The day after the Knicks forward OG Anunoby’s winning tip-in against the San Antonio Spurs sent millions of New Yorkers into euphoria, employees at a baby formula company started discussing what it could mean for their business.
The company, Bobbie, is not based in New York. And it has no connection to basketball. No matter.
“If the entire country is excited about the Knicks, then we’re going to talk about the Knicks,” said Angela Hanks, the company’s social media lead.
Bobbie decided to play with the cheeky idea that big sporting events lead to baby booms nine months later, and created a list of baby names written in a notes app. Names like OG, for Mr. Anunoby; Jalen, for the Knicks star Jalen Brunson; and Townsend, for the center Karl-Anthony Towns. The post got 500 percent more engagement than one of the company’s typical Instagram posts.
Bobbie is one of many brands that have attached themselves to the Knicks during the team’s championship run — posting memes, changing their avatars to blue and orange, and cheering the team in their social media captions.
Some of these companies are national brands based in New York. Others simply saw an opportunity to be part of a trendy cultural moment. The Knicks have become a shared language, generating a level of relevance that had been missing from the National Basketball Association in recent years.
The Knicks’ surging popularity has been amplified not only by the team’s play but by its following among celebrities like Taylor Swift and Timothée Chalamet.
This year’s finals were the most-watched on television since 1998, the year Michael Jordan won his last championship, with an average of 20.6 million viewers. Championship merchandise sales set a record across sports for Fanatics, the league’s merchandise partner.
On social media, posts about the championship series generated 15 billion views, three times as many as last year’s finals between the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder.
“Our engagement stats are off the charts on anything Knicks related at this time,” said Doug Sweeny, chief marketing officer for Oura, a maker of wearable fitness devices.
Oura is an official Knicks sponsor. But many of the brands producing Knicks-related content have no relationship with the team, like Chili’s, Hill House and the chickpea pasta company Banza.
Several brands, like the probiotic soda company Poppi and the diaper brand Coterie, posted riffs on a viral poem by a Knicks fan: “My mayor is Muslim, my bagel is Jewish, my Christian’s Dior, Knicks in four.” (They adjusted the poem to end with “Knicks in five” once the Spurs won Game 3 of the best-of-seven series.)
Poppi is based in Austin, Texas, about a 90-minute drive from San Antonio, and has a sponsorship deal with the Los Angeles Lakers.
“This was more following the community where they’re at,” said Sophia Sesto, the company’s vice president of culture. “It was zeitgeist-driven and driven by the fandom.”
Coterie, which was founded in New York, brainstormed variations of the poem in its internal communication channels. Its post read: “My baby dry, their diaper Coterie, the game, live, Knicks in five.” It got four times as much engagement as the company’s average post.
“Over 43 percent of our new customers come from word of mouth, so the kind of shareability that goes into some of this engagement is actually really powerful,” said Brittany Deems, Coterie’s senior director of brand.
The cosmetics brands Milk Makeup and Glossier used Knicks-related content to emphasize their New York roots. New York-forward branding works with Glossier customers who aren’t in New York, said Nicole Solórzano, the company’s chief marketing officer.
“New York for us is a state of mind,” Ms. Solórzano said.
Being a New York brand is part of what made the Knicks’ story explode, said Beth Egan, a professor of advertising at Syracuse’s Newhouse School. She said the team’s underdog story and penchant for comebacks also resonated broadly.
“But I think more importantly, there’s so little today in this country that’s not politicized,” she said. “Brands have to be so careful about what they talk about these days. It’s a story that seemed to warm the hearts of everyone, so it was easy for brands to get on board.”
Still, not everyone loves the Knicks.
Duolingo, a language-learning app with a sassy green bird as its logo, learned this fact when it ran a “Knicks in four” post. The team lost the next game, and Spurs fans flooded the comments.
“We got a ton of engagement after that game was over basically saying, ‘Well, this didn’t age well,’” said Kat Chen, Duolingo’s senior director of brand managing, who added that the Knicks references were guided by fans in their New York office. “And we pinned a comment that said, ‘Knicks in five.’ You know, we’re not bandwagon fans.”
After the Knicks won Game 4 on Mr. Anunoby’s shot, the brand posted an image that said, “Knicks fans tonight,” with pictures of its bird mascot and Mr. Anunoby. Under Mr. Anunoby’s face were words that captured the relief that the most die-hard Knicks fans felt at that game’s end: “Thank you for saving my life.”
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