If you happened to be in downtown Manhattan around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, you might have thought that the first snowfall of the season had come early. But the white thingamabobs drifting down from the sky weren’t flakes, but confetti, and they were marking a historic occasion: the New York Liberty’s first-ever WNBA championship.
On October 20, the Liberty beat the Minnesota Lynx 67-62, clinching a historic victory and capping off a huge season for women’s basketball in the US. To celebrate, the city put on a traditional ticker tape parade—the first time a local women’s sports team was so honored, according to the Bergen Record. Hosted by Mayor Eric Adams, the parade also drew other famous faces, including New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Gov. Kathy Hochul, per PBS; the star players themselves; and, of course, more fans than one person could count.
Thousands of people (one attendee, 40-year-old Omar Gonzalez, estimated to SELF that the number reached roughly 10 to 30K) descended upon downtown Manhattan to celebrate as a community and catch a glimpse of a favorite player or two. By 9:15 a.m., the Canyon of Heroes route stretching from Bowling Green to City Hall had been transformed into an ocean of black and seafoam green. There were Liberty hats, Liberty jerseys, Liberty T-shirts, Liberty sweatshirts, Liberty crewnecks, Statue of Liberty headpieces, even Liberty-themed stuffed animals. “I’ve been walking down this entire street and it’s just absolutely thick with people,” Rachael Burke, who wore a long black leather coat over a WNBA T-shirt, told SELF. “And it’s so moving to see how many people came out, how many different types of people it’s reaching.”
“It’s really unifying New York, and it’s a really beautiful thing,” she added.
Streets had been closed off, cops milled around, and sanitation workers stood by, ready to start the arduous cleanup process whenever the event was over. Chants rang out: “N-Y L-I-B-E-R-T-Y,” “Let’s go, Liberty,” “We all we need, we all we got.” Kids (and even some adults) climbed the metal skeleton of sidewalk scaffolding in search of a better vantage point. “It’s blood-pressure-rising,” Barry, 60, told SELF as he stood on one rail and held onto another for support, wearing a Liberty jersey over a checkered button-down. Several others said they felt like the charged atmosphere brought a much-needed vitality to the Big Apple. “The city needed this, you know, and I’m glad that it was a women’s [team] that was able to do it,” Lani Joseph, 28, who started watching the Liberty when fan favorite Sabrina Ionescu signed on, told SELF.
For more seasoned fans, the moment had been a long time coming—decades, in fact. “Twenty-eight years I’ve been waiting for this,” Norine Knowings, 58, a native New Yorker who now lives in the South, told SELF. “I’m Harlem-made, baby. I’ve been here since day one.” In fact, Knowings had flown up all the way from Georgia to attend the rally. “I said [the] Liberty win, I’m coming home. They didn’t believe me,” she said, motioning over to her friends. “As soon as they won, as soon as the clock said zero, I was on my phone trying to find my flight.”
Others at the rally had made smaller-scale sacrifices to attend—like taking off work, as in the case of Joseph and 53-year-old Shirelle Blue. “I’ve been a fan of the WNBA since they first started—1997, 1998—but I’ve got back into it because I love the college basketball star Angel Reese,” Blue said. “And then A’ja Wilson is so phenomenal. You come in for one person, but then you see the athleticism and the game that everybody has. It’s incredible.”
Including Blue, many women in attendance said they felt as though the WNBA—and women’s sports in general—had historically been denied the credit it was due. “We weren’t really supported that much, and the men kind of overshadowed us, so I feel like all the limelight that we do have now is dope,” Danette Monlouis, 40, told SELF. “They played just as hard. They practiced just as hard. So why not?” Echoing that sentiment, 65-year-old Cindy Broholm told SELF that women’s basketball “has been underrated and underwatched.” “And I’m glad that it’s finally getting its recognition,” she added.
By around 10:45 a.m., the parade had begun in earnest. First came cruisers, motorcades, bagpipers, and mounted police. Then floats began to appear, blasting classic New York–themed songs like “Empire State of Mind” as the fenced-in crowd went wild—waving towels, resuming chants, hollering at the float occupants. Understandably, because, the Liberty stars themselves were on board, posing for photos and generally having a good time. Per E! Online, Sabrina Ionescu hopped off at one point to sign autographs for kids, and Breanna Stewart was spotted cracking open a bottle of champagne.
One mom, Stephanie Hubbell, 36, clutched an Ellie the Elephant toy in one hand and held her nearly one-year-old daughter, Ezra, in the other as they watched the floats progress along Broadway. “My spouse has been watching for forever, but I really got into them this season for the first time, so now that we have a daughter, getting to share women’s sports with her is what’s really inspired me to get connected to the team,” Hubbell told SELF. “The athletes are just such role models for my little one, for any child out there.”
Much like a family heirloom, sports team fandom is often passed down from generation to generation, and the WNBA is no different. “I live a few blocks from Barclays Center, so I’ve been going to games ever since [the Liberty] moved there,” Dorothy Barnhouse, 66, told SELF. “I have tall girls and I raised them playing basketball and used to go to Madison Square Garden for their birthday every year.” Despite—or perhaps because of—the fact that Barnhouse never played sports herself (though, she adds, “I feel like I would’ve played something” if Title IX had been around during her youth), she is a big women’s sports advocate: “For my daughters and granddaughters, it’s just amazing,” she said. With big names like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese elevating the WNBA’s profile, this particular moment in sports history is “just one of these things that feels like it’s the final culmination, decades and decades later, when they rule that women’s sports should be equal to men.”
Similarly, Knowings said “I wish Title IX had done more” at the time it was passed. But, she adds, it’s not like the NBA itself was an overnight success: “It took Michael [Jordan], it took Larry [Bird], it took Isiah [Thomas] to push the league forward, and it’s going to take the Angel Reeses and Caitlin Clarks and A’ja Wilsons to push our league forward.”
“So,” she concluded, “50 years, 25 years from now, who knows where the WNBA will be?”
Related:
- Great News: WNBA Players No Longer Have to Take Commercial Flights to Away Games
- Women’s Sports Bars Are Changing the Game
- 8 Things to Know About Cameron Brink After Her WNBA Debut
Get more of SELF’s great sports coverage delivered right to your inbox—for free.
