For Gen Z entrepreneurs, franchising is becoming the new entry-level job

Bang Cookies co-owner Corey Bonalewicz (left) and Gen Z franchisee Kugan Suppiah (right) pose together at the grand opening of Suppiah's store.

Arrow Marketing

• Young entrepreneurs are turning to restaurant franchising as a path to business ownership.
• Millennials and Gen Z value franchise stability and guidance over the risks of independent startups.
• Social media-savvy young franchisees boost engagement and bring fresh ideas, benefiting brands.

When Kugan Suppiah was 24, he wasn't thinking about climbing the corporate ladder. He was thinking about cookies.

The University of Oklahoma graduate spent months persuading his parents to invest with him in a Bang Cookies franchise in Oklahoma City after becoming convinced the gourmet cookie chain could succeed there.

Now 25, Suppiah is already scouting locations for a second store, though he doesn't necessarily see baked goods as his end goal.

"I've always been business-minded, so this was something that I've always wanted to get into," Suppiah said. "I'm definitely interested, down the line, in opening something of my own."

For now, he sees franchising as a way to get there.

He's part of a growing group of young entrepreneurs turning to restaurant franchising as a middle ground between traditional corporate careers and the risks of launching an independent startup.

Franchise brands say they're seeing increased interest from millennials and Gen Z buyers who want the freedom and ownership that come with running a business but value the training, support, and established customer base that the corporate connection provides.

Young entrepreneurs are buying into franchising

"A lot of Gen Z is less focused on following one traditional path and more interested in creating opportunities for themselves," said Ashleigh Ewald, a 23-year-old public policy graduate student and entrepreneur. "The appeal is really about independence and ownership."

At the sandwich and salad chain Chicken Salad Chick, executives say it's seeing a surge in younger franchise candidates, who frequently cite stability, structure, and built-in support as key reasons for exploring ownership. Gong Cha, a bubble tea franchise, said it has also seen growing interest from younger prospects. At 16 Handles, executives for the frozen yogurt chain say more than half of current and incoming franchisees are millennials, including two 30-year-old finance professionals in Brooklyn who opened a location last summer while keeping their day jobs and are already preparing to open a second store.

Andrew Titus, president of United Franchise Group, said the shift is noticeable. Historically, many franchisees were in their 40s or 50s. These days, Titus said he increasingly encounters owners closer to his own age, 29.

"I've definitely seen more and more millennials, Gen Zs getting into business ownership," Titus said. He underscored that franchising offers a level of certainty many younger entrepreneurs find appealing because franchisees receive support, training, and a proven playbook for operating the business.

A lower-risk path to business ownership

For many younger entrepreneurs, franchising is less about avoiding work than avoiding unnecessary risk.

The model offers the opportunity to own a business, build equity, and make independent decisions without having to build a brand, operating system, and customer base from the ground up. For some, franchising is the next step in an entrepreneurial journey that started long before they signed a franchise agreement.

Amaan Bhanji, now 22, began planning his Graze Craze franchise during his senior year of high school. After two years spent finding a location, coordinating a buildout, and completing franchise training, he opened the Arlington, Virginia, business in 2024.

"I knew in my gut that I needed to build something of my own," Bhanji said. "Attending university and working for someone else just did not appeal to me."

Bhanji said franchise ownership offered something he felt he lacked at the time: structure.

"I had no experience with building, opening, and launching a successful business," Bhanji said, adding that collaborating with United Franchise Group, which owns and manages the charcuterie board franchise Graze Craze, offered him the tools and hands-on training to support his venture.

That desire for guidance and support is a recurring theme among younger franchisees. For many, the appeal of franchising is not simply ownership — it's learning how to operate a business while still having the opportunity to shape it.

(From left to right) Corey Bonalewicz, Kugan Suppiah, Ganes Suppiah, and George Kuan pose at the grand opening of the Suppiah family's franchise.

JoJo Cipriano

Suppiah said he was drawn to Bang Cookies not only because he liked the product but because the brand was still young enough for franchisees to influence its direction. He pitched adding a curbside pickup window to his Oklahoma City store; the executives loved it, and Suppiah worked with them to refine its design and marketing strategy.

That kind of involvement can also benefit franchisors. Several executives told Business Insider that younger operators often bring fresh ideas around social media, community engagement, and customer engagement. At 16 Handles, executives said millennial and Gen Z franchisees have been particularly effective at turning online buzz and viral menu items into store traffic.

