[quote] The surest sign the New York Knicks are in trouble is this: empty seats at Madison Square Garden.

Playing before its first non-sellout crowd at home in nearly a decade, New York came back from a 16-point deficit only to fade down the stretch of a 97-88 loss Monday night to the Milwaukee Bucks.

A crowd announced as 18,100 -- more than 1,600 short of capacity -- watched the Knicks drop to 0-4. New York's sellout streak, which had been the longest active run in any of the four major sports, ended at 433 games.

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Meanwhile, the Toronto Maple Leafs--shockingly--failed to sell out the Air Canada Centre recently. It just shows you, people aren't going to pay to see a bad team play badly.

you should have titled this thread, "knicks admit to failing to sell out garden." i had season tickets to the knicks for 9 years (slowly, ever so slowly, working my way down to the good seats!), and many a night the announcer would come on the p.a. system to proclaim the 110th (or whatever) straight sellout, to an empty house, who would enjoy the joke with a rousing round of laughter!

but it does, indeed, seem the knicks have hit rock bottom, and this non-sellout confirms it.

Well, it's based on tickets sold, not butts in the seats right? I see the same thing happen that Thersis mentions at Dodger games. The Los Angeles Philharmonic used to "paper" the house (give away free tickets) and they stopped. Whole rows of seats would be empty, the atmosphere sucked and the orchestra hated it. They are again papering the house, though that'll stop when the new concert hall opens.

How much are Spike Lee's courtside seats going for these days? Seriously, anyone know? I'm kind of curious.

Looks like Jeff van Gundy left just in time.