While basketball fans watch the NBA playoffs for the sport, data nerds dig into the demographics. Social Explorer analyzes the New York Knicks' and San Antonio Spurs' hometowns. The two teams last faced each other in the finals back in 1999. Data explorations from the 2000 Census and the 2024 five-year American Community Survey (ACS) show unique traits of the rival cities and how they have changed since then.
Which City Cheers Louder?
New York City’s population of 8,483,844 is nearly six times bigger (and perhaps louder) than San Antonio’s population of 1,479,835. As the following American Community Survey maps of the two cities show, the density of New York City makes for big cheers in tightly packed areas. Meanwhile, fans in the more sprawling city of San Antonio could spread their cheers out across a larger territory.
Though smaller in number, San Antonio’s fanbase is growing at a faster rate than New York’s. Between the 2000 Census and the 2024 ACS, New York City added more potential fans in absolute numbers (475,000 vs. 335,000) but San Antonio’s growth rate was nearly five times as big (29.3% growth rate). San Antonio is one of the fastest-growing large cities in the U.S., giving its fans greater momentum.
How Will Fans Celebrate?
New Yorkers are often out and about as they move around the city, especially on public transportation and walking in far greater numbers than San Antonians. According to the American Community Survey, eight out of ten San Antonians drive or carpool to work (down from nine out of ten, according to the 2000 Census). Public transit riders and pedestrians are rare in the Spurs’ hometown (just two percent for each). San Antonio residents might do a lot of celebrating in (and decorating) their cars. Meanwhile, New Yorkers continue to revel on the subways and sidewalks of the dense city, with 44 percent of New Yorkers taking public transit to work and over nine percent walking.
More Purchasing Power?
An analysis of median incomes in the two cities shows that San Antonio is falling behind while New York City has caught up to the national median. When adjusted for inflation, San Antonio started below the national median in 2000 (at $68,444 adjusted for inflation) and has fallen further behind (down to $65,056). Its real income declined while the U.S. held roughly flat ($79,369 in 2000 and $80,734 in 2024), meaning households are earning less in purchasing power terms today than they were when the Knicks and Spurs last faced off in the finals. New York City was also below the national median in 2000 ($72,374 adjusted for inflation) but has since nearly caught up to it ($80,483).
Regional Price Parities (RPP) data compares how far a dollar goes in different locations. These figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and measure the price level of goods and services in a region relative to the national average of 100. (The 2023 RPP data is the latest available in Social Explorer currently, and the 2024 data is coming this summer.) When adjusted for the overall price level (RPP All Items: NY 107.6 vs. TX 97.2), the real purchasing power gap narrows considerably — San Antonio residents effectively get more for their dollar. The starkest gap is with utilities — New York state is 46 points above the national average (135.7) while Texas is 7 points below it (92.7). Housing is also dramatically different: New York at 121.9 vs. Texas at 97.4. As American Community Survey data on income and housing show, New York City residents earn about 24% more than San Antonians, but pay 38% more in rent and face home values that are 3.3 times higher. Roughly half of renters in both cities are cost-burdened, spending 30% or more of their income on rent.
New York City edges slightly higher on severe burden (27.5% vs. 25.3%), while San Antonio has a marginally higher overall 30%+ rate (50.9% vs. 49.8%). The median rent-to-income ratio is nearly identical — 32.0% in San Antonio vs. 31.3% in NYC.
San Antonio's lower rents are offset by lower incomes, producing nearly the same burden ratio. Fans in the two cities could end up with a similar budget for playoff game snacks and celebrations than the other. (For a deeper discussion of rental costs and burdens, check out the recent blog feature, “US Housing Affordability by State: Who Is Being Left Behind?”)
French Fanbase?
Spurs star player Victor Wembanyama is originally from Paris and has played for the French national team as well as the 2024 French Olympic team. According to the latest American Community Survey data, just 2.4% of Americans self-identify as French (down from 3.7% in 2000). In San Antonio, 1.4 percent of the population self-identifies as French (20,942 residents), which represents a decrease from 2000 when 2% of San Antonians identified as French. New York City is home to 79,348 residents of French ancestry. Unlike the national trend, New York City’s French population percent increased slightly from 0.8% to 0.9% between 2000 and 2024. Because of New York’s bigger overall population, Wembanyama will find four times as many people with French ancestry in New York City compared to his home team city of San Antonio). Will French New Yorkers cheer for their local Knicks or their homeland’s star? Keep an ear out for both “go team!” and “allez!” in the next game.
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