President Donald Trump confirmed he will attend Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Monday at Madison Square Garden, but said he doesn’t have much sympathy for ordinary basketball fans who can’t afford sky-high ticket prices to do the same.
“They can watch it on television,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Friday as he flew to Wisconsin for an event with farmers, after he was asked about tickets that have climbed as high as $8,000 each when the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs square off in Manhattan for the first time in the series.
“It’s sorta semi-free to watch it on television,” the president added. “That’s the way life goes.”
Trump further noted that if the Knicks weren’t successful — as they haven’t been most seasons since last advancing to the finals in 1999 — “you could go very easily.”
The president of course doesn’t have to purchase tickets to attend major sporting events. Trump has been to a lot of them in his second term, including the 2025 Super Bowl, Daytona 500 and Ryder Cup.
But a centerpiece of his reelection campaign was a promise to tame inflation and bring down the price of groceries and other cost-of-living essentials. He has increasingly come under pressure to make good on that pledge as November midterm elections draw nearer — and as the war in Iran has caused gas prices to spike and global commodities markets to wobble, raising new fears about inflation and the strength of the U.S. economy.
A longtime Knicks fan, Trump said on Air Force One that he watched Game 1, which New York won 105-95 in San Antonio. “I think the Knicks have an amazing team the way they played,” he said.
“Started off slow and it just got stronger and stronger,” Trump said of Game 1. He pointed to Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns when asked to name his favorite player on the team.
Trump was also asked about Spurs star Victor Wembanyama having stood with his arms crossed for the national anthem before Game 1. That touched off a conservative firestorm online, even though Wembanyama is French, meaning his country’s anthem wasn’t being played.
Trump was complimentary of Wembanyama, saying that he “looks like he’s gonna be a great player.” But he ducked a chance to weigh in on the national anthem controversy, suggesting he’d not seen Wembanyamba’s crossed arms.
“Is that what he did? What did he mean by that?” Trump asked, before recommending that reporters seek the answer from Wembanyama himself.
Trump confirming his attendance for Game 3 follows NBA Commissioner Adam Silver saying on Wednesday that a presidential appearance at a finals game might be unifying in “our increasingly divided society.”
“It creates a sense of connectivity among people,” Silver said. “It creates a sense of belonging, and I feel that every day.”
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Weissert reported from Washington.
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An earlier version of this story said the Knicks were last in the NBA Finals in 1994. The last year the team competed in the Finals was 1999.