Ahead of Game 1 of the NBA Finals, a sea of San Antonio Spurs fans stood shoulder to shoulder in a sports bar decked out in silver-and-black jerseys and Fiesta colors. Despite a sudden storm that drenched much of the outdoor crowd, the energy was high.
"There ain't no Thunder, because they ain't in the finals!" Gabi Perlinger said during the downpour.
Fans packed venues across San Antonio for the game against the New York Knicks on Wednesday. But this official Spurs watch party was at Chalmers, a bar in East Austin.
General manager Aaron Amtower said Chalmers has had Spurs fans come for games throughout the season. But the crowd really kicked off as the team outperformed expectations and grew in popularity. Then the Spurs reached out to partner with Chalmers for watch parties.
"The crowd, I mean, you can hear it from blocks away," Amtower said.
These Spurs-sanctioned events are the tip of the iceberg of the team's involvement in Austin. The Spurs' roots in the city run deep, and the team has made an active effort to court local fans for years — from painting murals and renovating basketball courts to organizing bus rides to get Austin fans to games in San Antonio. Now, as the team aims to clinch the championship for the first time since 2014, a loyal group of Austinites is cheering them on from afar — but not too far.
"It is crazy, the Austin level of support," said Perlinger, who also lived in San Antonio for a few years. "The fact that this many people showed up for Game 1 in the rain — I feel like they're gonna have a huge turnout in Austin for each game of the finals, no matter what."
A.J. Dimas, who came to the watch party with Perlinger, his co-worker, said he appreciates that the Spurs play a couple of games a year at Austin's Moody Center. The local games, dubbed the Spurs' I-35 Series, started in 2023 with the goal to "purposefully engage and celebrate the Spurs entire fan base, extending from Mexico to Austin."
"It really benefits working people," Dimas said. "We're both teachers, so it's really hard for us to ask off for something like that. And so for them to be here on a Friday night, and we teach here in Austin — boom, we can get off of work, go get ready and then head down here."
Dimas said the students at his school also attend games for the Austin Spurs, the team's minor league affiliate based in Cedar Park. Multiple players on this season's roster — Julian Champagnie, Keldon Johnson and Carter Bryant — have spent time on the G League team, and San Antonio Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson helped lead the Austin Spurs to a championship in 2018.
"They really enjoy it, and some of them actually get converted into being Spurs fans," Dimas said.
Game 1 was a close matchup, but the Knicks ultimately took the lead in the final minutes, winning 105-95. The loss dampened the atmosphere at Chalmers at the end of the night, but fans were already thinking ahead to the rest of the series.
"[The Spurs] went this far this young. They deserve everything they've done so far. So I really hope they're going to make it," said Santos Jaimes, whose family has been Spurs fans for decades.
When it comes to the Spurs, Jaimes said the two cities are tight.
"Whenever you meet like an Austin local, they'll say, oh, I got family in San Antonio. You go to San Antonio? Oh, I got family in Austin. Both of us visit each other's cities," Jaimes said. "I feel like we're like family at this point."
The Spurs and Knicks face off again on Friday night in San Antonio. Chalmers is hosting watch parties for every home game in the finals, while its sister bar, Armadillo Den, is hosting watch parties for away games. Find details ahead of the games on the Austin Spurs' social media accounts.
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