If New York Liberty Are Now Worth $600M, Do the Billionaire Owners Deserve a Tax-Exempt Arena?
As WNBA valuations rocket, Clara Wu Tsai's $1B goal no longer seems a stretch. The Democratic Socialist Mayor attends debut game. Will he push venue operators on tax exemptions?
The New York Liberty had a smashing debut game last night. Consider this to be a small counter-narrative to the blizzard of publicity, a reminder that, however enjoyable, “sports entertainment corporations” do not deserve public largesse.
The WNBA, after years of financial stagnation, has seen team valuations rocket thanks to new media rights, sponsorship deals, and recognizable stars like the Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark. That’s led to an average valuation CNBC says is “$460 million, 84% more than the league’s most recent expansion fee of $250 million.”
Both CNBC and Sportico estimated the New York Liberty is worth $600 million, an astonishing rise from the $12 to $14 million in debt that Joe and Clara Wu Tsai assumed in 2019 when acquiring the stagnant business from Madison Square Garden’s James Dolan.
That’s one-third more than the $450 million valuation reported less than a year ago when the Liberty, owned mainly by the Tsais (plus the Koch family), sold a stake in the “mid-teens” to several investors, including Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, which Joe Tsai now leads.
In May 2024, Wu Tsai said she aimed to make the Liberty the WNBA’s first billion-dollar franchise within ten years. That’s no longer a stretch, and it should happen faster.
According to CNBC, the Golden State Valkyries are the league’s first $1 billion team, Michael Ozanian of CNBC reported May 4. (Sportico says $850 million.)
“Well-run WNBA teams will be worth $1 billion within five years,” a potential investor told Ozanian. Count the Liberty in.
Smart moves
Credit the Tsais for savvy investment and marketing, for acquiring star players, for enhancing facilities and staff, and for conceiving a new image for the team, including mascot Ellie the Elephant.
They sold out the Barclays Center in their home debut last night, where they crushed the Connecticut Sun, even without some key players.
Even the new box office, temporarily on the not-quite-public plaza, is covered in Liberty logos, as shown in the photo below.
The Liberty’s new coach is interviewed in New York magazine, with the headline Can the New York Liberty Be Champions Again? The pressure is on for new head coach Chris DeMarco.
From a glowing May 7 profile in Vanity Fair, Clara Wu Tsai Put Her Money on the New York Liberty. Now, the World is Finally Catching Up to the WNBA.:
Wu Tsai is eager to see the Liberty win it all and is proud that this era of the team will be “known for investment that changed the trajectory of, or set the standards for, what other companies and teams think of what’s possible for the WNBA.”1
They built a new fan base in the borough and region for this “sports entertainment corporation,” as subsidy skeptic Bettina Damiani put it in 2007 Congressional testimony.
Public and private
It raises a question, as I wrote on Twitter/X: with the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, and Barclays Center (operating company) skyrocketing in value, why does New York City/State not review the arena tax exemption and/or charge for making Ticketmaster Plaza permanent in a revised Atlantic Yards plan?2
Though few remember, the potential for greater public benefit has been raised before.
After all, if a second professional team arrived at Barclays, according to the February 2005 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the city, state, and original developer Forest City, “additional rent and other terms” would be negotiated.
That’s never been invoked, however.
No, often opaque spending, purportedly $5 million a year, by the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation’s Social Justice Fund (see my series), doesn’t compensate for a tax-free arena property recently assessed at $122.7 million.
Note that Citifield and Yankee Stadium have even larger tax exemptions, while Madison Square Garden’s exemption, according to the Independent Budget Office, is anomalously low.3
Remember, rather than pay taxes on the tax-exempt site, the arena operators make payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOTs, to cover construction debt, as I wrote in 2024. Watchdog legislator Richard Brodsky likened the practice to sending “my tax payments to the bank to pay off the mortgage.”
Moreover, they benefit from tax-exempt bonds, which offer lower interest rates than taxable bonds, and have already been refinanced for additional savings.
Last night, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji, attended the game.
It’s understandable why public officials like sports teams: they offer a platform of publicity without having to navigate political partisanship. (During his campaign, he went to a Knicks game.)
Mamdani’s own Communications Director also posted on Twitter/X:
Shouldn’t a true socialist not only criticize high ticket prices, as Mamdani did with the Knicks, but also the tax exemptions that benefit Barclays, as well as MSG, Citifield, and Yankee Stadium?
Does he not know of the 2020 letter from nine Council Members stating, “We love our teams, but we love our constituents more”? (More here.)
Reasons for Liberty/WNBA boom
The WNBA’s new media rights deals, CNBC reported, are 6.5 times the league’s previous average for such deals, while sponsorship and attendance have risen, finally leading to a new contract for historically underpaid players.
The Valkyries reaped $78 million in revenue last year, with 18,064 average attendance, while the Liberty earned $43 million, with a 16,323 average, about 1,200 less than the maximum attendance. So there’s room in Brooklyn to both fill seats and, likely, keep raising prices. Also, a deeper playoff run would reap more revenue.
