Knicks tickets for the banner-raising season opener hit the resale market for over $2,000

Knicks fans will have waited over five decades for this night. That’s why it’ll cost a pretty penny to see it live in Madison Square Garden.

Across resale markets, the price of admission for the Knicks’ season-opener on Oct. 20 is $2,000. During a pregame ceremony, they’ll raise their first championship banner since 1973 and receive their championship rings.

The Knicks will host LeBron James and the Philadelphia 76ers at 7 p.m., airing on NBC and Peacock as part of an opening night tripleheader, the NBA announced Tuesday.

“This opening night with the Knicks feels like a marquee moment,” said Matt Ferrel, the head of growth at TickPick. “This feels like a proper kickoff to a pretty major season with the defending champions at home.”

NBA tickets don’t officially go on sale until after the full schedule is released on Thursday at 3 p.m., but opening night tickets are already being sold on the secondary market. Ferrel said the benefit of fans buying tickets in advance on the secondary market is confirming they’ll be in the building.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the cheapest listing to attend the game is $1,999 on TickPick. Meanwhile, SeatGeek’s cheapest seat is listed at $2,203, while StubHub’s is $2,172.

The most expensive listing is for nearly $175,000 in Section 12 on SeatGeek, — an asking price more than $100,000 higher  than the second most expensive listing across those resale markets.

“There's going to be a substantial amount of demand, and I would be interested to see if price maintains sort of this structure closer to the game,” Ferrel said. “But just as a general rule, you can price track, but we see prices generally subside a bit once more inventory comes online.”

While expensive, the cost for opening night right now is less than it was to attend Games 3 and 4 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden.

Once the Knicks took a 2-0 series lead over the San Antonio Spurs en route to winning the series in five games, upper-level tickets for Game 3 were being offered for a low of $5,938 on TickPick 26 hours before the game tipped off. With the Knicks losing Game 3, Game 4 tickets dropped to as low as around $3,000.

The Knicks will play the Spurs on Christmas Day, their first meeting since the NBA Finals. The game is slated for noon at Madison Square Garden and will air on ABC to kick off a five-game holiday slate.

The Knicks’ only other announced game thus far is visiting Mitchell Robinson and the Boston Celtics on Oct. 23 on Amazon Prime Video.

But before then, all eyes will be on the opening night game that could be an Eastern Conference Finals preview.

“LeBron, 76ers, new team, opening night,” Ferrel said. “East Coast rival cities, this could maintain its price levels.”