The next generation of franchise owners

Industry executives say younger franchise candidates are also gravitating toward brands that feel authentic, community-driven, and culturally relevant. Still, there are significant barriers to entry.

Ewald said many of her peers are interested in entrepreneurship, but startup costs remain a major obstacle.

Titus said the high startup costs associated with larger, household-name chains such as McDonald's often put them out of reach for first-time operators, instead pushing many younger entrepreneurs toward smaller, faster-growing concepts with lower barriers to entry and more opportunities to help shape the business.

Bhanji used savings from jobs he'd held since middle school, support from family members, and financing to launch his Graze Craze franchise. It was worth the risk, he said, to have a proven framework to follow while learning how to run a business.

Suppiah sees franchising similarly. Running his Bang Cookies location has given him a crash course in operations, marketing, site selection, hiring, and securing an SBA loan — skills he hopes to apply to future ventures, including potentially launching a Malaysian-inspired concept rooted in his family's background.

Like Suppiah, Bhanji sees franchise ownership as a beginning rather than an endpoint.

"I have many aspirations and am open to continuing with franchise ownership as well as other ventures," Bhanji said. "I'm not closing any doors."

In a generation often associated with side hustles, creator businesses, and multiple income streams, franchising is increasingly being viewed not as a retirement plan or a fallback career, but as an entry point into entrepreneurship.

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South Korea's AI-fueled stock market rebounds to cap a brutal week

South Korea's Kospi capped a roller-coaster week as investors returned to semiconductor stocks.

Chris Jung/NurPhoto/Getty Images

• South Korea's benchmark Kospi index rebounded dramatically to cap a roller-coaster week.
• Chip giants Samsung and SK Hynix powered a Friday rally in AI-linked chip stocks.
• The recent selloff may have helped cool excesses in the semiconductor space, KB Securities said.

South Korean stocks ended a turbulent week on firmer footing after a volatile stretch that underscored investors' sensitivity to swings in AI-related shares.

The country's benchmark Kospi index surged over 8% on Friday before paring gains to close the session up 4.6%, after President Donald Trump said the US was nearing a peace deal with Iran.

The rebound capped a rollercoaster week for one of the world's hottest stock markets. The benchmark index plunged over 8% on Monday as a selloff in US tech stocks rippled through Asia, before staging a sharp rebound and swinging for the rest of the week.

The Kospi finished the week down 0.5%, following a 3.7% decline the previous week.

The selloff hit the South Korean market particularly hard because of its heavy exposure to the global AI trade. The Kospi has more than tripled since the start of 2025, making it one of the world's best-performing — and most volatile — major stock markets.

As sentiment stabilized at the end of the week, investors returned to the semiconductor stocks that had borne the brunt of the downturn.

Seoul-based KB Securities said much of the valuation adjustment in semiconductor stocks has already taken place following the recent volatility.

"At present, however, much of that disparity adjustment has already taken place. This can be read as a sign that overheating in semiconductors has also largely eased," KB Securities analysts Euntaek Lee and Daeun Lee wrote in a Friday note.

On Friday, index heavyweight Samsung Electronics surged over 13% before closing 7.9% higher. Rival chipmaker SK Hynix, meanwhile, gained as much as 9.6% before ending 2.3% up.

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After seeing Parkinson's take his father, this Googler found a new mission: teaching AI to chase cures

Vivek Natarajan, a research scientist at Google DeepMind

Vivek Natarajan

• Vivek Natarajan of Google DeepMind was inspired by his father's battle with Parkinson's disease.
• Initiatives like Co-Scientist and Co-Clinician are pushing medical and scientific research forward.
• Natarajan aims to close gaps between AI's scientific potential and real-world solutions.

Vivek Natarajan is one of the Google DeepMind researchers trying to prove that advanced AI can do more than improve search, ads, and recommendations.

His work sits at the center of one of Google's most ambitious bets: that AI can become a collaborator for doctors and scientists, helping diagnose disease, propose experiments, and speed up the search for new treatments.

For Natarajan, that mission stems from seeing his father suffer. His dad spent 35 years at a widely read Indian newspaper. Then Parkinson's disease began to change him. While Natarajan was completing a master's degree in the US, his father started showing physical and cognitive symptoms, and his mother took on the role of caregiver. Determined to finish his career on his own terms, his father continued working until retirement, before later passing away.

