Police officers struggle to restrain ecstatic Knicks fans at JFK airport after the 1973 win. Photo via Mental Floss.
In light of the Knick’s recent NBA Championship win, here’s a brief history of watch parties in New York City.
GEOFFREY COBB
Author, “Greenpoint Brooklyn’s Forgotten Past”
gcobb91839@Aol.com
I am writing this piece the morning after the Knicks incredible come from behind win, the greatest comeback in the history of the NBA finals, as the Knicks overcame a seemingly insurmountable twenty-nine-point third quarter deficit. Like millions of other New Yorkers, I am feeling the electric buzz the Knicks win has generated and it is hard to be rational and analytical, but I will give it a try.
I am old enough to remember some of the other great New York City championships. I recall the Mets winning in 1896, the Giants 1990 Super Bowl victory and the 1994 Rangers Stanley Cup Championship, which all sparked massive celebrations, but the Knicks run in this NBA final is a different experience for many fans than previously. For many fans, the great difference is the watch party experience and some of my cherished memories from these NBA finals will be watch party moments, which are a new and wonderful part of experiencing big sports games. In every corner of the city, from huge watch parties in Central Park to bodegas in Latino areas, tens of thousands of spontaneous watch parties have sprung up and become a communal way to celebrate the Knicks.
The term “watch party” was coined in the mid-to-late 2010s, when companies like View2Gether, Rabb.it, and platforms like Facebook launched social-viewing integrations, allowing viewers to enjoy video content together and chat alongside it. During COVID-19, watch parties exploded globally, as a means of fighting COVID isolation. Platforms like Netflix (now Teleparty) and Instagram added co-watching features. This allowed friends physically separated to synchronize video playbacks and text chat simultaneously, making the “watch party” a permanent fixture in the new digital culture. Today, watch parties have outgrown Covid isolation, and have developed into a new form of mass social interaction, spawning large crowds for virtual events such as TV season finales, fashion-week livestreams and live sports events.
Watch parties have grown in popularity here in New York for a number of reasons. When the Mets won in 1986, the technology to project the World Series onto large screens was in its infancy. Fans could also watch all the major sports teams for free on television, but today expensive cable packages often prevent people from watching games at home, making the watch party the sole option. The exorbitant price of tickets for fans of ordinary means with a single seat costing $100,000 a seat also has fueled the watch party boom.
The Knicks unexpected success in the playoffs has spawned the watch party boom. Official watch parties first sprang up outside Madison Square Garden, then at places like Radio City Music Hall, Bryant Park and SummerStage in Central Park. Soon the unofficial watch parties spread all around the town.
The media now spend as much time reporting from watch parties around the city as they do reporting from the game. Watch parties allow fans who could never dream of entering Madison Square Garden to experience the same communal spirit as in the arena. New York can be a lonely impersonal city for many New Yorkers, but suddenly very different kinds of New Yorkers bond at watch parties, breaking at least for a short while the isolation some people feel.
Mayor Mamdani understands this and supported allowing 999 fans to watch on the street just outside Madison Square Garden, but Trump’s visit meant canceling this watch party and moving it away from the garden. The Knicks billionaire owner James Dolan, a friend of Trump, probably does not realize the importance to normal fans of this watch party, so he announced its cancellation ahead of game 4, angering many Knicks fans.
Thousands of the people enjoying these watch parties are not big basketball fans, but for them the attraction of watching the games shoulder to shoulder with fellow New Yorkers in a park or a bar, most of them wearing Knicks gear, and screaming along with them is contagious.
The watch party phenomenon won’t die with the NBA finals. The World Cup has like the NBA finals become an event for the elite, far too expensive for working class New Yorkers. Many fans like me will watch the matches at watch parties, which are destined to become an integral part of sports viewership. In a world of increasing isolation and atomization the appeal of this communal experience is obvious, and it will continue to grow. Long live the watch party and Go Knicks!
