Why The Liberty is The Best Sports Franchise in New York Right Now

By Abe Beame

On October 24th of last year, I kept my daughter home from school. We had plans in the West Village—ramen, tea service, and the Alvin Ailey exhibit at the Whitney. But first, we headed to the Canyon of Heroes in the financial district, the place New York City gathers to publicly fete its champions. I’d been a number of times in my life to celebrate the Yankees’ rings in the ’90s and again in 2009, but this was the first time I was there to celebrate a basketball team: The New York Liberty.

I was slightly concerned. The packed-out ring parades I had attended in the past had made indelible memories for an adolescent, day-drunk 20-something, but could make for a hostile environment for an eight-year-old girl. As I ascended from the subway onto the intersection of Cortlandt and Broadway in the shadow of the World Trade Center, I saw my fears were misplaced. The streets were crowded, but not dangerously so, and with a little maneuvering and a child as my lead blocker, we were able to stake out a prime piece of real estate, leaning on a steel barricade next to a light post where we had a clear view of the floats and marchers drifting slowly north.

The crowd was sober, warm, energized, and passionate, calling the various members of the Downtown Brooklyn-based team by first names, booing the cops on horseback, and winding when MVP Jonquel Jones came by, draped in a Bahamian flag with soca blasting. Almost a year later, I got to ask Jones about the experience after a practice under Barclays Center at the intersection of Flatbush Avenue and Atlantic Avenue. “It was amazing,” Jonquel said. “Everybody was out and supporting us. To have this big, busy city shut down just for us—it was crazy. I got to rep my flag to the world.”

My daughter cheered and talked shit and had a blast, and I assumed the Liberty made a fan for life. I bring this experience up because it epitomizes the current Lib fan experience and illustrates a point that, simply going off the numbers, is borderline offensive to even attempt to argue: At this moment, the Liberty is the best sports franchise in New York City.

The New York Liberty at the Championship ticker tape parade and victory rally celebrating winning the 2024 WNBA Finals (Photo by Elsa via Getty Images)

Let’s start with the obvious. Since the latter half of the 20th century, New York has been a basketball city for reasons both spiritual and pragmatic. It’s an island that is almost entirely paved with asphalt and concrete, and basketball requires the least of its participants in terms of gear in a working-class city of eight million residents. You need a ball and a rim, and we have well over 500 outdoor public courts.

In terms of professional sports, the city’s allegiances in every other league have historically been divided: Giants and Jets, Yankees and Mets, Rangers and Islanders. Only the Knicks had the city to themselves, with a 60-year head start on the Nets, who transplanted from Jersey to Brooklyn in 2012. Basketball, both as a sport to play and a sport to watch, is ingrained in the culture. We are inclined to love the game and casually stop in our tracks for a moment when it’s being played, from The Cage to a television over a bar to The Garden. As a result, the Knicks have always had a particular resonance. They hold a special place in the city’s heart and mind—when they are good, which has been a dicey proposition over the past 25 years. The Liberty is the beneficiary of this sense of place and culture.

The Liberty (one of only three teams still playing in their city of origin), and the WNBA as a whole, have been on an emotional and literal journey through New York since their inception as one of the league’s founding franchises in 1997. They started with great ambition and expectation, a statement that it was finally time for America to wake up and embrace women’s basketball as a product every bit as compelling as their counterparts, playing alongside the Knicks in the Garden each summer. But the road to regional, and eventually coast-to-coast, embrace wouldn’t be that easy, though the crowd was always decent for what the league was drawing during those first 20 years of establishing itself. The Liberty had stars—Becky Hammon, Teresa Witherspoon, Rebecca Lobo—but also a tortured history, with several agonizing playoffs and Finals bids that came up just short.

The team was “Early WNBA Popular,” regularly in the vicinity of 10,000-seat average attendance, good for near the top of the league— when everything was running smoothly and the Libs were in the Garden—but there were a few years at the Prudential Center in Newark while MSG was being renovated in the early 2010s, and two years in White Plains that coincided with a brief, dark stint that saw Isaiah Thomas back from the dead, in control of the franchise while James Dolan tried to sell them. The Liberty was finally bought by Clara Wu Tsai and Joe Tsai in 2019 for an estimated $12-14 million, who brought them to their proper ancestral, spiritual home in Brooklyn.

