Two games into the NBA Finals, billionaires and celebrities are going coast to coast — or at least New York to Texas — to watch the Knicks and Spurs battle it out from courtside seats, and they’re paying more than $10,000 an hour to get there.
Big names like former Disney CEO Bob Iger, power couple Stewart Butterfield and Jen Rubio, and Knicks superfans Spike Lee and Ben Stiller were among those who traveled to San Antonio this week for the first two games in the series.
Private jet traffic at Stinson Municipal Airport, San Antonio’s hub for private and business jets, has surged.
On Wednesday, the day of game one, there were 138 arrivals and departures, 18% more than the previous Wednesday, while traffic for the week through midday Friday was up 25% compared with the same period last year, according to data from flight tracker FlightAware.
While the NBA Finals always attract wealthy fans and their private aircraft, the presence of the New York Knicks has fueled an outsize influx of them this year.
The tri-state area, riddled with fans of the orange and blue, is a top market for private jet owners and charter customers, and commercial flights from the region to San Antonio are limited. The team’s first Finals appearance in nearly three decades adds to the draw.
“Given these Finals present the possibility of ending a 53-year title drought, they may mark the kind of special sports occasion people utilize their flight hours for,” a Flexjet spokesperson told Business Insider.
The spokesperson pointed to the 2016 World Series, when demand for private jets spiked around the opportunity to watch the Chicago Cubs end a century-long championship dry spell.
“It’s our time,” Lee said in an interview on CBS ahead of game one. Fans are willing to pay for it.
Earlier in the week, charter flights from New York to San Antonio on private jet marketplace XO started at about $45,000. More expensive planes exceeded $150,000 — and that’s not for a round trip.
Flexjet advertises its rates as starting at $7,000 an hour and rising to $23,000, inclusive of management fees, operating costs, and the buy-in. With the flight between New York and San Antonio lasting about four hours, that’d be at least $28,000.
That’s on top of tickets for the games, which started at $800 and went well into the six figures for games one and three. (That’s a steal, nothing compared to tickets for Madison Square Garden, where nosebleed seats are going for $7,500 a pop and courtside seats were being auctioned off for $500,000.)
For many Knicks fans, the playoffs were reason enough to splurge, with Flexjet owners taking helicopter trips between New York and Philadelphia and private flights to Cleveland for the Eastern Conference Finals. XO saw a 31% year-over-year uptick in flight requests between New York and Cleveland during the series.
Sports are big business for private jets
Sporting events have become big business for private jet operators.
The Super Bowl, F1 races, and The Masters are among the biggest draws annually, with charter and fractional ownership firms hosting special events and offering VIP perks to connect with and market to clients.
“Access to those sorts of events” is “essential” for the type of person who flies private, Mike Francis, Citi’s global head of private aircraft finance, told Business Insider. “Are there more private jets showing up? Yes.”
While many of Flexjet’s owners are local to Madison Square Garden, the venue for games three and four, don’t expect them to drive or take the train home.
Flexjet will have helicopters on call to provide “seamless transport” to and from Midtown.
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