The New York Liberty Show’s investment in women’s sports is just good business WNBA

From the early days of the Women’s National Basketball Association, it seemed only a matter of time for the New York Liberty to win a championship. A glamor franchise by nature, they first reached the door to a title in the league’s inaugural season in 1997, losing to the Houston Comets in a championship game attended by a hefty crowd of 16,285, but within hours Death of Diana, Princess of Wales disappeared from the headlines. That was the first of five times New York has stumbled over the final hurdle, including the crushing loss to the Las Vegas Aces at their home stadium last season. As the years turned into decades, much like its longtime fellow tenants at Madison Square Garden, the Liberty brand lagged behind despite a parade of well-known brand stars like Rebecca Lobo, Teresa Weatherspoon, Becky Hammon, Cappie Pondexter and Tina Charles.

That’s a way of saying that the cathartic triumph Sunday night, when New York finally claimed the sport’s biggest prize with a heartbreaking overtime victory over the Minnesota Lynx and became the last of the WNBA’s Original Eight teams to win a title, was a long one The time is coming. But as the confetti rained down at the Barclays Center while Ellie the Elephant danced to Empire State of Mind to the roar of 18,800 spectators, it was easy to forget how poorly the Liberty fared under their former handlers – and how extraordinary the turnaround has been took place.

Six years ago, when the club was owned by a wannabe rock star who didn’t care about women’s basketball, the Liberty was in a state of hostile neglect. When James L. Dolan couldn’t immediately find a buyer after putting the Liberty up for sale in November 2017, the team was relegated to the Westchester County Center in White Plains, about 30 miles outside Manhattan. Suddenly, a team that had consistently been at the top of the league in home attendance in recent years was playing its games in a rickety 5,000-seat stadium that had been built before the Great Depression. As expected, the average attendance dropped below 2,200 while the team finished in last place with a dismal record of 7-27.

When Joe and Clara Wu Tsai purchased what they saw as an undervalued asset for an undisclosed amount in 2019, sentiment within the organization was depressed, but things quickly changed under their ownership. The team’s move to Barclays Center, which the Tsais had acquired with the purchase of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, was a no-brainer. Taking advantage of 2020 changes to the collective bargaining agreement that loosened restrictions on player movement, Wu Tsai stalked star free agent and serial winner Breanna Stewart on a yacht in Turkey to conduct a recruiting interview. The Liberty subsequently signed two-time WNBA Finals MVP and All-Star point guard Courtney Vandersloot as a free agent and traded for former MVP Jonquel Jones to join a young core led by the former No. 1 draft pick Sabrina Ionescu and Betnijah Laney is led by Hamilton. The newly formed super team was two wins short of the title in its first year before it managed to win on Sunday evening. More importantly, Liberty Games have become a true Brooklyn event, a change that can be seen everywhere, from increasing attendance, ticket revenue, and corporate sponsorship to their zeitgeisty viral mascot, which has more followers than almost on social media half of the squad.

“When we bought the team four years ago, they played at the Westchester County Center in front of 2,000 spectators,” Wu Tsai said at the trophy presentation on Sunday. “And the first thing we wanted to do was bring the team to Barclays Center so they could have a bigger stage. And then we wanted to give them facilities, performance, nutrition and everything that they deserved because they are such professional, elite athletes.”

Liberty owner Clara Wu Tsai on the franchise’s first WNBA championship:

“When we bought the team four years ago, they were playing in front of 2,000 people at the Westchester County Center. And the first thing we wanted to do was bring the team to Barclays Center so they could have a… pic.twitter.com/Ct3PnUJeVQ

— Erik Slater (@erikslater_) October 21, 2024

That smart ownership and strategic investments produce positive results isn’t exactly news, but the WNBA has provided a unique testing ground for the concept. Consider the aforementioned Aces, the two-time defending champions who were dethroned by New York in this year’s semifinals. Yes, Las Vegas has the top four in basketball with A’ja Wilson, Chelsea Gray, Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum. But owner Mark Davis has spared no expense in helping them reach their potential by cultivating an organizational culture that ranks alongside Olympique Lyonnais Féminin as the gold standard in women’s sports.

Since buying the Aces nearly three years ago, the owner of the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders has poached Becky Hammon from the NBA with a record one-year contract for $40 million a year an 80,000 m², ultra-modern practice area This is the first women’s-specific, undivided training facility in WNBA history. The results speak for themselves.

The same goes for the Seattle Storm, who have won two of the last seven WNBA titles and also recently opened a $60 million, 50,000-square-foot training facility, one of the world’s first designed specifically for female athletes (famously without a single urinal on the premises). ). It’s a far cry from the WNBA teams that once trained in public recreation centers.

It is the type of culture building that leads to success between the lines. Look no further than Sunday night’s dramatic decisive win, when the Liberty’s two Olympians spent most of the evening shooting blanks on offense: Ionescu managed just one of her 19 attempts from the floor, while Stewart didn’t fare much better . When it came to winning time, it was role players like Sparkplug Nyara Sabally and German rookie Leonie Fiebich who hit the mark and made the difference. Once and for all, the Liberty were no longer a sloppy collection of Galácticos, but a winning team.

It was a worthy climax to a WNBA season that attracted large television audiences and unprecedented public interest, breaking records in TV ratings, merchandise sales and viewership on a seemingly weekly basis. But it was also a path to success. Less than five years after purchasing the Liberty at a fire sale price, the Tsais’ recent sale of a 15 percent stake in BSE Global valued the Liberty at $200 million. Earlier this month, Wu Tsai predicted that the figure will exceed $1 billion within 10 years. The idea that women’s sports are a social issue is long outdated. It’s just good business.