ELLIE’S SIGNATURE STRUT starts a good 20 feet from the runway.
Her Nike Air Force 1s, green and bedazzled, peek out from beneath a sparkling floor-length gown in seafoam green. Less than three hours before a 3 p.m. New York Liberty tipoff against the Connecticut Sun, a group of influencers, media members and Ellie’s content team wait for the Liberty mascot to reveal her tunnel look. The black carpet runway is set up in the underbelly of Barclays Center, not far from where players roll up in their cars and head into the locker room.
“If you’re waiting for players, they came by already,” a Liberty staff member informs the crowd. We missed Breanna Stewart and Natasha Cloud by a few minutes. Still, no one moves, waiting for Ellie to pop around the corner.
Since Ellie debuted in May 2021, when the Liberty moved from Madison Square Garden to Barclays, the mascot’s popularity has reached unprecedented heights. She has her own merch and has been featured in Vogue, SLAM, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. On TikTok, where Ellie has 196,000 followers at publish date, her “Get Ready with Me” video has been watched more than 3.5 million times. In August, she appeared onstage with Ciara wearing rhinestones and a pleather miniskirt for the singer’s “Out of This World Tour” stop at Barclays.
Ellie’s rise has been fueled in part by a successful team; the Liberty won the WNBA Finals last year and are first in the Eastern Conference. But fans mainly flock to Ellie for her elephant-sized personality and sometimes unhinged dance moves. Ellie twerks. She does headstands. According to her bio page on the Liberty website, her alter ego is Ellie J. Blige, an homage to singer Mary J. Blige. Unlike other mascots, fated to repeat the same outfits from their inception — pretty much always team jerseys — New York-based designers style Ellie.
Today’s game, on June 1, is her birthday. The Liberty are going all out. The theme of this year, a staff member says, is “Ellie-vation.” Fans can sign birthday cards for Ellie on the concourse. “Happy birthday, queen, can’t wait to dance with you,” someone writes. Five mascots from nearby teams, including Jonathan the Husky from UConn and Double Play from the New York Rise, have been invited as birthday guests.
The celebrations are “extra” and “boujee,” two qualities that have endeared the mascot to fans and why we’re spending today following Ellie on her birthday. Ellie’s magic lies in her anonymity and mystery behind the trunk. Ellie could not only be anyone — she could be one of us. We could be her if only we granted ourselves the simple permission to be as bold and glamorous.
On the runway, Ellie twirls. “Alrighttttt birthday girl,” a woman to my right says. Ellie pops a hip, one svelte leg visible through the slit in her dress. A multicolored faux fur coat drapes over her shoulders. There are several photographers, and their collective flashes in the narrow cinder block-lined hallway create a blinding effect. The light glimmers off the Liberty brooch pinned on the right side of her David Dalrymple-designed dress. Ellie is a pro, though, and doesn’t blink. “Can we see the nails?” someone asks. Ellie points at each of us, a perfectly shaped press-on turquoise nail lifting and lingering in the air with the grace of a beauty pageant contestant.
As Ellie turns, I swear she winks while gesturing toward us. She blows one last kiss from her trunk, then sashays away.
ELLIE MANIA IS REAL. It’s 2:15 p.m., and after walking the runway, Ellie is outside Barclays, interacting with fans waiting to enter the arena. Many, if they aren’t in Liberty jerseys or gear, are dressed as Ellie. There are elephant tails pinned to the backs of shirts, braided hair with seafoam green extensions, floppy elephant ears. Several fans – kids and adults alike – recount dressing up as Ellie for Halloween.
“She’s got fashion, she’s got style, she’s so Brooklyn,” Liberty fan Dawn Schmidt says. She made three sets of elephant ears adorned with a foam Statue of Liberty crown for today’s game — one for her, one for a friend and one for her friend’s daughter, who is 8. All three started attending Liberty games a few years ago. “It’s like a cult. You have a friend who brings you to the first game because they know you’ll love it, and then you can’t stop coming.”
Just a few feet away, fans are shouting for the mascot’s attention over the noise of the DJ stationed in front of Barclays. “Ellie! Ellie! Ellieeeeee!” Ellie kisses cheeks. She takes selfies with fans. She accepts a birthday hat from a fan and places it on her head. A little girl runs up for a hug, then another girl follows, emboldened by the first, and fastens her arms around Ellie’s leg. When a remnant of blush smudges on Ellie’s furry gray cheek — the result of kissing dozens of cheeks — someone is there to wipe it away with a towel.
The hardest job in the league may not be defending a Caitlin Clark logo 3 or containing three-time MVP A’ja Wilson. Respectfully, that job may belong to Frantz and Jahmal. The Stompaz, as they’re called — Stompa in singular form — serve as Ellie’s backup dancers and hype men. When Ellie needs someone to hold her purse so she can drop it low, a Stompa is there to assist. They wear white jumpsuits with “Liberty” in sparkling letters on the back. A waist belt holds a Gatorade bottle and towel.
