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NEW YORK — With the Knicks-Celtics NBA playoff series heading to Madison Square Garden for Saturday’s Game 3, the most exclusive club in the city will be inside the World’s Most Famous Arena. Welcome to “Suite 200.”
The almost-mythical private owner’s box is the ultimate perk for media moguls, celebrities, and entertainers. You can’t buy or bully your way past the velvet rope into this exclusive lounge, where celebs let their hair down and mingle with their own kind. The VIP list is carefully curated by the Garden, according to their own inscrutable definition of celebrity status.
Securing an invite depends on your reputation, relationships, and brand value to the Garden, says former Knicks PR chief turned media consultant Joe Favorito. Some come with one of the few dozen camera-friendly seats on the Garden’s fabled Celebrity Row. But moguls prefer to talk business inside the suite because the arena is too loud.
“That’s where deals are done,” Favorito tells Front Office Sports. “Among the titans of industry, deals are done at Suite 200 in Madison Square Garden—and the President’s Box at the US Open.”
The A-listers enter the Garden through private entrances and take private elevators to the space. Before tip-off, they gorge on gourmet cuisine and swill top-shelf scotch and tequila before being personally escorted to their seats. During halftime, and after the game, they return to Suite 200 for more free food and booze.
There are no paparazzi or reporters nosing around. There’s no autograph seeking. The Garden won’t allow its cosseted guests to be harassed, period.
One executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity remembers rubbing elbows with Katie Holmes and Liam Neeson. With the exception of a few women, the executive’s impression was it’s something of a boys club for Masters of the Universe. “There’s a lot of machers,” she says, using the Yiddish term for an influential person.
Another executive who also declined to be named warns the relaxed mood can turn in a New York minute if James Dolan, the Garden’s mercurial billionaire owner, shows up. “There’s Suite 200 with Jim Dolan—and without Jim Dolan,” the executive jokes. “If Dolan’s there, everybody’s on their best behavior. Because they’re afraid they won’t be invited back.”
During the Knicks’ first-round series win over the Pistons, Celebrity Row was peppered with the likes of Spike Lee, Sting, Ben Stiller, Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, and Tracy Morgan, plus new Giants quarterback Russell Wilson and his wife, Ciara, and team legends like Patrick Ewing and Carmelo Anthony.
With the Knicks holding an unexpected 2–0 series lead over the defending champions, the Big Apple has gone hoops-crazy. The Knicks have won only two championships in 1970 and 1973. Game 3 tickets are reaching Super Bowl levels on the secondary market.
On Friday’s First Take, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith called the Garden the best big game venue in sports: “When the Garden’s rocking, it doesn’t get any better.” If New York rolls to its first NBA Finals since 1999, celebs will be “climbing over each other” for tickets, predicts Favorito.
Suite 200 emerged organically under the leadership of former Knicks president Dave Checketts from 1991 to 2001. Over the years, famous guests included current U.S. President Donald Trump and NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw.
The celebrity clubhouse was expanded during the Garden’s three-year, $1 billion renovation from 2010 to 2013, which added plenty of new suites to the arena’s layout. But urban legend has it the Garden doesn’t include Suite 200 in its construction blueprints.
Nothing comes for free at this Eighth Avenue intersection of sports, entertainment, and business. There’s a quid pro quo at work here for celebs.
Those who want the vaunted “friend of the Garden” status are often expected to do small favors such as saying cheese to fans on the jumbotron, shooting promos and supporting the Garden of Dreams charity foundation. Some even participate in player recruitment videos as the late James Gandolfini and Edie Falco of The Sopranos did during the team’s pitch to LeBron James.
Neeson has no problem with the mutual back-scratching. As the action star told The New York Times: “You don’t get something for nothing, and if it helps the Garden if they see someone of my celebrity status—however high or low that is—I’ll put on my best Armani suit and go out there.”
No arena invests more in the care and feeding of its VIP clientele than the Garden. But don’t take its generosity for granted. Just ask Woody Allen.
The Oscar-winning director enjoyed the free goodies in the celebrity clubhouse for years while declining to mingle with other guests. Dolan allegedly banned Allen in 2013, after he chose not to film promotional videos for MSG Network.
It’s not Yankee Stadium, where rich fans are MIA from their field-level seats, while they scarf down shrimp cocktails in the Champions Suite. The Garden doesn’t want Celebrity Row seats empty on TV, so if you’re lucky enough to score a spot, you’re expected to leave Suite 200 and occupy your seat.
Plus, the Garden knows part of the lure for fans paying the steepest ticket prices in the NBA is inviting them to breathe the same rarefied air as celebs like Taylor Swift, Kate Upton, and Howard Stern. (The Knicks’ average ticket price runs $186 vs. $144 for the Lakers and $131 for the Warriors, according to The Athletic.)
“Those seats are coveted. People notice if you aren’t there,” says Favorito.
The Garden declines to comment on Suite 200. But the secrecy only adds to its mystique. Suite 200 may look like any other luxury box. But it’s not about the amenities, the food, or the white-glove treatment. It’s about bragging rights and the opportunity for pampered, but insecure, celebs to reassure themselves, as Frank Sinatra sang in “New York, New York,” that they really are top of the list.
