NY Liberty Parade of Champions 2024 Live: NYC honors WNBA champions with ticker celebration at Canyon of Heroes

NEW YORK (WABC) – Thousands turned out at the Canyon of Heroes in downtown Manhattan on Thursday to shower the WNBA champion New York Liberty with ticker tape.

Jonquel Jones, Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu and their New York teammates were celebrated with a parade that was broadcast live on Channel 7 and streamed on ABC 7 New York.

The Liberty won the franchise's first championship by defeating the Minnesota Lynx in overtime in a decisive Game 5 of the WNBA Finals on Sunday at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Some senior first-team Liberty players, including Teresa Weatherspoon, Vickie Johnson and Kym Hampton, took part in the parade.

The track was full of fans of all ages, and many of the children were wearing jerseys of their favorite players. Jones carried her Finals MVP trophy on her float while Stewart and Ionescu went into the crowd, giving high fives and taking selfies with fans.

“That's great. I've been a Liberty fan since they started playing,” Sarah Davis said of the WNBA's start in 1997. “It's so cool that we won and we were able to celebrate with a parade.”

New York Senator Chuck Schumer, Governor Kathy Hochul and New York Mayor Eric Adams also attended the celebration.

The parade was particularly meaningful for the younger generation of girls who took part in the parade. Among them are Eyewitness news anchor Mike Marza and the daughter of ABC News' Rhiannon Ally.

A New Jersey girls' basketball coach also shared with Eyewitness News how meaningful this moment is for her and her team.

More videos from the parade route:

History of the Ticker Tape Parade

Thursday's ticker parade is the first honoring a local sports team since 2012, when the Giants beat Tom Brady's Patriots for the second time in Super Bowl 46.

There were over 200 ticker parades in New York. The last honor for a women's sports team came in 2019, when the U.S. soccer team won the World Cup. Two years later, there was a parade honoring essential workers and first responders for their efforts during the coronavirus pandemic.

Not all New York sports champions were given the honor of the ticker parade. New York City FC won its first Major League Soccer championship in 2021, but only received a celebration at City Hall. Last year, NY/NJ Gotham FC won the NWSL Women's Professional Soccer League championship, but also didn't get a ticker tape parade.

But why ticker tape? Even in the age of fax machines and floppy disks, ticker tape was a technological artifact and the paper on which a “ticker” machine recorded telegraphed stock prices.

ALSO VIEW | Take a look behind the scenes and see how the ticker parade floats were created

With the advent of television and computers, the tape became obsolete in the 1960s, but by the late 19th century, these two-inch-wide paper tapes were in abundance in New York City's financial center, according to the Downtown Alliance organization that is now the ticker -Supported the city's parades.

Office workers recognized that the ribbon made a dramatic swirling motion when thrown from the windows of tall buildings, and so the first treadmill parade appeared to be a spontaneous gesture to celebrate the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in 1886.

RELATED | Why ticker tape? History of NYC's legendary parades as the city prepares for its celebration of freedom

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