In a classic “James Dolan is a moron” twist of fate, after decades fighting for relevance and eyeballs in New York, the Liberty almost instantly reversed their fortunes in Barclays, as the league simultaneously underwent a surge in interest and value, and the Liberty grew from a niche team in a niche sport to nearly doubling their average attendance, consistently selling out Barclays’ 17,000+ capacity, and entering the pantheon of the city’s most beloved teams. In May, the franchise was valued, and sold shares accordingly, at $450 million.

Within the five years since the Tsais bought the Liberty, it has coalesced around three stars perfectly suited to one another. Sabrina Ionescu—the gritty, 2020 #1 pick point guard with range that anticipated Caitlin Clark’s revolutionary, pull-up-from-anywhere volatility—is their longest tenured player and backbone in a league that has constant movement woven in its DNA. She was joined by Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones in 2023. Stewie, the terradactyl, do-everything wing became one of the most seismic free agent signings in league history when she decamped from Seattle, already a two-time champion, for New York, and has become one of the league’s most recognizable players, as well as a fashionista from her catbird seat in Brooklyn’s national media market. And JJ, the Bahamas product with a game you could describe as “Stretch Shaq,” completed the frontcourt with one of the least likely career resumes you’ll see in any sport, winning trophies as a Most Improved Player, Sixth Woman of the Year, MVP, and Finals MVP. That latter was handed out at the end of last season, when the Liberty finally brought home their first championship, a storybook finish for a team, and a league that achieved new stratospheres of success in 2024.

It is, let’s say, convenient, that the Liberty are suddenly a world-beating powerhouse, but it feels less intrinsic to their beloved status and diehard fandom than any other team in New York. The Liberty are the team for this preciese moment in New York. They make sense as the representative franchise of a former quasi-suburban ground beef and oxtail commuter borough in the midst of a decades-long project of remaking itself as a queer, non-binary, utopian socialist sanctuary city that is a centralized magnet, independent of Manhattan, in its own right.

In their steep upper bowl, devoid of the bridge-and-tunnel red hat ghouls that haunt the rafters and bleachers in the Garden, MetLife, Yankee Stadium, and Shea, you will find a weekly summer-long party that platforms and concentrates all of Brooklyn’s libertine diversity—across all family structures, age groups, religious beliefs, sexual orientations, and socioeconomic backgrounds—united by a love for a team that has transcended basketball, and embodies a culture perhaps best illustrated by their mascot, a yassified Elephant named Ellie with a single knee-length braid who dances and dresses as if torn directly from a warehouse in Paris Is Burning.

There’s a good vibes inclusivity that defines the hyper-engaged Libs home crowd, a friendlier vision of what a New York sports audience could be. Libs tickets, despite their demand, are perhaps the last great deal in New York City. Even on the resale market, the cheap seats are still actually cheap, available for under $50 (for reference, the cheapest tickets available on Stubhub for the Knicks’ preseason home opener are currently three times that), making the Liberty the city’s only remaining blue-collar fan experience. Football tickets are a generational inheritance, as the Jets and Giants rebuild again and again, and both New York baseball stadiums cater to their luxury boxes first and demand rent prices to bring your family out for a Saturday afternoon ballgame. For now, the Libs are the only fan experience in town that hasn’t been price-gouged to death. Perhaps this is how they retain the charm and intimacy of a small market team, lodged in a Metropolitan hub. It recalls the days when the Dodgers played at Ebbets Field in Crown Heights, when Brooklyn was a backwater, two miles away from where Barclays now sits, on the exact plot Walter O’Malley once dreamed of moving his team to.

Liberty fans cheer for basically everything, without the standard asshole boo birds jeering a kid who misses a free throw during a timeout giveaway, without losing the ball-knowing sophistication of a hyper-aware, educated, passionate New York crowd who recognizes a crisp inlet pass or back door cut or a second effort tip to keep a rebound alive with standing ovations. They are ebullient when the Libs win and perhaps even louder, more sympathetic when they lose, which hasn’t happened often this year at Flatbush and Atlantic. The Liberty are currently 16-5 at home and 8-12 on the road, a wild discrepancy that suggests they have one of the most commanding homecourt advantages across genders in any professional American sport.

