When other WNBA teams play the New York Liberty, their scouting reports likely go a little something like this:
Close down Sabrina Ionescu from three-point range.
Box out Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones in the paint.
Nothing can stop Big Ellie.
Who’s “Big Ellie,” you ask? A new top draft pick from the NCAA? A key signing from abroad? She’s neither. Big Ellie is the New York Liberty’s mascot.
Ellie the Elephant, affectionately known by her throngs of adoring fans as Big Ellie, has had a breakout WNBA season this year, though Liberty loyals have been on Team Ellie since her rollout in 2021. Ellie replaced the team’s previous mascot, Maddie (named after their then home court, Madison Square Garden in Manhattan), when the franchise rebranded from playing at MSG to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The Liberty’s chief brand officer, Shana Stephenson, was one of the team members who originally conceived of and developed the Ellie character and persona, though she has evolved beyond Stephenson’s wildest dreams into a viral sensation entertainer extraordinaire and downright diva. “I’m also a fan of Ellie, of course, but I’m also often blown away by her ability to just continue to blow minds and exceed expectations and rise to the moment,” Stephenson told me recently as we chatted about Ellie’s star power.
Ellie sets the exuberant tone for the game day experience at NY Liberty games, from her drippy arrival tunnel fits, iconic on-court dance performances, and mid-game antics on the sidelines and in the stands. As a result, the games appear to be more like parties than sporting events, with the packed stands overflowing with joy. Ellie’s popularity is indicative of the seismic growth in the WNBA over the last few seasons. With the 2024 regular season wrapping this past weekend, ESPN has reported that this has been the most-viewed WNBA regular season ever across their various platforms, with games averaging 1.2 million viewers. That marks a ridiculous 170% increase from 2023.
Of course, most of the credit goes to the athletes for these skyrocketing stats, but feats in the teams’ branding and entertainment value, like Ellie, have critically bolstered what the players are doing on the court. The rest of my conversation with Stephenson is below, where she reveals details about Ellie’s development and evolution, and why she thinks Ellie has connected with the masses in ways she never could have imagined.
(Conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity).
An elephant mascot for a Brooklyn-based sports team isn’t the most obvious choice. Can you walk me through how the idea of Ellie first came about?
Our previous mascot at Madison Square Garden was Maddie, who was a golden retriever. When we knew we were relocating the team to Brooklyn, we knew we couldn’t bring Maddie (who was named after Madison the Square Garden) to the Barclays Center. Maddie was very beloved by our Liberty loyals, our fan base, and we also knew that we had to be really thoughtful about how we sunsetted Maddie, and introduced whatever this new mascot would be. There were big shoes to fill (no pun intended), and we didn’t want our fans to hate this new mascot.
So from that moment, we knew we had to think up a new mascot; not having a mascot was never an option. Mascots have always been key to WNBA teams, so we knew that it was important for us to dream up something different. As we were thinking of what were viable mascot replacements for Maddie, we tossed out everything that you could think of that’s New York related, from rats and pigeons to apples, just naming anything that New York was known for, but none of them hit in the same way that Maddie did.
Our CEO, Kia, who never sleeps, was up late one night and Googled “Brooklyn and animal” and this story about the Brooklyn Bridge came up where Barnum and Bailey executed a stunt with elephants walking across it to prove that the bridge was sturdy, safe, and strong enough to withhold all the weight and traffic. She came into my office the next day saying, “Okay, I think I got it. Hear me out: what about an elephant?” And I immediately dismissed it. But then she told me the story. So then we thought of the name Ellie because of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty (since she’s our muse) and “Ellie” being short for elephant. It just all made sense. It went from being an “absolute not” and immediate “no,” to a no-brainer.
Once you landed on the idea of Ellie, what was the character’s development process like?
First, we had to pitch the idea to ownership and get them on board with this idea of an elephant as the mascot of the New York Liberty. We were successfully able to convince them that this was a direction that we should go in as an organization, and they gave us the green light. That was in 2019, and then in 2020 the pandemic hit, so we had a bit of a lag and some lead time in terms of when we actually had to start developing Ellie.
