Best-of list · Sports Guide
The best bars to watch NBA games in New York and Chicago. Our editors pick the sports bars where the screens, the sound, and the basketball crowd.
The short answer
8 ranked rooms follow. How we picked is at the end of this guide.
The best bars to watch NBA games share a quality that's harder to find than you'd expect: they take basketball seriously. Not just as a background activity, but as the reason people are in the room. We've tracked down the best NBA viewing bars in New York and Chicago — two cities with deep basketball cultures and enough sports venues that the bad ones get exposed quickly. These are the ones that make the cut.
New York's NBA bar culture is built around the Knicks, which means the good sports bars in the city have been handling passionate basketball crowds for decades. These venues understand what game night looks like — and they deliver it consistently across the 82-game regular season.
How we picked
NBA game nights in a good sports bar have a rhythm that's different from football — faster, more continuous, with the game shifting decisively in the final five minutes in a way that rewards staying engaged throughout. The best NBA bars are the ones where the crowd is invested enough that those final minutes feel communal. Walk-ins work fine for regular season games; for playoffs, book in advance or show up forty-five minutes early. The venues on this list are worth the planning.
James has been watching Knicks games in New York bars since the Marbury era. He considers this formative. He now also covers NBA viewing venues in Chicago and has a consistent opinion about which city's basketball bar culture is superior — ask him after the third round of playoffs.
Last reviewed 2026-04-11 · The editors recheck hours and closures against current local coverage.