The experience left Natarajan with an urgent focus that has guided his career.

"I asked this question to myself, 'okay, where is AI going to generally have the most impact?' And to me, that answer felt like medicine and science," Natarajan told me in a recent interview. "That was influenced by what I was seeing in my personal life and with my family."

A sketch of Vivek Natarajan as a young boy with his family.

Vivek Natarajan

By 2017, he was at Meta, working in a leading AI lab as deep learning was moving from academic breakthrough to industrial engine. But after watching his father's decline, Natarajan found himself increasingly drawn to a different use for the technology.

He'd been thinking about healthcare since growing up in India, where access to care could shape a family's fate. As an undergraduate, he and a few friends mocked up a rules-based app called "Ask the Doctor Anytime, Anywhere." The technology was crude, but the ambition stuck.

At Meta, Natarajan saw what modern AI could do inside one of the world's most sophisticated technology companies. But he also noticed research from Google and DeepMind pointing in a different direction.

Google researchers were using AI to analyze retinal images and identify disease, while publishing work on breast cancer detection from mammograms. These were narrow systems, but they suggested that frontier AI could be aimed at medicine, not just online engagement.

In 2019, he joined Google after connecting with Greg Corrado, a founder of Google Brain.

"Greg was just starting to put together this team to work at the intersection of AI and medicine, and he told me all about it," Natarajan recalled. "I was excited, but I told him I knew nothing about medicine, and he said, 'just come over, and we'll teach you.'"

Inside Google, Natarajan found a culture that could be both liberating and frustrating. Healthcare did not move like consumer software. Progress depended on earning the trust of physicians, patients, regulators, and policymakers. Scientific rigor mattered as much as technical innovation.

What frustrated him was that Google could publish impressive papers in journals like Nature while seeing relatively few AI systems actually reach doctors and patients.

After settling in, he began focusing on deeper questions: reliability, uncertainty, generalization, and interactivity. An AI system that simply outputs a probability score is not enough for medicine. Doctors need explanations. Patients want conversations. Medicine is contextual and deeply human.

Corrado introduced him to Alan Karthikesalingam, a physician-scientist who had worked at DeepMind and shared a similar ambition. The pair were inspired by Google's biggest scientific breakthroughs, including AlphaGo and AlphaFold.

"I distinctly remember texting Alan like, 'Why are we not doing these kinds of things? What are we doing? We should be having the same amount of impact,'" Natarajan said.

LLMs and dosas

Vivek Natarajan, an AI researcher at Google DeepMind, speaks on stage.

Vivek Natarajan

In 2021, the pair saw an early version of Google's PaLM model demonstrate something striking: it could learn from just a handful of examples. They sensed it could become the foundation for a new generation of medical AI.

Over dosas at dinner in Mountain View, they drafted a proposal for Google Brain's Moonshots program, which focused on riskier long-term bets. More than 50 researchers across Google Brain, Google Research, and DeepMind eventually joined the effort.

The first major result was Med-PaLM. The team wanted to test whether large language models contained useful medical knowledge. Using MedQA, a benchmark based on US Medical Licensing Exam-style questions, they watched performance improve rapidly. Within months, the models moved from near-random guessing to passing-level scores, and eventually to expert-level performance with Med-PaLM 2.

The work helped catalyze a broader push into medical AI. But Natarajan and Karthikesalingam were not satisfied. Passing a medical exam, Natarajan argued, does not make an AI system a doctor.

A Stanford talk

Their next project, AMIE, moved closer to clinical reality. The system was designed to take patient histories, reason through diagnoses, and communicate empathetically.

That work laid the foundation for Co-Clinician, a broader initiative that envisions AI functioning as a collaborative member of a care team, interacting as a go-between with patients and their physician.

Then the focus expanded from medicine to science itself.

In 2023, after Natarajan and teammate Tao Tu gave a Stanford talk on Med-PaLM, Stanford professor Gary Peltz approached them with a question: Could these systems generate scientific hypotheses, not just answer questions?

Many colleagues were skeptical. Hallucinations remained a serious concern. Natarajan and a small group pushed ahead anyway.

The result was Co-Scientist, a Gemini-based multi-agent system designed to help researchers generate, debate, rank, and refine hypotheses.

