The Athletic bewilderingly celebrates 'Zohran Mamdani sports summer' after New York Knicks win NBA Finals
The New York Knicks won their first NBA championship since 1973 on Saturday night, finishing off yet another come-from-behind win over the San Antonio Spurs 94-90.
Meanwhile, a few weeks ago, English Premier League soccer team Arsenal won that league for the first time since the 2003-2004 season.
Both these teams have star players at the peak of their careers. Jalen Brunson, OG Anunoby and Karl Anthony-Towns starred for the Knicks, particularly in the postseason. For Arsenal, they're loaded with stars like Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Martin Odegaard and goalkeeper David Raya.
You would think, then, that credit for these teams' accomplishments would go to the players, coaches, front and office staff. But that would imply a level of awareness and rationality that many within left-wing sports media organizations simply do not possess.
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Look no further than The Athletic as an example. Out of nowhere, the New York Times-owned outlet posted on X Sunday afternoon celebrating these two teams as being part of a "Zohran Mamdani sports summer." Because Mamdani is a fan of both teams, apparently, and therefore it's his "sports summer" because they both had success.
What on earth?
What does Zohran Mamdani have to do with any of this? Would The Athletic post on social media about a "Donald Trump sports year" if, say, the Yankees win the World Series this fall? Trump has been attending Knicks games since before Mamdani lived in New York, after all.
Even more impressively, Mamdani gets credit for being an Arsenal fan, though he's never lived in the UK. Did he pick Arsenal because he loved a specific style of play, or because of some long-standing connection to North London? Of course not, in his own words, his Arsenal fandom started because they signed some African players in the early 2000s.
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"I came up as a fan in the early 2000s, and it was my uncle who introduced me to the team," Mamdani told Vulture in a 2025 interview. "I was born in Kampala, Uganda, in East Africa, and my dad’s family is from East Africa, and Arsenal was one of the first teams to have a number of African players: Lauren, Kolo Toure, Nwankwo Kanu, Emmanuel Eboue, Alex Song."
This bizarre "celebration" is made even more odd considering Arsenal lost in the Champions League final to Paris Saint-Germain. And the New York Mets infamously went on a 12-game losing streak after Mamdani posed for a photo with the Mets' mascots. Breaking out his trademark fake painted-on smile in the process.
But again, the broader point is this: would The Athletic post a similar celebration with a Republican mayor or politician? Stan Kroenke, the Arsenal owner, has donated to both political parties, but primarily has supported Republicans, including giving $1 million to Trump's 2016 inaugural committee. He's also a billionaire, who Mamdani believes should not exist. Knicks owner Jim Dolan said Trump is a "great guy," and is also a billionaire. Who put money into building his organization.
So Mamdani gets credit and celebration for Arsenal's win, even though the money spent to turn Arsenal and the Knicks into championship-level teams came from billionaires that Mamdani rails against. Perfection. Though this is, after all, the same media outlet that headlined a story, "Donald Trump, James Dolan tried to ruin NBA Finals vibe. The Knicks’ loss killed it."
Somehow Mamdani got none of the blame for that loss, and the story was never updated after the same left-wing writers blamed the "vibes" for the Knicks falling behind by 29 points in Game 4. They won that game, of course. Left-wing sports media in a nutshell.