Uncorking the New York Liberty’s end-of-season-awards campaign

While the top eight teams compete for the championship during the WNBA playoffs, behind the scenes, their marketing and PR departments are helping players compete for other prizes: the end-of-season awards.

It’s become tradition for some teams to send themed gift packages to members of the media who vote on the awards, including MVP and Rookie of the Year, with products designed to make the case for certain players.

In Brooklyn, where the New York Liberty will face the Minnesota Lynx tonight for a chance to advance to the second round of the playoffs, the team’s marketers have historically embraced food-and-beverage-themed awards campaigns—a fitting choice for a city known for its eats.

This year’s boxes follow that tradition, with a wine-and-cheese motif, but the campaign is a little bigger than usual, as the Liberty—and the league—wrap up their 30th anniversary season.

This season “feels different marketing-wise,” Chief Brand Officer Shana Stephenson told Marketing Brew. “We are only one of three original teams remaining, so we feel really special, and really don’t take that for granted at all…We wanted our fans to really celebrate with us.”

Aged to perfection

As one of the original teams in the league, the Liberty went with a sophisticated theme for this year’s awards campaign: fine wine. The campaign revolves around veteran forward Breanna Stewart, a potential contender for MVP.

Stewart, a two-time WNBA MVP and this year’s FIBA Women’s World Cup MVP, hasn’t been shy about her love of wine. After the Liberty won the championship in 2024, she posted on X asking fans to “hand a bottle of red wine to me” during the team’s ticker-tape parade.

“We’ve been saying for a couple seasons now that she just continues to get better, so aging like a fine wine also really made sense,” Stephenson said. “This is actually her 10th season in the league, so leaning into the idea of her aging, and a vintage wine, and getting better with time, it was just such an easy layup for us—no pun intended.”

The boxes sent out this year included a bottle of merlot with a custom label that says “Stew York MVP” (a reference to one of Stewart’s nicknames), as well as a card with “tasting notes” that outline some of the highlights of Stewart’s season in “language that is common within the wine-enthusiast space,” Stephenson said. One bullet point reads “notes of three-level scoring,” and another says that Stewart is a “rare blend of size, skill, and efficiency.”

The card ends with the line, “pairs well with: the 2026 MVP conversation.”

The Liberty is also campaigning for Stewart’s inclusion on the All-WNBA First Team and the All-Defensive Team, as well as center Jonquel Jones and guard Sabrina Ionescu for the All-WNBA First Team and guard Pauline Astier for the All-Rookie Team. The back of the card includes “tasting notes” on Jones, Ionescu, and Astier, and a QR code that leads to a website with additional facts and stats about the players.

The Liberty worked with Brooklyn Wine Club to “bring this to life in an authentic way that bridged wine and basketball,” Stephenson said. (Both organizations are owned by Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment.) The box is branded as “Liberty Vineyards,” and the wine is accompanied by a glass engraved with Ionescu’s No. 20, a bottle stopper with Jones’s No. 35, and a wooden cheese board with Astier’s No. 18 carved into the front.

Raise a glass

Typically, end-of-season awards campaigns are crafted with only eligible voters in mind, but this year, the Liberty team decided to widen the scope to include influencers and fans too.

“What we’ve noticed is that even though media members are the only people who are able to vote on these campaigns, social media influenced the voting,” Stephenson told us.

Stemless, plastic “Stew York MVP” glasses were available to some fans who attended last week’s games at Barclays Center, and VVIP members were able to try the merlot, Stephenson said.

The arena experience has long been central to the team’s marketing efforts, with non-game activities like performances from mascot Ellie the Elephant serving as a selling point for some fans. For the Liberty’s 30th season, Stephenson said the home-game vibe has been more important than ever. Eight of the Liberty’s 22 home games, for instance, were dedicated to celebrating the anniversary, marking the first time the team activated one campaign across multiple games, she said.

“We wanted to amplify it and make sure that everyone felt why this was so significant, especially as we think about the growth and the evolution of the league,” Stephenson told us. “I think it really speaks to the growth and the long-term success of the league.”