We found an artist who sketched Ellie out and then put together a prototype model to show what Ellie could look like with the crown, the ears, the lashes, and the sea foam and black-and-white J’s. And we were like, she’s cute! We love her! Then we went into the phase of playing around with proportions and different things, and then we found a costume maker. We ended up working with a costume maker out of New York, and at that time there were so many challenges with ordering materials with the supply chain issues. Different pieces that we ordered from overseas were delayed, and we were really nervous if we would be able to complete the costume in time for the start of our season once things started to ramp up. But luckily we made our deadline.
How did your team handle launching Ellie to replace Maddie from a brand storytelling perspective?
There was a whole campaign and story around it. We had to figure out what the story was behind sunsetting Maddie and having her pass the torch to Ellie because, again, we wanted fans to really embrace Ellie. We wanted fans to love who Ellie was. So we came up with the idea of having Maddie film herself at Madison Square Garden, get on the subway traveling to Brooklyn, getting off at the Atlantic Avenue Station, and coming up the steps out of the subway at the Barclays Center. Meeting Maddie at the top of the staircase in front of the Barclays Center was Ellie. Maddie then literally passed the torch to Ellie, and then Ellie went inside the Barclays Center and waved to Maddie. When Ellie walks inside the building, all of the LEDs say, “Welcome home, Ellie!”
The fans initially, like most people, were confused by the idea of an elephant, but after they actually read the press release and we explained the story behind it they got on board with the concept of an elephant.
It’s brilliant to use the mascot storyline to not only explain the mythology of Ellie as a character, but to encapsulate the wider rebrand the NY Liberty was undergoing as a franchise in the transition from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Those boroughs have such different identities, and New Yorkers know that better than anyone, so I’m sure every aspect of that rebrand rollout needed to be handled with the utmost delicacy and thoughtfulness.
Exactly; Ellie could not exist at Madison Square Garden. It’s such a different culture. Her personality is very New York, but it’s also very Brooklyn. And that brings me to the mascot tryout.
I think you have to be a really interesting individual to want to be a professional mascot.
We held auditions for different people who wanted to be Ellie, advertising at different entertainment casting agencies, and posting it on social. The tryout was one of the craziest things I’ve ever been a part of; I think you have to be a really interesting individual to want to be a professional mascot. We were able to identify the person, and they’re still Ellie to this day. They were a mascot prior to becoming Ellie, so they had that unique experience before transforming Ellie into this major character who’s an entertainer, a performer, and a dancer.
When we first met with them, we asked to see what ideas they had. We already knew that we wanted Ellie to be female and we wanted Ellie to dance. It wasn’t that important to us for Ellie to be athletic just because we were a basketball team. Most basketball mascots can dunk, they can dribble, they can do all the things. But we definitely wanted to do something different.
Obviously, the love for Ellie has blown up now, but after the reveal of moving from Maddie to Ellie, what was the initial reaction from the fans?
The first season we introduced Ellie was in 2021, and we were still dealing with a lot of the effects of Covid, and we had a lot of restrictions in place to protect the players. So that meant we were still testing players every day and testing everyone who was in direct contact with players every day. As a result of that, there were tiers of people who could be down on the court, and our entertainment, dance teams, and Ellie weren’t able to be on the court.
So when we introduced Ellie that season, we had a stage built on the baseline where she performed. She couldn’t interact with the fans in the way that she does now, so it took a little bit of time for people to understand who Ellie was, what her strengths were, what her personality was, and how her character was evolving into what it is now.
In time, we’ve continued to try new things. When Ellie was introduced, Ellie had typical mascot shoes, and by season two, we ditched those completely and realized Ellie should just rock some sneakers. It just felt more authentic to her, especially as a dancer. She likes to move around, and we didn’t want those shoes to hinder her in any way. Ellie also initially had a little curl on the top of her head, and, quite honestly, we couldn’t keep it curled, so our senior director of entertainment, Criscia Long, came up with the idea of getting hair extensions and braiding it, and that’s how Ellie’s ponytail braid was born. So, out of a need to solve a problem or just ingenuity, we’ve been able to continue to find little tweaks here and there that bring more of Ellie’s personality to life.
Also, because the person who embodies Ellie was a mascot before, they have ideas. They’re from Brooklyn, which was also very intentional. We wanted someone who really understands the culture and the core audience we’re hoping to connect with.
“Authenticity” is the key word that comes to mind when I analyze Ellie— it so clearly has driven every choice you and your team has made in creating her. I’m sure that’s what resonates with your fans and why they love her so much.
