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Knicks Championship Parade: Everything to Know About Attending Event, TV Info, Route Map

The parade will take the Knicks from Battery Park up Broadway through the Canyon of Heroes to City Hall, where they will receive keys to the city.
Dan Lyons|
After winning the NBA Finals in San Antonio on Saturday, the Knicks will celebrate the championship with a parade in New York City.
After winning the NBA Finals in San Antonio on Saturday, the Knicks will celebrate the championship with a parade in New York City. | Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

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New York Knicks

The Knicks defeated the Spurs in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday, 94–90, to take the series 4–1 and capture the franchise’s first championship since 1973.

On Thursday, New York will celebrate the Knicks with the first championship parade in franchise history. The city opted against parades for sports titles in the 1970s when New York captured its first two NBA championships. In the years since that ’73 Knicks title, New Yorkers have celebrated with ticker tape parades for the New York Yankees (’77, ’78, ’96, ’98, ’99, 2000); New York Mets (1986); New York Rangers (1994); New York Giants (2008, ’12); the United States women’s national soccer team (2015, ‘19); the New York Liberty (2024) and Gotham FC (2025).

As such, this might not be a familiar situation for every New York sports fan out there. When will the Knicks championship parade start? Where in New York City will the parade take the team? Can we watch the event on television?

Let’s answer all of those questions and more below:

Where and when is the Knicks championship parade?

Jonquil Jones and the New York Liberty go up the Canyon of Heroes as fans cheer during the ticker-tape parade.
The New York Liberty, the city’s WNBA team, received a parade in the Canyon of Heroes after winning the league title in 2024. | Kevin R. Wexler-NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

As is tradition for New York City titles and other ticker-tape celebrations, the parade will wind from Battery Park at the very bottom of Manhattan up Broadway through the “Canyon of Heroes” and finish at City Hall.

The event starts at 10 a.m. ET and is free to attend along the parade route. New York City will, however, be screening attendees, and bags, bikes, chairs, pets, strollers, umbrellas and other items will not be permitted. Parade watching locations will open at 6 a.m. However, some fans appear to have shown up about 15 hours early to get their spots.

The City Hall celebration at the end of the parade is a ticketed event for which the 600 public tickets were available via lottery earlier in the week.

Best spots to watch the Knicks parade

As outlined by NBC New York, those hoping to catch good photos of Knicks players may want to head to the bottom of the parade route around Bowling Green, the subway stop for which can be accessed by the 4 and 5 lines.

The widest, and potentially most comfortable area, along the route may be Zuccotti Park on the west side of Broadway between Liberty and Cedar Streets. The park is just a few blocks south of the Fulton St. subway stop (4, 5, J, Z, 2, 3 lines) as northeast of the Rector St. (R, W) stop. The Wall St. stop will be closed at 4:30 a.m. ET Thursday morning.

For the best confetti experience, head towards City Hall, where the parade will end—though as mentioned above, the actual ceremony requires a ticket. The City Hall subway stop, however, will also be closed on Thursday morning before the viewing pens open.

When will the parade end?

While there is no official end time listed for the event, the live MSG Networks broadcast is slated for 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. ET, giving a fair estimate of when festivities will conclude.

Knicks parade route map

The City of New York has provided a map showing the parade route and access points along the Canyon of Heroes.

How to watch, stream the Knicks championship parade

MSG Networks, the local television network affiliated with the franchise, will some exclusive content for their live television broadcast of the parade. MSG’s broadcast is also available to stream on the Gotham Sports app. Via James L. Edwards III of The Athletic:

“MSG Networks and The Gotham Sports App will feature live coverage of the ticker-tape parade and City Hall ceremony celebrating the New York Knicks 2026 NBA Championship on Thursday,” the network announced in a release. “The exclusive broadcast will include thorough coverage before, during and after the parade and City Hall ceremony.

“MSG Networks premium placement across floats will include interviews with Knicks players and alumni, exclusive footage of the team, coaches and additional VIPs, and varying camera perspectives throughout the event. At City Hall, the ceremony will be aired in full—capturing remarks from key speakers—and the presentation of the keys to the city.”

CBS, NBC, ABC, My9 and SNY will also broadcast the event. Additionally, the mayor’s office will stream the event on its website, Facebook, X and YouTube.

Alicia Keys is set to perform at the ceremony

Singer and songwriter Alicia Keys during game two of the 2024 WNBA Semi-finals at Barclays Center.
Alicia Keys will perform at the Knicks championship celebration at City Hall Thursday. | Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images

Alicia Keys—a native New Yorker who, with Jay-Z, wrote one of the city’s enduring modern anthems in “Empire State of Mind”—is set to perform during the City Hall ceremony, owner James Dolan said during an appearance on Fox 5’s Good Day New York. He does not expect Jay-Z, who previously owned a small share of the rival Nets, to appear.

Keys confirmed her part of the celebration during a FaceTime call with Knicks forward and NBA Finals hero OG Anunoby Wednesday.

New York mayor Zohran Mamdani will present his first keys to the city to the Knicks

Mamdani told Fox 5 about the special keys, the typeface of which was designed by famed New York typographer Tobias Frere-Jones, bringing them in line with the design used by the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, NYU, the Port Authority, NYCFC and other institutions around the city.

Knicks fans are in for an unforgettable parade day on Thursday afternoon.

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Dan Lyons
DAN LYONS

Dan Lyons is a staff writer and editor on Sports Illustrated's Breaking and Trending News team. He joined SI for his second stint in November 2024 after a stint as a senior college football writer at Athlon Sports, and a previous run with SI spanning multiple years as a writer and editor. Outside of sports, you can find Dan at an indie concert venue or movie theater.

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