Frantz has been a Stompa for three years. “The OG Stompa,” he says. Jahmal joined two years ago when it became clear Ellie’s growing popularity required additional assistance. In a setting like this, the Stompaz are here for crowd control as much as they are to hype Ellie up. During games, Jahmal wears a headset that connects to the in-game entertainment team, so Ellie knows where and when she needs to appear.
Jahmal says time management is the hardest part of their job. They need to keep Ellie on schedule, but her success also depends on her ability to interact with and meet fan demand. Sometimes, the two conflict. Ellie is running 15 minutes behind. Frantz is playfully pulling Ellie by the hand, trying to shuffle her away from the fans and into the arena.
But Ellie runs this show. Sometimes (oftentimes, if you ask the Stompaz) she goes off script. Lured by the music, a hip-hop birthday remix by Amyna Love, she can’t resist. Ellie stops in front of DJ Ty-Michelle. An impromptu dance floor forms as fans circle. Ellie throws her hips to the right. And gives a pop to the left. She’s no longer wearing her dress from earlier and has changed into her signature “herzey,” a long jersey that fans can now buy replicas of — minus the tail hole. A birthday sash is slung over the herzey. She whips her braid and lets her feet bounce to the beat.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Ty-Michelle says, amping up the crowd. “Do you seeeeeee that footwork?”
Chants of “It’s your birthday, it’s your birthday” and “Go, Ellie, go, Ellie” attract the attention of commuters exiting the subway. At one point, she leaps over a barricade to dance atop a 3-foot-tall metal bollard, sending the crowd into a frenetic cheer. Meanwhile, Frantz frets over the time. “It’s 2:30, and we’re supposed to get her out at 2:15.” He shakes his head. “Happens every game.”
“What’s it like? Following Ellie?” He laughs. “How good is your cardio?”
THE ANSWER, I discover pitifully, about seven minutes into the first quarter, is not good enough. After tipoff, Ellie bounds up and down stairs and darts between sections, sometimes athletically hurdling over barricades. At one point, the photographer, Amy Lombard, and I lose Ellie entirely and park in front of Section 123 to catch our breath and scan the crowd for a twerking elephant.
“Let’s go, Liberty,” the crowd chants. Boom boom boom. “Let’s go, Liberty.”
On the court, Stewart scoops up a loose ball and checks a cross-court bounce pass to Sabrina Ionescu for an uncontested layup. New York leads 23-13. The team, 6-0 at the time, is en route to a historic thrashing of the Sun, and the atmosphere is electric. Entering the arena, the first 9,000 fans received Ellie birthday-themed rally towels. Now, the towels thrash wildly over a crowd of 17,400 after every basket, creating a churning sea of green in the stands.
Ellie is entertaining in the 200-level suites when we spot her again. We vault upstairs and catch her before the end of the first quarter. Then she’s on the move once more. Roving around the arena, Ellie creates massive traffic jams that induce panic in security personnel, who do their best to maneuver fans into their seats and out of the way. Parents carry their young children from sections over and walk toward Ellie in a wholesome mascot pilgrimage. Following Ellie, you learn quickly. It feels like following a combination of the Beatles and Beyoncé.
“Can we get a pic with Ellie?” A dad asks a security guard. The guard shrugs. “Not up to me,” he says, but a Stompa overhears, and he turns around, trying to be helpful. “Have your camera ready,” he advises. “And don’t be shy!” Ellie, already several rows below in Section 107, doesn’t wait for anyone. Not even for the Stompaz. For an elephant, Ellie is incredibly light on her Nikes.
“Are we too late?” another dad asks. His daughter is wearing a rainbow sequin skirt. He hoists her onto his hip so they can catch up to Ellie. Photo taken, he fist-bumps a Stompa on his way back to their seats.
The flow of parents and children doesn’t stop. The second quarter starts, and the Liberty scoring parade continues. Jaylyn Sherrod nets a 3-point shot on an Isabelle Harrison assist to our right. It’s 34-13, New York. We’re crammed between seats, blocking the view of at least one row of fans, but everyone is good-natured about the hoopla one elephant has created. Queen Ellie is holding court. One woman presents Ellie with a handmade crochet tote bag wrapped in tissue paper. Ellie takes the offering, blows a kiss and slings the bag onto the crook of one arm.
“Trying to get a picture?” I ask yet another dad in front of me. His daughter’s arms are wrapped around his neck.
“Nah,” he replies. “We got a high-five, and that was good enough.”
There’s an official timeout with less than three minutes remaining in the second quarter. Ellie jumps onto an empty row of seats and begins to dance, balancing on the armchairs. Still holding onto the crochet bag. The whole thing is broadcast on the jumbotron, and the crowd eats it up. “Ellie is wildin’ tonight,” a woman next to me says. Then the buzzer sounds, and Ellie is hustled into the tunnel to change into her halftime outfit.
ELLIE’S IDENTITY behind the trunk is a mystery.
On Vogue’s podcast, “The Run-Through,” in May, Stewart said players were sworn to secrecy. “If you sign with the New York Liberty, you might be able to find out. But some of our new players don’t know,” Stewart said.
