{"id":264596,"date":"2026-06-12T16:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T16:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/264596\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T16:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T16:26:08","slug":"knicks-owner-james-dolan-loses-battle-with-nyc-mayor-zohran-mamdani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/264596\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks owner James Dolan loses battle with NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Knicks<\/a> are up 3-1 in the NBA Finals after hosting the San Antonio Spurs<\/a> for Games 3 and 4 and splitting the homestand. Unfortunately, much of the discourse surrounding the game was dominated by matters unrelated to basketball, namely United States President Donald Trump, New York Knicks owner James Dolan, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.<\/p>\n

Trump, somewhat controversially, attended Game 3 in Madison Square Garden, taking the game in from a suite and making history as the first sitting president to attend the WNBA Finals. The President\u2019s attendance led to increased security around the venue, as well as the cancellation of watch parties outside of the arena, as has been the norm during New York\u2019s impressive playoff run.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

However, Game 4\u2019s watch party outside of MSG was also cancelled, despite Trump not attending. Dolan said that the onus of the blame for the cancellation was on Knicks mayor Zohran Mamdani and NYPD Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t want the celebration. I can\u2019t tell you why they don\u2019t want the celebration, right? I\u2019m not sure they know why they don\u2019t want the celebration, but they clearly don\u2019t want it,\u201d Dolan said ahead of Game 4.<\/p>\n

Mamdani refuted Dolan\u2019s claims, asserting that Madison Square Garden requested a permit<\/a> for a watch party of up to 999 people and that the permit was granted, implying saying that the watch party\u2019s cancellation was solely at Dolan\u2019s discretion.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Mamdani got the last laugh, as noted by business analyst Aakash Gupta, when he pulled off broadcasting the game for free on public digital screens<\/a> across New York City.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NBA just did something leagues almost never do: side against one of its own owners, in his own market, during the Finals,\u201d Gupta posted on X.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cLive broadcast rights are the most protected asset in sports. Disney and friends paid $76B in the latest media deal partly for moments exactly like this. Bars need licenses just to show games. Yet within hours of James Dolan pulling the plug on the watch party outside his own arena, the league cleared New York City to stream Game 4 free on public street furniture.<\/p>\n

\u201cDolan\u2019s stated reason for canceling: a 999-person cap was an insult when \u2018we\u2019re about millions of people.\u2019 So the city took him literally. LinkNYC runs roughly 2,000 kiosks across the five boroughs, built on the corpse of the old payphone franchise. Dolan controls the Garden. The city controls every sidewalk around it. One detail makes the whole thing sting. MSG requested the 999-person permit itself, then canceled when it was approved. Owners win these standoffs when they own the only screen in town. Dolan just found out the city has two thousand of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Ultimately, if the Knicks can win one of the next three games and win the franchise\u2019s first title in 53 years, the vibes in New York may be so good that Mamdani and Dolan bury that hatchet and celebrate. However, as NBA legend Kobe Bryant<\/a> famously said, \u201cthe job\u2019s not finished.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Knicks owner James Dolan loses battle with NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a> appeared first on The Comeback: Today\u2019s Top Sports Stories & Reactions<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Knicks are up 3-1 in the NBA Finals after hosting the San Antonio Spurs for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[44600,102538,102539,222,9,24,1104,56,63,65,64,896,9138,89310,82],"class_list":["post-264596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-james-dolan","tag-knicks-owner","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-madison-square-garden","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-watch-parties","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264596","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=264596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}