Rumors

Police arrested a man Wednesday for allegedly throwing a dildo at a New York Liberty game on Aug. 5 against the Wings. Charles Burgess, 32, faces two counts of assault for throwing the dildo at the arena. His throw didn’t make it onto the court, but instead struck a 12-year-old girl in the leg.

Front Office Sports

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.

Front Office Sports

New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu won her second 3-point contest Friday night to kick off WNBA All-Star Weekend, becoming the second player to win multiple shootouts. Ionescu won by scoring 30 of the possible 40 points in the second round, beating reigning champion Allisha Gray, who had 22. Ionescu's 30 points tied Allie Quigley for the second most in a WNBA 3-point contest. Ionescu holds the record of 37, set in 2023. "I knew I wasn't going to get it when I missed a few on the front end," Ionescu said of the record. "But I mean, I could have gotten close. I just missed some easy ones at the end. I think I knew I was high up there, and I kind of locked out a little bit and started like listening to the crowd. But I mean, 30 is not too bad. So I'm happy with 30 as well."

ESPN

ESPN’s broadcast of Tuesday night’s WNBA matchup between the Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty drew a big viewing audience. Madeline Kenney of the New York Post shared the numbers on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday. “The numbers from last night’s nationally televised Aces-Liberty game are in: The Liberty win averaged 701K viewers, peaking at 813K on ESPN,” Kenney said. “It was the most-watched non-Indiana WNBA game on ESPN (E1) since 1999.”

Awful Announcing

Caitlin Clark Effect Back in Full As Fever-Liberty Draws 2.2 Million Viewers Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images When Caitlin Clark is on national TV, the ratings go boom. Saturday’s game between the Fever and Liberty averaged 2.2 million viewers on ABC. ESPN announced that viewership peaked at 2.8 million and was the third-most-watched WNBA game ever on ABC. The matchup drew 76% more viewers than the average regular-season WNBA game on ABC last year. Clark had missed five games with a quad injury, during which time WNBA ratings sagged—although Indiana games even without Clark still did pretty well, all things considered, as Front Office Sports’s Colin Salao documented.

Front Office Sports

Burke is in the Basketball Hall of Fame, rightfully so. She was handed nothing, coming from obscurity, first working New York Liberty games on MSG Network before her rise through the ESPN ranks. She was sharp and informative. But in the three-person booth the last two years, she hasn’t seemed to mesh as well with Breen. He doesn’t outright ignore what she says, but they rarely build on each other’s comments. ESPN has failed to create a deep game analyst bench, even resorting to college basketball expert Bilas on playoff games this season. Some top decision-makers like Legler a lot, and he could become a Finals option, according to sources briefed on the network decision-makers’ thinking.

New York Times

Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark will be out at least two weeks with a left quad strain, the team announced Monday. Further updates will be provided following reevaluation, the team said. Fever coach Stephanie White said that she wasn't sure when the injury happened but that Clark reported some pain in her leg after the team's loss to the New York Liberty on Saturday. Clark subsequently underwent an MRI and was diagnosed with the strain, although White said she did not know its grade.

ESPN

The New York Liberty have raised capital from a group of investors at a record valuation for a professional women’s sports franchise of $450 million, sources with knowledge of the agreement told The Athletic. The total size of the shares sold in the team’s capital raise is a percentage in the “mid-teens,” according to one of the sources. It is unclear how many investors are part of the capital raise, and the deal is still subject to league approval.

New York Times

The earlier game Saturday between the defending champion Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty averaged 1.3 million viewers on ABC, so add another one million-plus game to the WNBA ledger.

New York Times

New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu is becoming an investor for the NWSL club Bay FC, the club announced Monday.New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu is becoming an investor for the NWSL club Bay FC, the club announced Monday. The 2024 WNBA champion is also joining the club as an "official commercial advisor," a position that will help the organization with commercial and marketing strategies. "I whole-heartedly understand how important investment really is and obviously you can talk about it and be about it, but you really have to want to be committed to it and invest to be able to see what you believe in come to light," Ionescu told ESPN.

ESPN

Executives of the Brooklyn Nets and its parent company, BSE Global, will privately tell you that they believe rising tensions between the U.S. and China are unlikely to effect things with the NBA or WNBA teams owned by Joe and Clara Wu Tsai ... even with President Donald Trump preparing to impose tariffs on Chinese exports once he’s inaugurated Monday. Neither Tsai is a citizen of China, they note. Joe Tsai, who was born in Taiwan, is a citizen of Canada having moved there as a child before attending high school, college and law school in the United States. Clara Wu Tsai, co-owner of the Nets, co-governor of the New York Liberty, is an American citizen born in Kansas. That said, Tsai is the executive chairman of Alibaba, the giant Chinese e-commerce company, and he and his wife have a vast array of connections — through business, sports, culture and philanthropy — that span the countries’ relations and he often comments on relations between the two countries. (Tsai’s sports entities are held separately from Alibaba, being part of his family investment office.)

NetsDaily

Doncic's foundation is getting guidance from a Youth Sports Leadership Council, a group that includes his agent Bill Duffy, Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry. New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu, former Slovenia national team coach and current Atlanta Hawks assistant Igor Kokoskov, and Hall of Famers Pau Gasol, Steve Nash, Tracy McGrady and Dirk Nowitzki.

ESPN

Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry, the face of the host 2025 All-Star city in the Bay Area, has joined several All-Stars with input in this year's event, sources said. Curry and WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu of the New York Liberty participated in the first NBA versus WNBA 3-point challenge at All-Star Saturday last February in Indianapolis. Curry and Ionescu are in strong conversations to return in a variation of the shootout, which could include other NBA and WNBA players such as Klay Thompson of the Dallas Mavericks and Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever, sources said.

ESPN

The franchise that won the first game in WNBA history finally has won the last game of the season. More than 27 years after playing for league's inaugural championship and following several near misses, the New York Liberty became WNBA champions with a 67-62 overtime victory Sunday over the Minnesota Lynx. Breanna Stewart sealed the win with two free throws with 10.1 seconds left in the extra period. After Leonie Fiebich stole a pass, the Liberty dribbled out the clock on a victory that was as hard-fought and dramatic as any in a Game 5 of the WNBA Finals.

ESPN