One of the first moments that convinced Natarajan this system might work came through two professors at Imperial College London, Jose Penades and Tiago Costa.

Those two researchers had spent roughly a decade investigating antimicrobial resistance. They had a breakthrough but had not yet published the results, making it an ideal test case.

The professors gave Google's system the same research challenge. Natarajan's team ran Co-Scientist for several days and sent back the results, expecting criticism.

Instead, Penades demanded to know whether Google had somehow accessed his computer. The results were that good.

Natarajan assured him they were not cheating.

"It's not just that the hypothesis they provided was the right one, it's that they provided another four, and all of them made sense," Penades told the BBC in an interview. "For one of them, we never thought about it, and we are now working on that."

Since then, Co-Scientist has been tested on other problems, including cancer drug repurposing and liver fibrosis.

In the liver-fibrosis project, the system looked for ways to slow or reverse liver scarring. It suggested several existing drugs that might help. In experiments conducted with Stanford collaborators using tiny lab-grown liver models made from human cells, some of those suggestions showed promise, including the FDA-approved cancer drug Vorinostat.

For Natarajan, that's the point of being at Google DeepMind. The company's mission is to build responsible artificial general intelligence. He sees projects like Co-Clinician and Co-Scientist not as a side quest, but as an expression of this mission — a way for general AI capabilities to help medicine and science move faster.

Natarajan is also clear-eyed about the risks. A bad scientific hypothesis can waste months of research. A medical model released too early can cause harm.

Still, his father's illness left him deeply aware of the gap between scientific possibility and real-world treatments — and the urgency to close this as quickly and safely as possible.

"I think we now have a line of sight towards understanding mechanisms of diseases very broadly," Natarajan told me. "Hopefully, we can put all of these learnings to work and really help accelerate finding cures for many of them."

Sign up for BI's Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.

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Palantir CEO says AI companies 'don't understand how unlikeable they are'

Palantir CEO Alex Karp said that AI leaders were too future-forward.

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

• Palantir CEO Alex Karp said that AI companies and their leaders don't know how unlikeable they are. "I told them this," he said.
• "Most of them are chillaxing over their latte, reading a report about something that they don't understand," he said on CNBC.
• Karp also bashed OpenAI's new deployment company, calling it a "complete farce."

Alex Karp thinks Silicon Valley's AI companies and their leaders are lacking one key trait: self-awareness.

The CEO of Palantir has an interesting position in the AI boom. Labs like OpenAI and Anthropic are both partners and competitors. In an interview with CNBC, Karp took some jabs at the those companies and their San Francisco-based work culture.

"They don't understand how unlikeable they are," Karp said. "I told them this. I probably shouldn't have."

The AI-pilled are also too future-forward, said Karp, who has criticized the San Francisco tech scene before. The AI labs believe that they "don't have to solve your problem today," because it will be solved tomorrow, he said. "It's largely religious."

Karp also criticized the AI companies' products. He said that they "don't actually work the way" customers expect, and that they're "very expensive."

Sentiment about AI might differ outside San Francisco, he added.

Several tech companies have been embracing the forward-deployed model for AI, including OpenAI and Google. That's a model that Palantir popularized — and Karp said the AI giants have so far done a bad job of it.

"Most of them are chillaxing over their latte, reading a report about something that they don't understand the technical capacity about," he said.

Karp specifically called out the OpenAI Deployment Company, calling it a "complete farce" and an attempt to "replicate Palantir." OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

While Karp said the AI leaders don't realize that they are unlikable, he clarified that doesn't mean he personally feels that way. He shouted out Sam Altman and Dario Amodei as providing "some of the best and most interesting conversations I've had in business."

He narrowed in on Anthropic's Amodei. "He's a very, very important person," Karp said, and "he believes what he's saying."

That doesn't mean they don't still butt heads.

"I believe that we need heaven on earth, not heaven in 20 years," he said. "We disagree on these things."

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'Godfather of AI' Geoffrey Hinton says the war in Ukraine changed his view of military AI

Geoffrey Hinton has changed his view on AI's role in war.

Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images

• Geoffrey Hinton says he has changed his stance on AI's role in warfare because of Russia's war in Ukraine.
• Hinton told NBC News that the relationship between AI and the military is "more complicated" than he used to think.
• Hinton has for years warned against military applications of the technology.

