Fifty-three years after the Knicks last won an NBA championship, New Yorkers are eager to celebrate the team that unites them all. One local company is helping them wear their fandom and personalities on their sleeves and in their homes.
Bocker Backpages is thriving off the team’s success.
The brand is run by graphic designer Steven Dilakian. He creates his own designs while also working with other artists to sell printed Knicks-themed merchandise from clothing to posters and canvas art that can be customized by fans.
“We go by the illest newspaper in town, but it’s become a lot more than just that,” Dilakian said. “People come in, look at our menu [of] 200 different designs, they get to pick the ones they want, customize the shirts a bit, and we get them out of here happy and ready for the game.”
The brand is not a conventional one.
Bocker Backpages doesn’t have its own physical store, running the business through its website. They plan pop ups strategically and take over local New York City businesses and print everything on-site to reach as many people as possible.
“We try to do pop ups most weekends, especially during the playoffs,” Dilakian said. “Other key moments would be the start of the season or a sort of a holiday cut off … people running around trying to get a late gift.”
Dilakian’s journey as a graphic designer started after being laid off from his public relations job during COVID. He taught himself about physical and digital illustration and wanted to incorporate his personality into artwork.
Luckily for Dilakian, his interests resonate with the others. He blends his love for the Knicks with hip hop music, comic books and movie culture to create artwork that fans enjoy.
The business is only getting bigger. With its growing popularity, the help of artists, such as fellow native New Yorker Tom Sanford, delivers fans the best product possible. Lifesize cutout art of current Knicks and legends, created by Sanford, is at City Hall per the request of Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Some of Bocker Backpages’ work.Photo by Spencer Katz
Sanford is a collaborator at Bocker Backpages and “essentially like a partner in the business at this point,” Dilakian said, and brings out his personality as well.
“Bocker allows me to bring together three of my greatest passions: New York culture, the Knicks, and making art,” Sanford said. “The immediacy of creating something, posting it, and watching the reaction in real time is tremendously exciting.”
The two team up to create Knicks designs and run events across the city. Blending their passions and interests with New York culture connects them to more than sports fans.
“The collaboration works so well because we’re both committed Knicks fans and New Yorkers with a knowledge of New York hip hop culture,” Sanford said. “We have a good sense of what our fellow fans respond to and make art tailor-made for them.”
For Dilakian and Sanford, seeing people walk around in shirts that they designed is special. Whether they see it on a Knicks broadcast or a celebrity’s social media, it helps the artists feel like their work is significant.
Bocker Backpagers designs at City Hall.Photo by Spencer Katz
Connecting with the community and listening to them is crucial for success. Fans offer a unique perspective about being a New Yorker that brings them together and makes the artwork feel representative of their experiences.
“That’s at the core of the brand,” Dilakian said. “We want to have a team of contributors, columnists, comedians, maybe an influencer, that could just put their two cents on what we saw in the Knicks game, in a way that a fan can resonate with, laugh at and agree with.”
With the Knicks back on top of the basketball world, Bocker Backpages is having its breakthrough moment. It has grown from a passion project to a recognizable part of New York’s basketball culture, connecting fans through artwork that embodies New York City.
The Knicks championship presents more than a business opportunity — it provides validation from the community that Dilakian and Sanford built around the Knicks. The goal isn’t just selling their shirts and posters, they want fans to see themselves in the artwork. After a championship run that united the city, there are more stories to tell.