The New York Liberty topped the Connecticut Sun on July 16, improving the best record in the WNBA to 21-4.
Photographer: David Cabrera/Bloomberg
How the Liberty Went From Bottom Feeders to WNBA Juggernaut
Since buying the club five years ago, Joe Tsai and wife Clara Wu Tsai have treated it like an undervalued asset that needed investment. The latest example is a plan to build the team its own training facility.
The New York Liberty has become one of the most successful women’s basketball franchises, with its owners breaking rules in a bid to treat the team the same as the men.
Billionaire Joe Tsai, co-founder of web giant Alibaba, and wife Clara Wu Tsai acquired the team in January 2019 from New York Knicks owner James Dolan and began enacting a plan to invest in the team and turn the afterthought into a hot ticket. At the time, they were outliers. The WNBA was struggling. Franchises received little attention from owners who were more focused on the NBA teams they ran.