Knicks fans skip sky-high playoff ticket prices – by making a fast break to games outside NYC

These tickets for “cheap” seats are giving fans a nosebleed.

Some hardcore New York Knicks fans are skipping out on astronomical ticket prices at Madison Square Garden and making a fast break to watch the team on the road at a fraction of the cost.

Tickets to the Round 1 playoff match against the Atlanta Hawks at MSG went up for eye-watering prices, including upwards of $350 with fees for seats in the nosebleed 400 sections — so high that some fans were booking flights to Georgia and still saving out.

“I try to go to some MSG games, but I get priced out unless they’re last-minute deals,” said Brooklyn-born Knicks fan Alan Fong, who shelled out a slightly marked down $300 for a nosebleed ticket an hour before tip-off for the Knicks’ Game 1 playoff match against the Atlanta Hawks at home.

Fong said traveling is part of his routine now, after he made the trek to watch the Knicks play at Memphis in regular season matchup, and found that round-trip airfare, a hotel and tickets behind behind the bench for four people were less than what it would cost for comparable seats back home.

“Even with the airfare and hotel factored in, we would never be able to get tickets [behind the bench] at the Garden,” Fong said.

The lifelong fan admitted he’s already considering another jet-set adventure to cheer on his team — for the right price.

“I was looking at some tickets in Atlanta, and they seem to be pretty favorable,” he said. “If the math all works out, it’s great to be able to support the team.”

Knicks prices at Madison Square Garden surge this season to record prices – with resale values up nearly 20% over last season. Games in Atlanta had a “face value” of less than $100 per seat with cheap flights for under $80 bucks.

The Round 1 nosebleed playoff prices in New York were not only leaps and bounds more expensive than the same games in Atlanta — but about $200 more than what Round 1 playoff tickets were sold for in New York went for just three years ago.

A growing number of fans are trying their luck at out-of-state tickets for playoffs and the regular season as a result of the spike, with entire social media threads now dedicated to the practice.

“It’s cheaper to fly to Denver …. [than] it is to get a decent seat at MSG,” one Reddit user wrote in March.

“I’m flying to the Atlanta game in April for this reason,” one fan responded. 

“My cousin in Orlando sat behind the Knicks bench for $150 during [the] Knicks at Magics game,” another wrote. “Some nights, the cheapest tickets in MSG are $150.”

“There’s definitely more out-of-towners that are buying more out-of-town tickets on the resale markets,” Ticket Policy Forum executive director Brian Berry, whose coalition represents resell giants like StubHub, SeatGeek and Vivid Seats, told The Post.

“It’s not at all uncommon for fans of hometown teams to have to travel to score a better deal,” he said, adding the game schedule, the city and the fan base can all determine whether a particular game is priced higher or lower than average.

Tickets for an April 9 game against the Celtics were priced at a record-setting $1,175 a pop, according to Yahoo Sports.

And on Tuesday, standing room tickets to a day-of game hovered around $376, while courtside seats went for a reported $46,500, per Tick Pick.

“I really stopped going,” Fong said of his beloved team’s games, largely due to astronomical pricing.

“I used to go to games, probably before 2010 … when you could get something for under $100,” he said. “But then they started getting really good, I think a little bit after the pandemic, and that’s when you saw the tickets really sort of creep up,” he said.

“It’s definitely much harder to get reasonable tickets.”

Berry noted that, since the pandemic, ticket sellers have been “experimenting” with price increases to see how much fans are willing to pay — including for this year’s Knicks season tickets, which had fans “nearly fall out of their chairs,” he said.

The price of sports ticket prices overall skyrocketed 25.1% from October 2022 to October 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index, tracking well above CPI’s overall inflation of 3.2%.

Sports ticket prices rose another 21.7% between May 2023 and mid-2024 – the biggest jump of any BLS-tracked category during that period.

“The simple fact is New York prices on everything are always more expensive than Atlanta,” an MSG source familiar with the matter told The Post. “We understand that our tickets are high, we get that, but there’s a lot of costs that are associated with with running an NBA team at this point.”

The source noted the team is taking significant measures to keep ticket prices down, including a new ticket-transferring policy aiming to limit predatory ticket brokers’ ability to resell tickets and drive up prices.

Still, the massive price hikes noticed felt sports and music fans alike have unsurprisingly resulted in the new travel trend, where fans can see a new city and their favorite home team for a sweeter price.

“If MSG made the decision to price out some of its fans, fans know that the Knicks will play elsewhere,” Berry said.

New York fans’ latest jet-setting trend is indicative of what should be a “wake-up call” to the MSG box office, he said.

“I think affordability is on everyone’s mind,” Berry added. “There’s been a steep increase in tickets at the box office, but events are not selling out the way they used to.

“Consumers and their wallets are answering.”

And it’ll only get worse if the Knicks stay hot — tickets for a possible Round 2 matchup at MSG went on presale for upwards of $500 in the nosebleeds.

An MSG spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.