That the team is not just good, but great—with continuity, household names, and currently, credibly defending last season’s title—certainly helps, but in a stunningly brief period of time, the Libs have built a fan culture and environment at Barclays that is unique in the New York sports landscape, one that feels like it will last well beyond this roster and whatever success or failure it may have in its future.

(Photo by Michael Reaves via Getty Images)

On a Wednesday afternoon in late August, a Liberty spokesperson smiled brightly while ushering me around the bowels of the arena, where the team practices, in the vicinity of the luxe and exclusive Crown Club and the players’ locker room. All three Liberty stars were on the floor together on the sunken practice court with the windows blacked out, just below the main area where guests enter the stadium.

As the practice opens to the media, Stewie is on the floor with Sabrina, the French wizard Marine Johannès, the Belgian forward Emma “Big Meech” Meesseemen, and Jonquel. They are running a full-court five-on-five scrimmage against the Liberty’s all male practice squad. It is a marginally structured pickup game with frequent subbing, and coach Sandy Brondello occasionally halting the action to step in and talk through a play with the team. Little to no area is out of bounds, but the “bench” players are lined on the edge of the court. Everyone watches intently (including the stars when they come out), following along like it’s a regulation game, calling out screens and cheering buckets or stops. Gameplay is loose and informal, and who can say if the practice squad is going full tilt, but with the utmost possible respect for these brave young men and their talent and effort, they are getting their asses busted. Jonquel and Meech are the two biggest players on the floor, and Meech, in particular, is taking advantage of the available air rights, torching the defense with an array of bunnies and floaters defenders are helpless to stop.

It’s Stewie’s birthday, and at the end of practice, the team surprises her with a song and a cupcake. Afterwards, the Libs rep brings over each star to talk to me. If basketball doesn’t work out for Sabrina Ionescu, she has a bright future as an operator in the armed forces, a Seal or a Marine working out of a black site. She projects honed severity, commands respect from both her teammates and the schmuck reporters holding their phones in her face. Her answers are clipped and no-nonsense, a black belt in the ancient art of the athlete quote. Stewie, the Vice President of the WNBA Players’ Association, is a politician playing ambassador to her team and league. Her responses are long-limbed, thoughtful, personable, and naturally funny. Jonquel is all swag and aura, a badass projecting strength and “fuck you” cool as she humors my questions in the Crown Club, long after practice, decked out in streetwear. Each presents as a distinct, powerful strain of role model for the many different types of children across New York and the country who look up to them. They’re complementary personalities and talents, and you immediately understand their chemistry and dynamic.

This season, getting all three women on court together has been the team’s greatest challenge, and the looming threat that could sink their title defense. Jonquel Jones sprained her ankle in June, leading her to miss 13 games, and Breanna Stewart missed 13 games with a knee injury. The injuries were offset, making any prolonged stretch of gelling as a team with several new faces a challenge. They have clinched for the postseason but sit at fifth, 8.5 games behind the No. 1 seed Minnesota Lynx, the team they beat in last year’s finals. It’s a situation no one is happy about. At practice, Stewie was open about the injuries and their impact. “We’ve been dealing with a lot of adversity, haven’t really been able to kind of find our groove or our stride,” she told me.

The team is finally, blessedly healthy, rounding into shape for the postseason, and they’ll present a formidable challenge for any team they face in the playoffs if they can find their equilibrium in time. Jones in particular has somehow opened yet another facet of her game, leaning into her shooting and taking more 3’s per game for a higher percentage—an insane 44% on 4.2 attempts. Jones credits the rehab time with the improvement of her shot. “When I was injured, I was able to just shoot more, obviously, and I’m getting a lot of reps in, and I just feel confident,” she said. I watched her in an “around the world” drill with Big Meech after practice, each needed to hit three from seven spots on the perimeter. Both made quick work of it.

I asked Stewie about the pressure from this year to last, the struggles compounded with the pressure of defending a title. She told me there was heightened pressure, but Brooklyn is helping to pull them through it. “It’s always hard to repeat. That’s the hardest thing. But I love our crowd. We need them and they’re here for us 1000%. I’ve seen the difference from my first year, to my second, to my third. We have the upper bowl open every night. That’s 17,000 people screaming, and it’s New York fans, you know?”