Because most of us aren’t suiting up for the Liberty anytime soon, numerous Reddit threads are dedicated to who Ellie might be. Rumors run rampant online, including one far-reaching but popular theory that Indiana Fever guard Sydney Colson plays Ellie. (New York leaned into the speculation in its 2025 schedule release video by showing Ellie a picture of Colson.)
In one Reddit thread, a commentator identifies themself as an “Ellie superfan” and questions whether Ellie has an understudy. “Feels like whoever’s in there has been a little less bold and saucy,” the post reads.
The Liberty, though, have been clear that there is only one Ellie, played by the same performer from the beginning.
“We actually discovered them through an open tryout that we had at Barclays Center,” team chief brand officer Shana Stephenson says. “It’s New York, so you can imagine there were some characters.”
The tryouts narrowed candidates down from about two dozen. The costume was still in development at the time. Stephenson, along with CEO Keia Clarke and senior director of entertainment Criscia Long, initially considered a pigeon and even a rat when contemplating their new mascot. Back when the team played in Manhattan, their mascot was Maddie, a dog, named after the Liberty’s home arena, Madison Square Garden. With the move to Brooklyn, it was time for Maddie to pass the torch.
“We were brainstorming. What is this animal?” Stephenson says. “What does she look like? Is it a he?”
Ultimately, the three women settled on an elephant per Clarke’s suggestion. In 1884, P.T. Barnum marched 21 elephants and 17 camels across the newly constructed Brooklyn Bridge to prove it was safe to cross. “When Keia got to that point of the story, I stopped her,” Stephenson says. “I was like, ‘I get it.’ We just loved the symbolism and what it represented.” Elephants, it should be noted, live in matriarchal herds.
At tryouts, candidates weren’t told what animal the mascot would be. The instructions were to simply provide an interpretation of what performers believed a mascot for the New York Liberty should be.
Stephenson has never confirmed any details about Ellie’s identity. She does, however, offer a hint about the performer. Ellie is from Brooklyn.
“I definitely have my theories,” says Britton Carver, a season-ticket holder. Her long hair is dyed bright pink underneath a Liberty hat. She’s wearing an exclusive black and green team windbreaker. Carver flashes the jacket open to show me the championship trophies on the inner lining and smiles.
We’re hanging out postgame at The Key, a suit-style lounge in Barclays, for Ellie’s birthday party. Tickets to the event, available to season-ticket holders for $150, are sold out. Fans bask in the afterglow of a 100-52 Liberty blowout. This is a safe space to discuss theories on who Ellie might be.
“A lot of my friends feel strongly that Ellie has not been the same person this whole time,” Carver says. “I think people who feel that way don’t understand that people have moment to moment, they have moods, they have energy. Sabrina doesn’t shoot every time. Ellie’s not going to be perfect every time, but she’s our girl and I think she’s the same girl.”
The performer has been the same since Ellie’s inception, according to the Liberty, but the costume has evolved. Her ears are stiffer, so they don’t flutter as much when she’s mid-performance. The signature 6-foot-long braid that Ellie snaps around and the crown are now removable to accommodate hairstyle changes.
Ellie doesn’t talk — she expresses herself using body language and dispenses a healthy dose of heart hands to show appreciation. Her TikTok voiceovers — she sounds like a best friend about to drop hot gossip over mimosas — are AI-generated to maintain anonymity. Despite many theories, every fan we speak to wants Ellie to remain anonymous.
“It would ruin the magic,” says Jessica Lopez, one of the fans attending Ellie’s party. She sits with two of her friends, Kathryn Brown and Stephanie Piña. All three face the now quiet, empty arena below, where workers have descended to prep for the next game or event. It starkly contrasts the upbeat music the DJ is pumping into The Key. Over the music, Lopez tells me she’s from Los Angeles.
“I’m here just for her birthday.”
“From Los Angeles?” I ask.
“Yeah, I know,” Lopez says. She knows a cross-country trip to see an elephant sounds a bit ridiculous and amends her statement. “And to see Beyoncé. But the main point was to come here. Beyoncé just happened to be here [on tour].”
Lopez likes the Liberty — she’s wearing a team hoodie — but Ellie is what brought her here. She remembers the first time she heard about the mascot. Ellie — sorry, “Elliyoncé” — starred in a Beyoncé-inspired halftime show last year. Lopez loved it and has been a fan ever since.
Ellie’s likeness is ubiquitous at the party — on the cake, poster boards and fan apparel. Kids scamper between face painting and Ellie coloring stations. But there’s a fair share of adults in the room, too, waiting for the birthday girl to appear. Partygoers linger by the elevator doors, and they cheer when Ellie finally appears just before 7 p.m., gliding out of the elevator holding her purse. Ellie places her hand over her heart as if to say, “Who me?” Cameras flash. A few hours after the game has ended, the party can truly begin. Cheers of “Ellieeeee!” ring out.
The birthday girl has arrived.
