Knicks players won’t be the only people traveling from New York to San Antonio for Game 5 of the N.B.A. finals on Saturday. The team will be joined by thousands of fans from the New York area — so many, in fact, that New Yorkers in the arena may outnumber Texans, according to four ticket resale companies.
People who pay attention to such matters describe this possibility as absolutely bonkers.
“It is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before,” said Matt Ferrel, a vice president of TickPick, a resale ticket site.
With around 24 hours to go before tipoff, TickPick reported that people from New York and New Jersey had purchased 48 percent of the tickets sold on the site for Game 5, based on ZIP codes attached to the credit cards used to make the purchases, said Jonathan Gluskin, a spokesman for the company. The ticketing platforms StubHub, SeatGeek and Vivid Seats each said that New York-area fans accounted for between 36 and 40 percent of Game 5 ticket sales on their platforms.
Even if New Yorkers don’t occupy a majority of seats, it appeared on Friday night that Spurs fans might be outnumbered at Frost Bank Center in San Antonio. Less than 20 percent of tickets for Game 5 on TickPick, StubHub and SeatGeek were purchased by people with Texas-based credit cards, the companies said. Fans from California and Florida together account for 15 percent of the Game 5 tickets TickPick has sold, Mr. Gluskin said.
“It looks like San Antonio might effectively become New York City’s sixth borough on Saturday,” said Jack Sterne, a spokesman for StubHub.
When fans travel to dominate an away arena, it’s usually a short drive from home, said Margaux Elias, a spokeswoman for SeatGeek. Chicago Bulls fans have no trouble driving 90 miles north to harass supporters of the Milwaukee Bucks; booing the Detroit Pistons is as easy as a five-hour round trip for fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Frost Bank Center sits 1,800 miles from Madison Square Garden, a 27-hour drive. A flight would be faster, but by Friday night only a handful of flights leaving LaGuardia would reasonably get a traveler to the arena in time for the game. A Delta flight leaving LaGuardia at 6 a.m., with a leisurely layover in Atlanta, would cost $703, according to Flights.com.
For Knicks fans, that might be the best deal of the finals. This month, the cheapest seats for a Knicks game at the Garden were selling for about $8,000 apiece. Compare that with the going rate in San Antonio, where on Friday afternoon the average Game 5 ticket cost $2,372, said Julia Young, a spokeswoman for Vivid Seats.
And considering what they’ll pay at the Garden if the Spurs push the series to a Game 6, Mr. Ferrel said, “These fans also know they’ll get a relative bargain.”
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