I’m just as blown away by Ellie on most days as everyone else is. For example, when Ellie performed with Ciara, she went backstage and met her, and Ciara completely fangirled out about meeting Ellie. And then when Ellie took the stage and performed, she truly owned that moment. My jaw was on the floor. I was like, Ellie is performing in front of 18,000 fans right now! I’m often blown away by her ability to exceed expectations and rise to the moment.
The players love Ellie too, and they love sharing the player tunnel fit moment with her. They shouldn’t be watching Ellie during the games, but it’s hard not to! I sit not too far from the player bench, and sometimes they just look over at me and shake their head like, What is she doing now?
I sit not too far from the player bench, and sometimes they just look over at me and shake their head like, What is she doing now?
You mentioned before how you didn’t necessarily want Ellie to be conventionally “sporty,” dribbling around and dunking the ball like other mascots do. Instead, you’ve played up her femininity with her styling, outfits and bags, her signature braid, her lashes, the way she moves, etc. I love how she’s reflective of so many athletes in this era who are also embracing glamour and presenting so femme, even as they play. It feels like they’re reclaiming the power of femininity, dismantling binaries, and defying stereotypes about what types of women are good at sports.
We’re seeing a lot more femininity in sports right now, and that’s always been a goal of mine as a chief brand officer. Even in terms of the photography and how we talk about our athletes, I always wanted to highlight the femininity of those who identify as feminine (because not all of them do), but you can also show them as being strong. It’s not an “either-or,” it’s a “both-and.” They can exist together.
It’s just really fun that our game has evolved to a place of acceptance and celebrating, pushing boundaries and trying new things.
One aspect that makes women athletes different from men is their hair, their nails, their lashes, and their makeup. It’s important to me that we really lean into that and celebrate that. So in the photographs we’re taking, I want them to flip your hair if you have braids or locks. I want us to show the multidimensionality and the diversity with which all of the players show up as women in sports. It’s just really fun that our game has evolved to a place of acceptance and celebrating, pushing boundaries, and trying new things.
Your team has struck gold by creating such a powerful brand-building tool with Ellie. How have you capitalized on that outside of her entertainment value as a performer?
We are definitely consistently thinking through ways we can integrate Ellie into the rest of our brand outside of just being in the arena. Integrating a new drop into Ellie’s tunnel fit, for example. So if we’re launching a new merch item, maybe Ellie can wear that on her way into the arena when we’re capturing the player’s arrival. We’re strategically placing these items on Ellie and having these moments, continuing to innovate and elevate around it.
The Jets released a new uniform this season, and they asked if they could gift Stewie a new jersey and have her wear it. And I was like, “Yeah, but what do you think about Ellie also wearing it?” and they were like, “Oh my god, yes!” so then they gave Ellie a custom jersey. So it’s not just us who are recognizing Ellie’s power and influence, but other teams in New York are seeing it, other brands. Brand Jordan customized a whole Ellie fit for her, and Jordan doesn’t collaborate with just anybody or any athlete; it’s a very specific and elite group of people that they often work with, so for Ellie to be on that list it’s like, yeah, we have something special here.
The social media aspect of Ellie’s meteoric rise can’t be understated, considering almost every video of her seems to go viral. I’m sure there’s a whole team dedicated to that part of her persona, but I’m curious about the voiceover you’ve chosen to give her in those videos and how that’s pushed her character forward.
Our ultimate goal with Ellie is for her to have a show like Sesame Street, with a puppet sitting on a stoop in New York City interviewing people. But at first, we were like, but Ellie doesn’t have a voice so we can’t do that. As a workaround, the person who plays Ellie suggested we use a trending TikTok voice.
We were a little uncomfortable with it at first, but the first video they used it on was really funny, and the reaction that it got was amazing, so we just decided to go with it. That’s just another one of those risks that we took, because in the mascot world mascots don’t speak, they’re nonverbal. So this was something that hadn’t been done before; it was unexpected, but the reaction has been great, so now that’s the voice of Ellie.
The voice is very New York, it’s very Brooklyn, and I think that’s also what people are drawn to. I speak to people who sound like Ellie every day. Her accent is so thick; I’m from New York, and even when I listen to it I’m like, Ellie’s accent is out of control right now in this video.