NBC to Retain Media Rights to Preakness Stakes
On the big screen, Coco Gauff beamed at a standing ovation from a packed house at the Barclays Center. Just days after her June win at the French Open, Gauff wasn’t taking a quiet respite—she was courtside for the Sky-Liberty game in Brooklyn. Seated next to Gauff were Vanessa Bryant and her three daughters.
Celebrity presences like theirs are the norm for New York’s WNBA team, which made history when it won its first title in 2024 in front of a sold-out crowd. This glamorous, star-stacked courtside seating is dubbed “CeLIBrity Row,” and the team offers some of the highest-end hospitality in all of sports, let alone the WNBA.
Throughout the past few seasons, the games at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues have become the hottest tickets in town—and among the most premium. It’s common to see Jason Sudeikis, Naomi Osaka, Sue Bird, and Ciara sitting alongside the team’s beloved mascot Ellie, with thousands of other die-hard fans filling the rest of the arena.
But just a few years ago, this was unthinkable. October’s WNBA title win against the Minnesota Lynx was a far cry from the team’s status in 2021, when it first moved into the Brooklyn venue full-time but couldn’t fill seats on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic—and an entirely different reality from 2019, when it was playing in a suburban venue that was practically vacant for the two seasons it called it home.
Last year, the Liberty drew the second-largest crowds in the league, averaging 12,729 in home attendance behind the Indiana Fever, which drew massive numbers for Caitlin Clark’s rookie season. This year, New York is third behind just the Golden State Valkyries and Fever.
CeLIBrity Row is the place to see and be seen in sports. But the architects behind the transformation tell Front Office Sports that turning Liberty games into a coveted ticket was a years-long project.
The Liberty have firmly planted their flag at the Barclays Center, but not without first enduring an enormous amount of instability.
Madison Square Garden—the preeminent sports venue not just in New York, but North America—used to be home to the team, back when Hall of Famer Teresa Weatherspoon was heaving half-court buzzer-beaters. The Liberty spent two stints at MSG from 1997 to 2010 and then again from 2014 to 2017. For three seasons between 2011 and 2013 they played at the Prudential Center in Newark while MSG underwent renovations.
Crowds were scarce throughout the league, but the Liberty drew relatively well; average home attendance ranked top-three in 13 of the WNBA’s first 14 seasons, and they led the league in 2001, 2005, and 2010. In their last season at the Garden, the Liberty averaged 9,889 fans per game, fourth in the WNBA.
Then came the Westchester County Center chapter.
The Liberty—one of the WNBA’s original eight franchises—were owned by the Madison Square Garden Company, headed by James Dolan. MSG also owns the Knicks and the New York Rangers. In 2017, Dolan put the Liberty up for sale. But with no immediate buyer—and despite ranking in the top half of the WNBA in attendance—the team was moved from one of the world’s most famous venues to a glorified rec center with a max capacity of 5,000. It shared space with the Knicks’ G League team. Its home attendance for both 2018 and 2019 failed to touch 3,000.
“The future of the team was in flux,” Liberty chief brand officer Shana Stephenson tells FOS. “Would it stay in New York? Would it be relocated?”
The franchise got its much-needed reinvention when Joe and Clara Wu Tsai purchased the team. The sale was approved by WNBA and NBA board of governors in January 2019, when Joe owned a 49% stake in the Brooklyn Nets. About eight months later, Joe gained controlling interest in the Nets when he bought the rest of the team from Mikhail Prokhorov in a deal valued at $2.35 billion.
The deal included full ownership of the Barclays Center. The Tsais immediately began prioritizing the Liberty’s move to Brooklyn. In their first year under new ownership, the Liberty played one regular-season game at Barclays against the Seattle Storm, which drew 7,715 fans. In 2020, they were scheduled to play their first complete season there, but the pandemic forced all 12 WNBA teams to Bradenton, Fla., where the league played a condensed schedule at the IMG Academy.
Under the new ownership, Stephenson says priorities for the team became clear. And in 2021, they began to take shape. “[CEO] Keia [Clarke] and I quickly aligned on what the goals were with this franchise and getting ownership to understand why it was important that the New York Liberty remain the New York Liberty.”
The transition from marginalized team to the league’s glitziest ticket was on.
When Stephenson began with the Liberty in 2018, she would reach out to contacts in her phone to fill seats. Sometimes, she’d extend on-the-spot invites to individuals she’d meet at events around the city. But once the Tsais entered the picture, Clara began bringing in her own high-profile circle, and the team’s PR staff started making bigger asks. Even players were posting social media callouts inviting major stars, including Beyoncé and Rihanna, to catch a game. Neither A-lister has attended a game, yet, but they are atop the Liberty’s list of hopeful guests.
These bold efforts began to pay dividends. Billie Jean King, Bryant and her daughters, and Liberty legends including Sue Wicks were among the first stars to shine courtside.
Just four years later, massive names are jostling for seats on the hardwood to see the Eastern Conference–leading Liberty. Some celebrities purchase tickets on their own accord, while others are guests of the team. For example, Gauff’s publicist reached out to the team directly to snag a ticket during her title-win press tour.
Decking out CeLIBrity Row is a top priority for Stephenson and the rest of the organization. “We want to extend the invitation because we recognize publicists, agents, management companies see the value in attending a Liberty game and sitting courtside and having those moments go viral,” she says.
Every courtside ticket comes with access to Barclays’s opulent Crown Club, which opened in 2021. The exclusive space looks more like it’s out of a scene from The Great Gatsby than a place to grab halftime sustenance.
Located on the event level adjacent to the court, the Crown Club was brought to life by interior designer Ken Fulk—who has lent his vision to restaurants including Carbone and for clients such as Pharrell Williams and Gigi Hadid—in collaboration with Major Food Group. The exclusive venue features a bar, lounge, proper dining room, and even a candy room—Charleston Chew, Sour Patch Kids, and saltwater taffy among the assortment.
Shanon Ferguson, chief hospitality officer at BSE Global, which runs the Crown Club, had no prior experience in stadiums or arenas when he began working for the company in 2023. (BSE Global is owned by the Tsais and serves as the parent company of the Liberty and Nets.) He initially hesitated to join the project but saw a unique opportunity with women’s sports. Now, he’s the engine for making everything feel premium, including the menu, which changes every month—except for Carbone’s famous spicy rigatoni.
No Liberty player has had a closer seat to the dramatic transformation of the organization than Sabrina Ionescu.
Last September, in Game 2 of the Liberty’s first-round playoff series against the Atlanta Dream in Brooklyn, Ionescu was walking to the sideline to inbound the ball. She felt a hand reach out to her for a high five. It was Spike Lee. “I felt like New York was injected into my veins,” Ionescu said in a press conference following the game. The Academy Award–winning filmmaker returned for Game 5 of the Finals and has been to multiple games this season.
Today, the Liberty’s No. 1 pick in 2020 says, “To be here from the beginning obviously means a lot, because I was able to be here when you could count how many people were in attendance. Now, I can’t even find my family half of the time.”