Geoffrey Hinton, the computer scientist often called the "godfather of AI," said Russia's war in Ukraine has changed how he thinks about the use of artificial intelligence on the battlefield.

"I think it's more complicated than I used to think," Hinton told NBC News in an interview published on Tuesday.

Hinton has for years warned against military applications of AI and previously pushed for an international ban on lethal autonomous weapons.

"I used to think that we should try very hard to prevent lethal autonomous weapons, but if you look at what's happening in Ukraine, it becomes much more complicated," Hinton said in the interview.

Hinton said that the pivotal role of drones, including AI-enabled ones, has played in Ukraine's defense against invading Russian forces made him more receptive to the military use of the technology.

"Ukraine is surviving because of drones," Hinton told the news outlet. "If that's what modern warfare is all about, it's very hard to argue that one country should refuse to do it."

While Ukraine has used AI-powered drones against Russian targets, its defense relies on the large and constant production of munitions, including drones that are largely piloted and directed by humans.

Despite acknowledging the value of AI-driven systems on the battlefield, Hinton said he's still uneasy about the technology's role in modern warfare, calling it "a mess."

Combat in Ukraine has fueled visions of future warfare, like machine gun turrets that select their own targets or flying drones that hunt down human beings. By removing human direction and decision-making, AI offers the possibility of killing more people much faster.

As AI capabilities continue to advance, Hinton said the public must stay engaged in the development of the technology.

"The only thing that's going to rein in those big AI companies is public pressure," Hinton said, adding, "I see my mission as educating the public, so they understand the dangers of AI, as well as understanding the good things."

Hinton was unavailable for further comment, his assistant told Business Insider in an email.

Over the past decade, employees at tech companies including Google and Microsoft have pushed back against defense-related projects, including some involving AI.

Last week, President Donald Trump signed a directive aimed at accelerating the development and use of AI for national security purposes.

AI, the National Security Presidential Memorandum reads, "will be among the most transformative technologies to national security in the history of the United States."

"When adopted appropriately, AI can help protect our warfighters during peacetime and on the battlefield, enable precise operations that minimize harm to civilians, and ensure the United States continues to maintain technical overmatch against our adversaries and strategic competitors," the memo says.

The Trump administration has pushed for unfettered AI use for national security. The Pentagon took the unprecedented move of labeling the US company Anthropic a supply chain risk after it requested that its Claude AI not be used on autonomous weapons, and it gutted an office meant to reduce harm to civilians during war.

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My 15-year-old couldn't find a summer job where we live in New York. He got hired at an ice cream shop in Minnesota instead.

The author's son (not pictured) enjoyed his summer job in another state so much that he's returning this year.

RossHelen/Getty Images

• Our 15-year-old wanted a summer job, but they are hard to come by where we live in New York.
• A family member in Minnesota offered to ask around and scored a Zoom interview for our son.
• He worked at an ice cream shop for the summer while my wife worked remotely and visited with family.

As adolescents, my wife and I both had summer jobs. In Iowa, she pushed a cart around the library, reshelving books. In Oregon, I pushed a mail cart through the antiseptic-laced hallways of the hospital where my mother worked. I also collated and stapled thick packets of photocopies by hand and alphabetized hundreds of files.

Though technology has taken over those particular tasks, that first job taught me other, more lasting lessons. I gained independence by mastering new skills without a parent or teacher's guidance. There was also something special about seeing my labor transformed into a check and then cash in hand. This earned money had a different value to me.

Finally, I learned — almost immediately — that I did not want to spend the rest of my working years alphabetizing files. As I watched the clock's slow-moving minute hand tick toward my lunch break, it dawned on me that the surest path away from this sort of tedious, repetitive work was getting into college — and that my GPA was going to have long-lasting, real-world consequences. That's the sort of feeling I wanted my son to experience, too.

The author's son wasn't able to find a summer job where he lives in New York, so he started looking for jobs near family in Minnesota instead.

Courtesy of Marie Holmes.

A summer job was hard to come by where we live

My wife and I agreed that a summer job was a formative teenage experience that we didn't want our kids to miss out on. When we asked our then 15-year-old what he wanted to do for the summer, he simply replied, "work."

This presented a challenge. Here in New York City, job opportunities for younger teens like mine are limited, and many kids apply for them. We did know a place, however, where seasonal positions were plentiful, and teens were welcome to apply.

