Rock are perennials. Timothée Chalamet and his girlfriend, Kylie Jenner, in Instagram-worthy Knicks ’fits are as much a feature of a game as a Jalen Brunson jump shot. And, as always, there is Spike Lee — but unlike many high-wattage spectators, he buys his tickets himself. (That fact comes in handy when he wants to express displeasure with his beloved Knicks; if you want to stay installed for free in the front row, you have to be polite to your host.)
How to get access to these very few prime seats — those spots close enough to the hardwood to risk being bowled over by OG Anunoby diving for a loose ball — is information that the Garden appears unwilling to share. (Multiple requests for comment via email, text message and phone were not returned.)
But with the Knicks on an improbable and magical run — the team has won 11 straight games and is in the finals for the first time in 27 years — the mystique of the courtside seat has re-emerged.
Interviews with past floor seat recipients, as well as those previously in charge of stewarding these New York City crown jewels, reveal a calculation, always approved by James Dolan, the team’s owner, that privileges the famous fan over the mere celebrity. They must, above all else, love the Knicks.
“You can’t show up courtside and be a fan of the San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder,” said Joe Favorito, a former vice president of public relations for the Knicks during the fallow years of the early 2000s. “You have to take care of people who have real loyalty.”
But, as nothing in this city is truly free, celebrities graced with a courtside seat make the tacit bargain to have their likeness shared on the Jumbotron and in broadcasts. They also return the favor, supporting the Garden when it calls. Edie Falco, a courtside fixture, reprised her “Sopranos” role with James Gandolfini, for example, in a video that was apparently made to try to persuade LeBron James to sign with the team.
During moments of Knicks fever, dealing with demands for floor seats can be a real challenge, said Chris Weiller, the head of communications for the Knicks from 1996 to 1999, the last year the team made the finals. For some big entertainers, even a courtside seat on the baseline under the net can feel like a slight.
“You don’t have courtside tickets for everybody,” Mr. Weiller said, “but everyone feels they should be courtside.” Ultimately, where they are seated comes down not to star power but to demonstrated team loyalty, he said. “How deep a fan you are has a lot to do with it.”
A number of courtside seats are owned by Hollywood agencies and corporate sponsors, to be doled out to favored clients. Mr. Weiller said he spent so much of his time handling these arrangements that by the end of his tenure, the Garden had created a full-time job just to take care of such special guests.
Crucially, Mr. Weiller points out, a spot near center court is a privilege, not a right. A celebrity who fails to show up or gives away a prized ticket is unacceptable, he said. (To prevent such a transgression, in his day tickets were handed off directly to the sitter right before the game, he said.)
This appears to hold true even in less celebrity-dense markets. Last month, the rapper and Knicks booster Fat Joe said he had his courtside seats at Cleveland’s Rocket Arena revoked. In an interview on ESPN, he said he believed it was because he would be rooting against the Cleveland Cavaliers. “Once they found out it was superfan Fat Joe, they was like, I can’t sit courtside,” he said. “New York Knicks fans can’t sit courtside.”
According to the Cavaliers, the singer improperly obtained his tickets, but the team did not specify how. “Playoff courtside seating is governed by a specific agreement that prohibits the resale or transfer of tickets without approval,” the Cavaliers said in a statement.
All the celebrity goings-on are beside the point for one of the most prominent of their number: Mr. Lee, the director and Knicks institution, who said in an interview that he has managed to avoid the shenanigans by buying season tickets ever since May 13, 1985 — the day after the Knicks selected Patrick Ewing in the draft. “As soon as I saw it on television, I jumped on the subway, got out at the Garden, slept on line overnight,” Mr. Lee said. “I got my season tickets.”
Mr. Lee said he started watching games with his father in the nosebleeds, once called the “blue” section: “They’re painted blue because you were in heaven,” he said. Today he sits courtside on his own dollar, beholden to no one. (He declined to say how much he pays.)
“All I know is I love basketball,” he said. “And I love sitting where I love sitting.”
Sarah Maslin Nir is a Times reporter covering anything and everything New York … and sometimes beyond.
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