Is Kylie Jenner the Knicks Good Luck Charm? An Investigation
Ardent sports fans tend to cling to any bizarre theory that points to a potential win for their team. For New York Mets supporters, the McDonald's Grimace mascot was a good-luck charm during the 2024 season. A common octopus was deemed an oracle during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. And according to some New York Knicks fans, their team's fate in the 2025 NBA playoffs lies in the youngest member of the Kardashian/Jenner empire, Kylie Jenner.
Ever since Kylie began accompanying her boyfriend, lifelong Knicks fans Timothée Chalamet, to this season's playoff games, a pattern has emerged. The May 12 Knicks-Celtics game that Kymothée attended wasn't only where they managed to be captured in the most romantic photo of all time (personal opinion), but it's also the night that the NY team defeated the Celtics 121-113 and advanced to Game 5. And Thursday night, after the Indiana Pacers took the lead in the Eastern Conference finals, Ms. Jenner worked her magic yet again, gracing Madison Square Garden with her presence, and getting a courtside view of the Knicks' 111-94 triumph. Now this situation has some Knicks diehards wondering if Kylie could make herself free for Game 6 on Saturday night.
But not everyone is convinced. One former Knicks player, Chris Childs, told TMZ Sports that the theory is "reaching a little too far." "If anybody is a good luck charm," he says, "it's the players on the court. It's Jalen [Brunson] and Josh [Hart] and all the other guys that are good luck charms because they're the ones that have to get out there and get the job done." But the Kylie-attended game scores don't lie, Chris! She just might be your team's raven-haired, Dilara-clad beacon of hope!
Meanwhile, it seems like Kylie has (totally valid) ulterior motives for rooting for Knicks wins this season. She recently reposted an iconic Sex and the City clip on TikTok, in which Samantha states, "I don't get laid unless the Knicks win." So please, for Kylie's sake, Knicks in 7.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Should Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla worry about Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau's firing?
Should Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla be worried about the firing of New York Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau? The Knicks front office recently came to the decision that it was time to move on from Thibs despite the former Boston assistant coach having gotten New York farther than they have been in the playoffs for the last quarter-century. Mazzulla, for his part, saw his Celtics fall to the Knicks on their way to the 2025 NBA Eastern Conference Finals series many assumed Boston was a shoo-in to make at the start of the postseason. If the now-former Knicks coach is not safe, does that mean Mazzulla could also be at risk of losing his job? Or is this move by New York more indicative of their internal culture and lack of patience, and less of the league more generally? Advertisement The folks behind the "NESN" YouTube channel put together a clip from their "Boston has Entered the Chat" show to talk it over. Take a look at the clip embedded below to hear what they had to say. This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: Should Joe Mazzulla worry about Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau's firing?
Indianapolis Star
an hour ago
- Indianapolis Star
Will small-market Finals bother the NBA? Not necessarily. 'This is the league's future here'
OKLAHOMA CITY – Big stars. Small markets. That's been the verdict on these NBA Finals since the Pacers closed out the Eastern Conference playoffs over the weekend and sealed their place opposite Oklahoma City in this year's NBA Finals. And in the most basic telling, that is an accurate summation of the forthcoming series. But the public's (and the media's) love of easily digestible Nielsen ratings and viewership numbers glosses over what is in many ways a more nuanced discussion. Will Indianapolis and Oklahoma City make for a less commercially successful Finals? Not necessarily. It's important to acknowledge upfront there is some truth to the basic maxims of the TV-market discussion. In most cases, yes, pulling a major audience share like New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles or even Dallas-Fort Worth makes for a better-watched series. That just doesn't paint a full picture, according to Patrick Crakes, a former senior vice president at Fox Sports who now runs his own media consulting firm. 'The NBA Finals is a national event. It's better to have a base from big-market teams, from a mass of viewing, but the whole ecosystem is much more complicated than that,' Crakes said. Think of a television distribution deal as an ecosystem serving three key constituencies: The league (the rights seller), the carriers (Turner Sports, ESPN, etc.) and the distributors (Comcast, DirecTV, YouTube TV, etc.). Those constituencies are concerned with their own self-interests, yes, but in many cases, those interests overlap or align. These deals are also negotiated as large packages, with inventory (games) from the regular and postseasons all bundled together. ESPN/ABC did not secure the rights solely to these Finals. The money culled from the Finals is just a portion of the overall measure of the commercial success of the deal in a fiscal year. Per Crakes, advertising often constitutes approximately 20-30% of the overall financial pie, a meaningful number but not a decisive one. And much of that income that's attached to the playoffs is derived not from the showpiece Finals, but from the early rounds, where TV partners broadcast the largest sheer quantity of games. Yes, bigger markets in later rounds makes a difference, but sometimes not as much of one as a busy, engaging start to the postseason. Good, long series in rounds one and two will fill the advertising-dollars bucket long before the Finals. Short, uncompelling sweeps can leave a hole no big-city viewership or last-minute dramatics will fill. 'Postseason economics, a lot of it gets determined by the first couple rounds. That's where all the inventory is,' Crakes said. There are also headwinds untethered to a market share, or an individual sport's popularity. The rapidly fragmenting viewer ecosystem has prompted small dips in ratings for even America's most popular sports. Consumers no longer need easier-to-quantify access points to live sports like traditional carriers (Comcast, DirecTV, and so forth), with cord cutters eating into wider TV share. More fans come to games via social media, be it through highlights, real-time updates or other links back to the games themselves. There is an extent to which these Finals will be impacted by shifting viewer habits no matter the markets involved, whether it's No. 1 New York, No. 25 Indianapolis or No. 47 Oklahoma City (per SportsMediaWatch). Which circles back to one of Crakes' basic points: The Finals can also appeal across a wider base irrespective of market size. 