76ers try to circle wagons for Game 6 so Knicks fans can't buy tickets in Philly
New York Knicks fans try to distract Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid (21) as he attempts a free throw during the second half in Game 1 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff series, Saturday, April 20, 2024, at Madison Square Garden in New York. Credit: AP/Mary Altaffer
PHILADELPHIA — Before Game 4 of the Knicks-Philadelphia series, a young Knicks fan I know well shared with me his plan to attend the game at Wells Fargo Center wearing a Jalen Brunson jersey.
“That’s a bad plan,” I immediately told him. “Philly fans are hard-core. I wouldn’t antagonize them.”
As it turns out, I had nothing to worry about. The fan called me at halftime to tell me he was sitting in a sea of Brunson and Patrick Ewing and Carmelo Anthony jerseys and everyone was having a great time screaming at 76ers center Joel Embiid.
The heavy Knicks presence at both Game 3 and Game 4 of the series was so overwhelming that Embiid called out Philadelphia fans after Game 4, and the 76ers organization took extreme measures to make it harder for Knicks fans to get tickets to Thursday night’s Game 6.
“I love our fans. Think it’s unfortunate, and I’m not calling them out, but it is disappointing. Obviously, you got a lot of Knicks fans, and they’re down the road,” Embiid said after the Game 4 loss. “Yeah, it kind of ticks] me off, especially because Philly is considered a sports town. They’ve always shown up, and I don’t think that should happen. Yeah, it’s not OK.”
Determined to get their supposed homecourt advantage back, the 76ers’ ownership group along with Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin, a former team minority owner, purchased 2,000 tickets to Game 6 with the plan of giving away those seats to first responders, health care professionals and other Philadelphia-based organizations.
Rubin announced the plan Wednesday in a post on X, saying “We absolutely cannot let Knicks fans take over our arena again!!!”
TNT’s Jared Greenberg reported before the game that the 76ers’ organization “made phone calls, scrambling, to their season-ticket base over the last 48 hours, encouraging them & asking them to show up, be loud, be proud Sixers fans tonight”
A quick glance around Wells Fargo Center before tipoff showed that the 76ers’ efforts might have had an impact. Roughly 15% of the crowd Thursday night were Knicks fans, Vivid Seats’ Fan Forecast projected using proprietary data. What’s more, when the Knicks were introduced, the boos were so loud that you couldn’t hear a single cheer, which was not the case in Game 4.
With their team facing elimination on their homecourt, famous 76ers fans have pulled out all the stops in an attempt to eliminate, or at least cut down, the number of orange-and-blue jerseys in their arena.
Philadelphia native and NCAA championship-winning women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley took to X with this message for 76ers season-ticket holders: “DO NOT SELL YOUR TICKETS to Knicks fans….I repeat DO NOT SELL YOUR TICKETS to Knicks fans!”
Even Julius Erving has gotten involved, asking fans on his X account to “Come out and Support our Sixers on Thursday.”
Philadelphia, of course, is not the first team to take extreme measures to limit the number of fans from the visiting team.
Two years ago, in an attempt to keep from being overrun by rabid 49ers fans in their 2021 NFC Championship Game, the Los Angeles Rams limited ticket sales to buyers from Los Angeles ZIP codes. After being outnumbered by Philadelphia Flyers fans in the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs, the New Jersey Devils took steps to remove all broker emails from their marketing notification and presale lists for the 2012 playoffs.
Currently, the Carolina Hurricanes are trying to keep Rangers fans out of PNC Arena for Games 3 and 4 of their playoff series by using the billing address of a credit card owner to limit sales of their seats on Ticketmaster to those in nearby ZIP codes.
Philadelphia is known as a great sports town that supports its teams, but the situation they face in their first playoff series against the Knicks since 1989 is unique for several reasons.
First, Wells Fargo Center is just 100 miles south of Madison Square Garden via the New Jersey Turnpike. Second, Knicks fans are hungry and crazed from having experienced such limited success over the past two decades. And finally, and maybe most important, tickets at the Garden are so expensive that many Knicks fans can’t afford to see their team in its home arena.
Despite the effort to snap up tickets from Knicks fans, six hours before tipoff Thursday there were still tickets available on StubHub for $143. In contrast, the least expensive ticket for a possible Game 7 at the Garden on Saturday was $479.
Does a supportive crowd really give a team a strong homecourt advantage? According to a study published in 2023 in the Journal of Sports Science, the answer is yes. The study compared the performance of NBA home teams during COVID when they played in crowd-free arenas to the performance of home teams with crowds. Teams playing in front of their home crowds were 15.91% more likely to win than teams playing in a neutral situation.
The 76ers, who could be playing their last game of the season if they don’t win, wanted their fans to come out and represent.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.