{"id":237678,"date":"2026-05-20T03:39:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T03:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/237678\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T03:39:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T03:39:46","slug":"the-definitive-new-york-knicks-celebrity-row-power-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/237678\/","title":{"rendered":"The Definitive New York Knicks Celebrity Row Power Rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you\u2019re rich and famous, New York City opens up to you. Dinner reservations, backstage at Saturday Night Live, box seats at the US Open, you name it. But one invite is intensely coveted, small in supply and high in demand\u2014and subject to the whims of one single 71-year-old cable TV billionaire. That\u2019s right, you apparently can\u2019t sit courtside at the New York Knicks playoff games in Celebrity Row unless you are personally handpicked<\/a> by owner James Dolan.<\/p>\n

Sure, you might be an A-list celebrity, but at Madison Square Garden, loyalty to the New York Knickerbockers is paramount to all other metrics. Look no further than Gen-X silver screen icon Ethan Hawke. He was a regular sitting courtside, openly trying to flirt with Rihanna<\/a>, but once he started offering some constructive criticism of the front office, he found himself off the invite list.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a Knicks fan for a long time, but I got kicked out of the Garden. They won\u2019t give me tickets anymore. I was really vocal on some talk shows like this, that I thought it was a huge mistake to let Mike D\u2019Antoni go,\u201d Hawke said<\/a> on Bill Simmons\u2019s podcast in 2018. \u201cThey\u2019d always hook me up, and then I called up one time and they said, \u2018That\u2019ll be $7,800.\u2019 I was like, \u2018Why is this the first time you guys are charging me?\u2019 And they said, \u2018You should have thought of that before you went on the Jimmy Fallon show.\u2019\u201d (Vanity Fair reached out to a representative for Dolan for comment.)<\/p>\n

And this intense vetting makes for a hodgepodge of talent from all walks of life. During this remarkable gallop into the Eastern Conference finals, we\u2019ve seen a few incredible lineups of famous fans sitting within sweat-drip range of the starting five. Take the April 28 home game against the Atlanta Hawks, which featured a bruising 39-point performance from Jalen Brunson en route to a 126\u201397 rout. It was hard to pay attention to the action on the court with a Celebrity Row as stacked as this one: Tracy Morgan, Tina Fey, Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet<\/a>, Kylie Jenner<\/a>, Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, Spike Lee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ownership can only curate the Row because influential New Yorkers buy their own tickets, and they buy with abandon. CEOs, bank presidents, art collectors, Hollywood studio heads, rock stars, restaurateurs\u2014the perimeter around the action is often a microcosm of Manhattan power. A year ago, I reported a story<\/a> on the closest reaches of the Knicks arena as an ultimate court to prove you\u2019re the king\u2014with the Delta lounge as the modern day Mrs. Astor\u2019s ballroom.<\/p>\n

But of course there\u2019s always a more exclusive room\u2014and the super-secret celeb-only lounge, with access meted out by the Dolan family, is it. As we enter game one of the Eastern Conference finals, Tuesday night at the Garden against the Cavs, let\u2019s break down the world of high-profile Knicks fans who might be sitting courtside.<\/p>\n

And if you\u2019re willing to accept the seats, you have to be down for anything\u2014including shielding yourself from a toppling point guard who falls down after leaping for a high pass. As Iman Shumpert, former Knicks first-round draft pick, put it recently on a podcast<\/a>, \u201cThis is an appearance\u2014you don\u2019t just get to go to the Knicks game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t get the free tickets for nothing; you better be touchable,\u201d Shumpert went on. \u201cGetting out them dabs, we need them autograph, take them pictures with them kids. Sign them basketballs. Yeah, we need that!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you\u2019re rich and famous, New York City opens up to you. Dinner reservations, backstage at Saturday Night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10095,17,30610,92942,10759,9,24,11,1104,10,19549,319,21537,2041,92941],"class_list":["post-237678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-ben-stiller","tag-culture","tag-jimmy-fallon","tag-john-mcenroe","tag-kylie-jenner","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-new-york-news","tag-spike-lee","tag-sports","tag-timothee-chalamet","tag-tina-fey","tag-tracy-morgan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}