Editor's Note
Editor’s note: Mamdani’s blessed by good sports fortune
First with Arsenal, then the Knicks, the mayor is seizing the moment.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently announced a free watch party in Central Park for the FIFA World Cup Final. Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
Some nine months ago, the City & State New York team was struck with inspiration. We’d do our first-ever sports issue, timed to publish days before the start of soccer’s World Cup. You didn’t need a doctor to tell you that New Yorkers were going to be struck with World Cup Fever.
What we didn’t know at the time was that the World Cup, the biggest sporting event on earth, would be secondary in New York City to THE NEW YORK KNICKS in the NBA FINALS.
And Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose entire life has been blessed by good fortune, is reaching levels of sports happiness not seen in City Hall since Rudy Giuliani put a Yankees championship ring around his finger, gently whispering “my precious.”
Mamdani’s favorite soccer team, Arsenal, won the league title for the first time since 2004. And the citizen-of-the-world mayor was still walking on air when the Knicks punched their ticket to the finals a week later.
While the mayor’s a true Gooner (an Arsenal fan), he’s not a hardcore Knicks fan (a phenomenon that City & State’s Sophie Krichevsky addresses in this week’s cover package). But he has seized on the good vibes. He gathered some kids to sign an executive order extending bed times for the Knicks game. He then watched Game 1 at an uptown bar, making sure the cameras caught his newly endorsed congressional candidate, Darializa Avila Chevalier. And his social media team gathered heartwarming photos of Knicks fans tuning into the game across the city.
Things might get harder at Game 3, if Mamdani crosses paths with another politician who knows how to seize the soft power of fandom: President Donald Trump.
But for now? Go, New York, go New York, go.