My wife's family hails from the north shore of Lake Superior, in Minnesota, and her cousin now owns a small business in a town that swells with tourists in summer.

This generous cousin asked around, and my son soon had his first formal job interview, via Zoom, with the owner of a local ice cream shop. Soon, he had a job offer.

While our younger daughter and I stayed in the city to work and attend camp, my wife drove herself and Max 1,300 miles to the north shore. She worked remotely from an inexpensive sublet and visited family while Max clocked in at his first job.

The job provided a great learning experience

Our son said his first-day nerves quickly dissipated once he arrived at the shop and was assigned a task.

"I got into the flow of washing dishes and bussing tables, and I liked it because it was kind of meditative," he told me, demonstrating a much more positive attitude than I had toward my early filing duties.

He also said he enjoyed the human interaction with his coworkers and customers, and even though he wasn't scooping, he knew he was developing customer service skills that would come in handy down the line.

This plan worked out so well that he'll be returning to the same ice cream shop this summer. This year, he's been promoted to scooper, and I couldn't be prouder.

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All the celebrities, sports personalities, politicians, and business execs we spotted at Game 3 of the NBA finals

Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs took place at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Al Bello/Getty Images

• The NBA Finals returned to New York on Monday night as the Knicks hosted the Spurs at Madison Square Garden.
• Game 3 marked the first Finals game at Madison Square Garden in more than two decades.
• Here are the celebrities, sports personalities, and business executives we spotted at the NBA Finals.

The NBA Finals returned to New York for Game 3 on Monday night, drawing a star-studded crowd to Madison Square Garden as the Knicks hosted the Spurs.

San Antonio defeated New York 115-111, cutting the Knicks' series lead to 2-1. Game 4 is set for Wednesday.

Here are the politicians, business executives, celebrities, and sports personalities we spotted at the NBA Finals so far.

President Donald Trump and Kai Trump

President Donald Trump and his granddaughter, Kai Trump, at Game 3 of the NBA finals at Madison Square Garden.

SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images

President Donald Trump attended Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden alongside his granddaughter, Kai Trump.

During a pregame interview on the "NBA Tip-off," NBA commissioner Adam Silver said that Trump was a guest of Knicks' owner James Dolan.

"He's welcome to be here. I think that's what makes sports so special, especially when there's so much that divides people. It's something that we have in common," Silver said.

Silver also called Trump a "genuine Knicks fan" and said that the president's attendance at Game 3 had prompted heightened security at Madison Square Garden.

This marks the first NBA Finals game attended by a sitting US president, per ESPN. The president is no stranger to major sporting events, having attended the Super Bowl and the US Open during his time in office.

Zohran Mamdani

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani enters Madison Square Garden.@NYCMayor | #NBAFinals pic.twitter.com/Yg47NWasv8

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) June 9, 2026

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was also spotted arriving at Madison Square Garden ahead of Game 3.

In a video shared on X by The Athletic, Mamdani was seen fist-bumping fans as he entered the arena.

Michael Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg was at Game 3 of the NBA Finals.

Geoff Burke/Reuters

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg attended Game 3 at Madison Square Garden.

He briefly found himself in the middle of the action when the Knicks' point guard Jose Alvarado tumbled into his courtside seat while pursuing a loose ball.

A video posted on X by the New York Post showed Alvarado checking in on Bloomberg and giving him a pat on the chest before returning to the game.

Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, and Timothée Chalamet

Ben Stiller was at Game 3 of the NBA Finals with his wife, Christine Taylor. They were seated next to Timothée Chalamet.

Al Bello/Getty Images

Longtime Knicks fan Ben Stiller attended Games 1 and 2 in San Antonio before returning to support the team for Game 3 in New York.

Stiller was seated courtside alongside his wife, Christine Taylor, and fellow Knicks supporter Timothée Chalamet, who had also attended the first two Finals games in San Antonio.

Jeremy Lin and Spike Lee

Former New York Knicks player Jeremy Lin and filmmaker Spike Lee were spotted at Game 3 of the NBA Finals.

Dustin Satloff/Getty Images

Filmmaker Spike Lee has followed the Knicks throughout the Finals, making the trip to San Antonio for Games 1 and 2 before showing up for Game 3.

In an interview with ESPN before the match on Monday, Lee said he had read that his seat for Game 3 could have fetched a hefty sum on the secondary market.

