New York is an Ell of a town and a real powerhouse for women's sport, says Kate Mason, Metro columnist and sports anchor. Published June 11, 2026, 1:31pm, updated June 11, 2026, 1:40pm.
One of the key players at Brooklyn-based WNBA team NY Liberty never speaks publicly and has little basketball ability, yet is followed by a quarter of a million people. She is a seven-foot elephant named Ellie, and she is an icon. Watching her stomp through her mid-game show, her elephant power making cameras shake when she lands from an elaborate move, I realized I had been grinning for five minutes straight. This show should not have been for me, a Brit with a puritanical attitude to sports fandom. But New York City persuaded me to watch sport differently.
New York is full of confidence right now. The New York Knicks have made the NBA Finals for the first time this millennium. New Mayor Zohran Mamdani combines charm and practical purpose to elevate New Yorkers' needs. In six weeks, the World Cup final will be held in the shared home of the Giants and Jets.
Four years ago, before the 2022 World Cup, I spoke with football-loving women in Qatar about whether the men's World Cup would help women's sport there. Their response was a weary no. Ahead of the North American World Cup, controversies abound, but something positive is brewing. Jess Carter, an England international who plays centre-back for Gotham FC, is excited about people finding her sport as a result of the World Cup. She notes that soccer sits around fifth in the US sports hierarchy but believes the World Cup will enlarge the potential fanbase for the NWSL. Gotham play three games during the World Cup period and are defending champions, which might bring new fans.
Bec Allen, forward-guard for the Liberty, had no idea the men's football World Cup is about to start in the States, though she was aware the women's World Cup happens next year. Perhaps they are right to be unbothered, because women's sport is big news, especially in New York. Having long been the unadored poor sister, the main character stage is here. Investors are alive to the opportunity of accessing growing, engaged communities in an unsaturated market. Expansion NWSL franchise Denver Summit FC has been awarded an infrastructure grant for a purpose-built women's football stadium, and Brighton has announced plans to build Europe's first purpose-built women's ground.
In an AI age, people are desperate for community. Sport has long been the best place for it, and women's sports spaces are only growing. With money comes opportunity. Across New York and New Jersey, women's sport is feeling a new sense of power. Sports bar owner Trisha Rowan has noticed women's sport now gets requested on her screens all the time, leading her to start hosting Liberty watch parties at her bar, Kitty Sullivan's. They are packed out, and she has never seen so much oestrogen in there.
One habit of American sport I found annoying from afar is the mid-match introduction of famous crowd members on the jumbotron. But at the Liberty, I saw it differently: validation that people you admire love this stuff too. I smiled again and ducked out to buy an Ellie.
Kate's New York trip was supported by NYC Tourism & Conventions, Langham Hotels, where room rates start from $790USD per night in June, and Delta Air Lines, with London-New York returns from £588.