Izzy Harrison in The Liberty’s August 28 game against the Washington Mystics (Photo by Jordan Bank via Getty Images)

The Libs were shorthanded yet again on a Thursday night before Labor Day, suiting up eight, minus JJ and Sabrina, even though both practiced the day before. Even down two stars, the team proved too skilled and opportunistic, capitalizing on the mistake prone Mystics’ every errant pass and blown coverage. Stewie was pass first and crashing boards, so it was a full team effort on offense, with Johannes getting hot from 3. The defense had no answer, yet again, for Big Meech, or underutilized super sub Izzy Harrison, who barbecued the Mystics for 16 points in 18 minutes. In the crowd, the spiked seltzers outnumbered the IPA’s by a sizable margin, and it felt like there were plenty of both crushed that night. The Libs were up 16 with five minutes to play, but the entire arena stood through the buzzer, celebrating the Mystics losing a referee challenge like the team had won another Finals game.

It was the Liberty’s third annual West Indian night, which as far as I can tell, is the only such night of recognition in any professional sport in the country, let alone New York. It is yet another sign of the cultural sensitivity and resonance of the franchise, and the connection between borough and team, both in recognizing their star Jonquel Jones’ Caribbean heritage, and understanding that the pulse of Brooklyn is syncopated, with rapid symbol hits and a four-on-the-floor bassline, played on Eastern Parkway a few blocks down Flatbush every Labor Day.

During the game, between quarter breaks and TV Timeouts, Rupee, The Soca Boys, Busy Signal, Vybez Kartel, Konshens and Rihanna played over the loudspeaker. The Jamaican Dancehall artist Shenseea was the halftime performer and she cheered Ellie on as the mascot balanced on her head, twerking in the air like it was J’Ouvert night at Drink Lounge on Franklin, rather than center court on a Thursday. In the hallway, there were separate concession stands for a variety of Jamaican patties and stuffed coco bread. The crowd was a sea of Jamaican and Trinidadian and Bajan and Haitian and Bahamian flags.

Jonquel Jones at a reading event in Prospect Lefferts (Photo by Brandon Todd)

It brought to mind the day before, when, post-practice, I rode my bike to the Crown Heights Library, which is counterintuitively not in Crown Heights. I was greeted by a steel pan player outside the library upon arrival, there to welcome Jonquel Jones, who had come to read to kids at 4 PM on a summer Wednesday. Inside, confused teenagers looked annoyed as they attempted to wrap up summer school homework on laptops. They were disturbed by the decidedly inappropriate volume stirred up by a superstar entering a public library on Maple Street and New York Avenue. It was a typical Liberty crowd: Endlessly diverse, dotted with seafoam fitteds, headwraps,  Yamulkahs, onesies, and Statue of Liberty crowns. There were older gay couples and young straight couples, most loaded down with diaper bags for the many kids toddling around chaotically or sitting criss-cross applesauce on a mat in front of the reigning Finals MVP, enraptured by the picture books being waved in front of them and maybe marginally aware of the significance of the speaker.

I was trying to digest that myself. As a lifelong Knicks fan, I tried to imagine Jalen Brunson or Karl Anthony Towns being able to appear here comfortably, drawing a crowd, but not causing a traffic-stoppage level event at an afternoon children’s book reading at a public library below Empire. With no disrespect intended to the two superstar millionaires hundreds of times over and their many charitable efforts expended in both time and money, through no fault of their own, I couldn’t see it. They’re simply too famous, their time and energy being pulled in too many directions at once. The success of the event was a testament to the Liberty’s diehard, grassroots fandom, and utterly amazing because it wasn’t a bigger deal. The sheer possibility of the storytime was yet another example of why this moment in Brooklyn’s WNBA fandom is rare and special.

The first book Jonquel read was “I Am My Caribbean Culture” by Malissa Y Saul-Angus. In gold rim glasses, looming over the crowd with her dreads pulled back in a pony, the gifted storyteller would stop the narrative occasionally to call out the food mentioned in the book, regaling the children with memories from back home, of sour leaf tea (“But y’all probably call it lime leaf,” JJ smirks) and chicken souse and johnny cakes.

JJ took a running straw poll throughout, asking her audience for cheers and shows of hands: “Who likes jerk chicken?” and “Who is from the Bahamas?” and finally, “How many people here love being who they are?”

The crowd went wild.