By Amy Tennery
NEW YORK, June 18 (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to put World Cup matches on hundreds of kiosks across the five boroughs, as the city's leader who ran on a platform of affordability says he wants to make sports more accessible to average fans.
A selection of matches will air on the 55-inch LinkNYC digital screens that are scattered on street corners throughout the city and usually display ads or public service announcements.
Mamdani negotiated with the NBA to put
two games of the NBA Finals on the displays this month, a move intended to allow New Yorkers without access to broadcast TV or streaming to watch their beloved Knicks break a 53-year title drought.
"Whatever infrastructure we have, we should be using it to make it easier to be a part of the game," Mamdani told Reuters on Thursday.
"We are going to be broadcasting a few games to hundreds of kiosks across the five boroughs. And it is going to be an opportunity for New Yorkers to really lose themselves in the World Cup, much of the way that we've all lost ourselves in this incredible run from the Knicks."
Politico previously reported that plans for screening the games were quietly underway.
World Cup games have proven more expensive than ever to attend, as the United States co-hosts the tournament with Canada and Mexico. Dynamic ticket pricing put the games out of reach for many fans, with the get-in price for games in New York/New Jersey and Miami approaching $1,000 in the run-up to the tournament.
The 34-year-old Mamdani, a Democrat who bucked the political establishment and galvanized young voters last year, worked with the New York New Jersey Host Committee to secure 1,000 affordable tickets for New Yorkers to attend the tournament, priced at $50 apiece, with free round-trip bus transportation.
"If we allow sports to become a luxury commodity, we also allow it to become divorced from its roots as also an expression for working people, and not just something to participate in, but also something to be a part of," said Mamdani, who celebrated the Knicks' win at a tickertape parade in downtown Manhattan on Thursday.
"It's time to actually ensure that we don't leave any New Yorkers behind as we talk about sports, and we should talk about it in the same breath as we talk about the things that people also build their lives around."
CHEAPER JERSEYS
Earlier this month, the mayor's office launched a line of New York City-inspired soccer jerseys in celebration of the World Cup. The Brooklyn-made jerseys were sold at cost, according to GQ magazine, for around $50 apiece, compared to the $130 price tag for a USA jersey on offer at a World Cup stadium kiosk.
A spokesperson for the mayor's office said the initial run of 1,500 jerseys sold out and that another batch was in the works.
Mamdani attended the first World Cup game at the New York/New Jersey stadium wearing one of the jerseys and posted a photo of himself in the cheap seats with the caption: "1,000 New Yorkers won our lottery for affordable tickets to the World Cup. Today, we celebrated in the stands for the first NY/NJ game of the tournament. The beautiful game belongs to everyone."
"We want these tournaments, we want these moments to be things that are also within reach for working people and not just something that they're trying to figure out how they can stream," said Mamdani, a longtime fan of English Premier League champions Arsenal.
Mamdani's moves have not been supported by everyone. He found himself on the wrong side of James Dolan, owner of his beloved Knicks, earlier this month after Dolan blasted the mayor and local authorities over security measures outside Madison Square Garden for the NBA Finals. Dolan said the security zone around Madison Square Garden, where a watch party had initially been planned, had turned the streets into "a police state."
But as New York's summer of sports moves forward at full speed, with six more World Cup games to be held in New York/New Jersey and the U.S. Open golf major kicking off on Thursday in nearby Southampton, experts say Mamdani's eye for a popular policy will resonate with many.
"Sports traditionally weren't regarded as something serious," said Lee Igel, a clinical professor at NYU's Tisch Institute for Global Sport. "So if you're in a political position or elected office and started talking about that, come on, it's the rent, right? It's the food on the table.
"Look, anywhere in the world, sports matter to people," said Igel, adding that Mamdani "understands the platform, the power of sport."
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