"It went down, but it was half a million," Lee said.

In 2024, Lee was recognized as a SuperFan by the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. He has held New York Knicks season tickets since 1985, per ESPN.

The filmmaker was also photographed posing with former Knicks guard Jeremy Lin, who attended the game.

Tracy Morgan and Tina Fey

Tracy Morgan and Tina Fey were also spotted courtside at Madison Square Garden for Game 3 of the NBA Finals.

Al Bello/Getty Images

Actor and comedian Tracy Morgan was spotted courtside with Tina Fey, both wearing Knicks jerseys in support of the home team. The longtime friends and former "30 Rock" costars have also been seen together at previous Knicks games.

This time, they were seated next to Stiller, Taylor, and Chalamet.

Morgan has long been one of the Knicks' most outspoken celebrity supporters. In a May video with Complex Sneakers, Morgan said he bought the team two pairs of Nike Kobe 5 "Bruce Lee" sneakers each in 2024.

"Just to let them know I'm part of the fanbase and we appreciate what they do," Morgan said in the video.

Morgan recently lent his voice to special New York City subway announcements encouraging fans to take the train to Knicks watch parties and home games at Madison Square Garden.

Jay-Z

Jay-Z was at Game 3 of the NBA Finals.

Al Bello/Getty Images

New York native Jay-Z, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, was among the celebrities in attendance at Madison Square Garden.

Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter is courtside at Madison Square Garden for Game 3 of the NBA Finals! pic.twitter.com/xXtt2ObkVf

— SNY Yankees (@snyyankees) June 9, 2026

Baseball icon Derek Jeter attended Game 3.

During his 20-year career with the New York Yankees, Jeter helped lead the team to five World Series titles before retiring in 2014.

Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni

Everyone: "The president's here! Jay-Z's here!"

Anyone named Brunson: Liv and El are here! pic.twitter.com/AIlcH1xeUN

— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) June 9, 2026

"Law and Order: SVU" star Mariska Hargitay and her former costar Christopher Meloni were also at the game on Monday night.

Knicks captain Jalen Brunson has previously spoken about being a fan of the longtime crime drama.

"I've always loved that show," Brunson said during a May 2025 episode of "The Roommates Show" podcast, which he hosts with his teammate Josh Hart.

Larry David, David Zaslav, and Robert Kraft

Larry David, David Zaslav, and Patriots owner Robert Kraft were at Game 3 of the NBA Finals.

SAUL LOEB / AFP

Larry David was seated courtside next to Warner Bros. Discovery CEO and president David Zaslav and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

In July 2024, The Athletic reported that the NBA had reached a new 11-year, $76 billion media rights agreement with Disney, NBC, and Amazon — a deal that ultimately brought Warner Bros. Discovery's 35-year partnership with the league to an end after the 2024-25 season.

At a Morgan Stanley conference in March 2025, Zaslav said Warner Bros. Discovery was better off investing in its own franchises rather than sports rights, which he described as a "rental business."

Celebrity sightings from Game 2

Ben Stiller also attended Game 2 of the NBA Finals.

Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

Game 2 of the NBA Finals took place on Friday, and there were several familiar faces back in the crowd, including Stiller, Lee, Morgan, and Chalamet — all of whom were also at Game 1.

Twelve-time NBA All-Star Chris Paul was among the attendees at Game 2. He played for the Spurs during the 2024-25 season and brought his son, Chris Paul II, to the game.

Celebrity sightings from Game 1

Disney's Bob Iger, ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro, and other media executives were spotted at Game 1 of the NBA Finals in San Antonio, Texas.

Screengrab by Steven Tweedie.

The NBA Finals tipped off on June 3 at Frost Bank Center in Texas.

The Knicks, making their first Finals appearance in more than two decades, opened the series with a 105-95 victory over the Spurs.

Several notable Knicks supporters were in attendance, including Stiller, Lee, Morgan, and Chalamet.

They were joined by former New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist and NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal, one of the hosts of the NBA Finals pregame show "NBA Tip-Off" and the postgame show "Inside the NBA."

Disney board member Bob Iger, Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro, and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro were also present at the game, together with Silver.

During the broadcast, the commentators for the night joked that the men made up a "murderers' row of executives." The NBA Finals air on ABC and are produced by ESPN, two Disney-owned networks.

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