'If you think about a total package of how NBA rights work,' Crakes said, 'it's important to keep in mind that small-market finals, like what we're about to see, that feature some of the game's best young players, that are going to be around for the next 15 years, being showcased, is not a bad thing for the league.' Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's star turn this season has included a scoring title, his first-career MVP nod and a center-stage role for the winningest team in the NBA. There has been perhaps no more compelling individual storyline in these playoffs — certainly in the Eastern Conference — than Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton's ascension into the elite tier of the league's guards. Around them orbit meaningful subplots (Jalen Williams' remarkable year, Pascal Siakam's impact in Indy, the dynamism presented by Indiana's backcourt depth, Chet Holmgren's continued development). The sport by nature puts fewer players on the floor, offering a bright spotlight to its stars. And unlike in football or baseball, those stars are often involved in games for long stretches, unfettered by offense-defense swaps or at-bat limits. In many ways it's easier to sell stars in the NBA, so long as they deliver their best. Whether the uniforms they wear say New York, Indiana or OKC, compelling performances from those players will go a long way toward determining the commercial success of the series upcoming. 'This is the league's future here,' Crakes said. 'The Thunder are fantastic. If the Pacers give them a series, my guess is everybody gets interested, even in New York and L.A., and it carries along just fine.' Which leads into the most fundamental determining factor in this discussion: The series has to entertain. Crakes worked at Fox Sports in October 2000, when the Yankees and Mets delivered their famed 'Subway Series." Top to bottom, the company was energized by the prospect of capturing a compelling championship dominating the country's biggest market. Instead, despite the fact that every game was decided by one or two runs, national interest never materialized. The favored Yankees eased to a 4-1 series win in front of a national audience that delivered what was at that time the lowest-rated World Series in history. 'The thing was a giant dud, because the rest of the America (wasn't interested),' Crakes said. 'You can be the dog that caught the car when you wish for these things.' Which means, of course, the same can be said in the opposite direction. Oklahoma City and Indiana have been, across the season's final months, arguably the two best teams in the NBA. Their records since Jan. 1 are first (Thunder) and fourth (Pacers) in the NBA. The Thunder finished with the league's best record and, while Indiana's path might have been smoothed slightly by Boston's bow-out, by almost any measure the Pacers have been playing championship-level basketball for five months. If that continues in this series — if Indiana can stand toe-to-toe with Oklahoma City and turn this into a six- or seven-game series — it will drive viewership everywhere. Likewise, an uneventful series decided in five games or fewer wouldn't do well, regardless. 'The real component in how successful something like this is, is a seven-game series,' Crakes said. 'That's where the gold is. Game 6, Game 7, and if we get to that with this series, this Finals will do just fine.' Of course, there's an extent to which the Finals will own the airwaves anyway. With football in hibernation, and baseball entering its summer dog days, the NBA Finals are virtually always a ratings winner. Crakes pointed out there can be long-term benefits for the league in small-market success. The last decade has seen Cleveland, Toronto, Denver and Milwaukee all win the NBA championship, strengthening the league's exposure in those markets and suggesting efforts to even the playing field between big- and small-market teams are paying dividends. 'The system's working. The small-market teams are figuring out ways to compete with the big-market teams,' Crakes said. 'This is an opportunity for these smaller markets to continue to have a deeper relationship with the NBA.' As with so much in sports, the impact of this series will be determined foremost by what the NBA makes of it. Does Oklahoma City complete a season of dominance? Do the league's two best teams at this time of year deliver a compelling Finals? Does this mark the transcendent moment for one of the NBA's young stars? All those things can, in the long term, matter as much as raw viewer data. The tendency to compare across years is reflexive. The sport's ownership of the national stage at this point in the annual calendar, though, is undeniable. 'This is going to be a gigantic number,' Crakes said. 'It's going to rate better than anything else, probably anything else at this point in the summer, and the economics are already largely in the bank.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Pete Alonso Inches Closer to New York Mets History After Huge Performance vs. Dodgers
Pete Alonso Inches Closer to New York Mets History After Huge Performance vs. Dodgers originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Two of the NL's best have been battling it out in a four-game series in the MLB this week. Advertisement With the New York Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers being at the top of each of their respective divisions, New York has put on a show at Dodger Stadium. The Mets have gone into Los Angeles with a vengeance after the Dodgers eliminated them in the NLCS to earn their ticket to the World Series in 2024. Oct 20, 2024; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani (17) celebrates on the field after defeating the New York Mets in game six of the NLCS for the 2024 MLB playoffs to advance to the World Series at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn ImagesJayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images The first two games of the series went to extra innings, with Francisco Alvarez and Francisco Lindor delivering RBI singles to win Game 1, and Freddie Freeman hitting a walk-off single to take Game 2. Game 3 was lopsided, with the Mets dominating in the game with a final score of 6-1. Pete Alonso gets closer to taking the lead on the New York Mets all-time home run list The game was taken over by the Mets in the first inning as Juan Soto scored an RBI and Pete Alonso hit a two-run blast to take a 3-0 lead. Advertisement Alonso would later come up to bat in the eighth with runners on first and second to hit his second home run of the night. His two home run, five RBI game made the Mets first baseman just two home runs away from tying David Wright on the franchise's all-time home run list and 13 away from passing Darryl Strawberry for the lead. With the MLB season just starting June, Pete Alonso will be expected to pass Strawberry on the list sometime this year and become the New York Mets' all-time home runs leader. Pete Alonso's five-RBI night and seventh of the series against the Los Angeles Dodgers moved him into the NL lead in RBI this season. Advertisement The two teams will wrap up their series at Dodger Stadium on Thursday afternoon. This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 5, 2025, where it first appeared.
