The New York Knicks issued mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani a “cease and desist” letter for using its iconic logo in a campaign advertisement — and stressed that the team does not endorse the socialist Democratic nominee.
The lefty pol pulled the ad on Friday following The Post’s reporting on the team’s letter, which stated that the promo was “likely to mislead the public into believing that the Campaign is affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by, or in some way connected with the Knicks.”
The ad aired during the NBA team’s season opener Wednesday night and featured an altered New York Knicks orange and blue logo that replaced the word “Knicks” with “Zohran.”
It was also blasted out widely across his campaign’s social media platforms with the caption “This is our year. This is our time.”
Those online ads were all removed as of Friday afternoon.
The team, in the letter obtained by The Post, demanded that Mamdani’s team remove all of the Knicks’ intellectual property from campaign or promotional material.
“The NY Knicks have sent NYC Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani a cease-and-desist letter for using the NY Knicks logo to promote his candidacy,” a team spokesperson told The Post.
“The Knicks want to make it clear that we do not endorse Mr. Mamdani for Mayor, and we object to his use of our copyrighted logo. We will pursue all legal remedies to enforce our rights.”
Calls to the Mamdani campaign were not returned.
Billionaire Knicks owner James Dolan has not weighed in publicly in the mayoral race but hasn’t shied away from dipping his toes into the politics game.
The Madison Square Garden CEO revealed recently he was secretly backing independent candidate Diana Florence’s bid for Manhattan district attorney in a bid to oust lefty prosecutor Alvin Bragg.
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