Elmo sparks Knicks backlash after cheering both teams before Finals

Elmo’s attempt at fairness before the NBA Finals backfired fast. The Sesame Street character posted on X and Instagram on Wednesday, wishing both the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs well ahead of Game 1 at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio, and Knicks fans reacted as if a New York icon had crossed a line.

The post was simple: “Elmo hopes both teams have fun!” But in a city where the Knicks were chasing their first NBA title since 1973 and had reached the Finals for the first time since 1999, neutrality read as betrayal. Fans pushed back online, arguing that a character tied so closely to New York should have shown more forceful support for the team trying to end a 52-year championship drought.

Elmo tried to cool the backlash with a punny follow-up: “KNICKS that last message! Elmo didn’t mean to SPUR you on!” That only underscored how quickly a playful post had become a civic loyalty test. The anger was not limited to ordinary fans. The official Knicks Wall account piled on, Wendy’s joined the online pileup, and the New York City Department of Transportation answered with a photo from the 2019 ceremony that officially renamed a stretch of West 63rd Street and Broadway as Sesame Street for the show’s 50th anniversary, with Elmo in attendance.

Sesame Street’s New York roots gave the whole dispute extra bite. The show’s fictional world is rooted in Manhattan, and the real-world street renaming was meant to honor that connection in the city that made the brand part of its cultural fabric. The Spurs leaned into the moment too, posting an Elmo plush toy in a Spurs shirt and making clear they were happy to claim the moment for San Antonio.

The uproar also revived memories of Elmo’s 2024 post, “How is everybody doing?”, which drew an enormous wave of replies and became an unexpected internet mental-health moment. That earlier surge showed how deeply the character still resonates online. This week’s backlash showed the other side of that connection: even a cheerful message can become combustible when sports fandom, local pride, and social media outrage collide around New York’s most emotionally loaded team.