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Women’s basketball team New York Liberty is having a moment. It just finished the regular season last Thursday with the best record in the league, defeating top teams like the Las Vegas Aces and the Connecticut Sun. Meanwhile, the team’s mascot Ellie the Elephant has become a celebrity in her own right, known for her dance moves and fashion.
But it hasn’t always been that way. Five years ago, the team was struggling, playing in Westchester County Center, a smaller court far away from home. But then things started looking up. Joe Tsai, co-founder of Alibaba and owner of NBA’s the Brooklyn Nets, purchased the Liberty and paved the path for the eventual move to the team’s current home at the Barclays Center. Then in 2021, Shana Stephenson started as the team’s full-time chief brand officer.
In this episode of the Digiday Podcast, Stephenson talks about what it was like building the team’s brand, how Liberty is tapping into the women’s sports hype and, of course, Ellie the Elephant’s viral videos.
Below are highlights from the conversation, which have been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
A different strategy
There were so many other fans that I knew that we could reach if we just employed a different strategy. The strategy that I really believed in was leading with culture and immersing New York Liberty basketball — or New York City basketball that just happens to be played by women — and immersing it in the culturally diverse offering of what exists in New York was something that I was standing 10 toes down on. So whether it be food, music, art, fashion, it’s bringing all of them in. One thing that I also believe is that WNBA players specifically are a microcosm of society. A lot of what they experience — successes, challenges, whatever it is — it’s identifiable. It’s relatable to so many people within our society.
Rewriting the playbook
We were all very clear about how we wanted to just be patient with ourselves and know that we wouldn’t be able to go from zero to 100. After having the team relocated from Madison Square Garden to Westchester County Center, now to the bubble in Florida [a controlled environment where the 2020 WNBA season was held during the pandemic and without fans in attendance], we were displaced, we were disconnected from our fans. We lost a lot of fans.
There were just a lot of obstacles that we had to overcome, but we just continued to plug away at it little by little. This is our fourth season in Brooklyn and now we’re seeing all of it pay off and come together.
Building Ellie
We held tryouts and we knew we wanted someone to be very much a reflection of New York, very much a reflection of Brooklyn. Ellie being athletic was not a must for us. We just wanted someone who was relatable and could connect with our fans and the community in a real way. With social media and TikTok trends, and Ellie obviously being an entertainer and being able to dance and someone who is serious about their craft, Ellie isn’t someone who just puts on the costume and is in character just for those two hours for the game. Ellie researches artists and studies videos and practices dances, and has a workout and training routine. That’s what people are being drawn to.