Sportico, in its 2026 WNBA Valuations Ranking, valued the Valkyries at “only” $850 million, which indicates that such rankings are more art than science.
“The average WNBA team is worth an estimated $427 million, up 59% from 2025,” Sportico’s Kurt Badenhausen declared.
As the valuations “include real estate and team-related assets, such as practice facilities,” the value of the Liberty is expected to be boosted by the $80 million practice facility planned for Greenpoint, scheduled to open next spring.
Team revenues, averaging $31.5 million last year, rose 56% year over year and 139% from 2023, according to Sportico.
The Brooklyn Bridge uniform
No progress without profit was the story behind the NBA and the Brooklyn Nets, as author Matt Sullivan wrote in his book Can’t Knock the Hustle. Same for the WNBA and the Liberty.
Consider the new uniform inspired by the Brooklyn Bridge, which the team says is “rooted in themes of strength, movement, resilience, and connection.” Of course, they’re already on sale for $129.
“The Rebel Edition uniform is a tribute to Brooklyn, to the history that surrounds us, and to the women whose resilience and determination have shaped this franchise and continue to drive the game forward,” said Liberty CEO Keia Clarke.
Inscribed within the stripe on the back of the jersey and above the jersey tag on the front is a quote from Emily Warren Roebling (wife of chief engineer Washington Roebling, son of original engineer John Roebling), whose leadership was instrumental in the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge: “Back of every great work we can find the self-sacrificing devotion of a woman.”
“One difference,” as I wrote on Twitter/X, “is that the Brooklyn Bridge doesn’t have all those sponsors and logos.
Opening day
Yesterday was not merely a home opener, according to the Liberty, but also “the start of a season-long celebration connecting the Liberty’s legacy to the future of basketball in New York.”
“Liberty legend Kym Hampton” performed the National Anthem, while halftime entertainment included Liberty mascot Ellie the Elephant, along with the Lil Torches, Torch Patrol, and Timeless Torches. The game had a custom court inspired by the franchise’s original 1997 design.
I’m sure it was fun. While the owners of the Liberty and the arena company could spend big on their holdings, they somehow can’t keep the escalators rising from the transit hub working. (It’s a recurring issue.)
The team announced new food options, including Levain Bakery cookies and 7th Street Burger smashburgers, as well as a new spicy mango margarita. New merchandise, too.
Local businesses offering Liberty perks include Bagel Pub, Pasta Night, Shake Shack, and even the Whitney Museum of American Art, which will host the May 15th edition of Free Friday Nights, a Liberty-themed event.
New sponsor: Coach
The Liberty just announced new partnerships with the handbag brand Coach, the league’s official handbag partner.
This includes Coach Story Sessions, featuring key players from the team, plus a stop on the brand’s spring Tabby Tour. It will also feature a special #BookTok-inspired social series, the “Courtside Book Club,” with Liberty players — and the team’s mascot, Ellie the Elephant —selecting a reading list for each quarter of the season.
“Storytelling is at the heart of how we continue to grow the game, and this partnership with Coach allows us to tell the New York Liberty story in a truly meaningful way,” said CEO Clarke.
New sponsor: Spotify
Now Spotify is the Liberty’s Official Music Partner, including in-game activations, player storytelling, and on-court branding. The launch yesterday included a “home opener block party presented by Spotify.”
Mascot Ellie “will also headline select Spotify-led activations at Barclays Center, and the Liberty will debut an official Spotify playlist featuring songs produced by the organization, alongside tracks that resonate with fans.”
It’s all part of being a well-run sports entertainment corporation. As Damiani told Congress:
Although sports entertainment corporations have an entire section of every day’s
newspaper devoted to them, the [teams] are, we must always remember,
privately owned entertainment corporations. It’s discouraging that officials are confusing teams with public goods like parks, water and transit that are essential to the city’s public health and economic vitality.
The reporter interviews Clara Wu Tsai in her "elegant Brooklyn town house." The Tsais do have two luxury apartments in a Central Park-adjacent Manhattan supertall, but it makes sense they'd buy or rent a place closer to the Barclays Center.
The same goes for Madison Square Garden, Yankee Stadium, and Citifield.
From the IBO: "IBO views this as a conservative estimate of the foregone revenue since—knowing the property has a full tax exemption—there is little incentive to devote extensive resources to estimating the fair market value of the arena, which is the first step in determining the tax liability for the property.”
This is the essence of reporting, my friend. That line in the 2005 MOU was a throw away that they thought would be long forgotten. The successor owners should still be bound by the initial commitments share the bounty since they still enjoy the tax exemptions that were also part of that agreement.
Great reporting Norman, digging up the 2005 MOU seems like an opening for the City to recieve a fair share of the Billionaire's windfall. The fans have made this commodity so astoundingly valuable, and the fans ARE the City. The players rightfully received a large boost in salary, the City should share in that as well.