Ellie the Elephant shakes up dude-coded sports mascot environment | National Sports

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NEW YORK — At a regular basketball game, halftime is usually when the stands empty out: hundreds of fans shuffling behind one another, trying to get to the closest exit, to hit the bathroom or get that second tray of loaded nachos.

Not in Brooklyn. Not at a New York Liberty game. Not when Ellie’s on the court.

The 5-foot-10 elephant – partial to big hoop earrings and tight minidresses – had changed outfits for the occasion: West Indian Night at Barclays Center.

Ellie trotted out in a flamingo-pink two-piece ensemble reminiscent of Carnival celebrations across the world: a shrug of pink plumes gathered around her neck, some tucked into her green Liberty crown. As she vibrated, twerked and winded her hips to Sean Paul, the long shimmery fringes of her pink skirt moved with her, and so did the women in the crowd.

Fans waved national flags – from Haiti, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Jamaica. Children bounced up and down, clapping their hands. Sure, the WNBA game had been great so far – a nail-biter between the Liberty and the Seattle Storm – but this? This was a party. The bathroom break could wait.

Ellie has been making headlines – and fans – aplenty over the past year. She’s been featured in Vogue and Women’s Health magazine. She has racked up skin-care and makeup brand partnerships despite not having, you know, human skin. As of this year, she can even talk – though only on her Instagram and TikTok videos.

But Ellie is more than just a pretty pachyderm. She’s redefined the look and behavior of a mascot.

The contrast between Ellie and her mascot forebears was on display in July at the WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix. While other mascots dunked and lobbed behind-the-back passes to one another, Ellie preferred to drape herself across the black vinyl courtside seats, like an elephantine Cleopatra, and cheer from the sideline.

She’s an undeniable success in the eyes of fans and a cash cow elephant for the Liberty – and she’s done it by taking her cues from Black women and queer culture.

On Sunday, she’ll be cheering on the Liberty in the first round of the WNBA playoffs.

How did she become queen of the court?

The sports mascot as we understand it – costumed and cartoonish – emerged in the 1960s, starting with the New York Mets’ Mr. Met, a sort of adorable, baseball-headed fellow, and Ohio State University’s Brutus Buckeye, a sort of adorable, nut-headed fellow.

Jim Henson’s Muppets inspired the Philadelphia Phillies, which leaned into the Henson sensibility by hiring one of his designers, Bonnie Erickson, to help create a new mascot in 1978. The Philly Phanatic was an evolution in mascot appearance and behavior: less humanoid, more erratic, and silly as heck.

No longer tasked with just pumping up the crowd, today’s mascot should also help expand a team’s merchandising opportunities (i.e. make money) and embody the spirit of the organization – or, in the parlance of sports execs, the brand. After all, players and coaches come and go, but mascots stay unchanged for generations.

What does it say, then, that the vast majority of mascots are dudes or, at the very least, dude-coded?

Collectively, mascots imitate male jocks and their most fervent male fans (even in women’s sports). They pump their fists and flex. They celebrate touchdowns with push-ups. They catapult off trampolines in dunk contests. And there’s no small amount of celebratory thrusting.

There are, of course, a handful of female mascots. But the most well-known – Mrs. Met and Mrs. Wuf (of North Carolina State) – are mascot wives.

Ellie’s vibes are undeniably femme, Black and – in the words of one fan, spoken with great affection – “so gay!”

This is by design

In 2019, Shana Stephenson, chief brand officer for the New York Liberty, knew the organization needed a refresh. It was a transition year for the Liberty, which was then the city’s sole professional women’s sports team. New York Knicks owner James Dolan had sold the franchise to Joe and Clara Tsai for an undisclosed sum. The Liberty would no longer play at Madison Square Garden. They would play in Brooklyn, and needed an identity that reflected their new home. That meant their former mascot Maddie, a golden retriever named for the iconic arena, had to go.

When people think of New York City wildlife, they might think of pigeons and rats. Liberty CEO Keia Clarke proposed an elephant.

There was a historical connection: In 1884, P.T. Barnum once marched 21 elephants (and 17 camels) across the recently completed Brooklyn Bridge to help convince wary New Yorkers that it was safe for people.

She could be called “Ellie,” short for both elephant and Ellis Island, connecting her back to the team’s Liberty namesake.

As for Ellie’s personality, Stephenson, a New York native, had a nonnegotiable: Ellie would be unabashedly feminine.

“Our athletes wear long braids and lashes and makeup and nails,” Stephenson said, so why shouldn’t the mascot who represents them? The right mascot didn’t need to pull out showstopping athletic tricks. “Our players don’t even dunk. So why would we expect that of our mascot?”

What Ellie needed to do was perform. And Stephenson couldn’t imagine a character representing Brooklyn without being able to dance. And she had to dance to the music that defines Brooklyn: hip-hop.

In Stephenson’s mind, there’s no reason a basketball game shouldn’t elicit the kind of elation you may feel listening to a Beyoncé album (“Renaissance,” specifically): “It should make you feel free and excited and cheer and sing and all of those things.”

Who is behind Ellie’s mask?

The Liberty have kept a tight lid on the identity of the performer. Ellie is played by one person, a former mascot for another undisclosed team who auditioned for the role and stood out because the vibes were just right, Stephenson said. The performer felt like New York, felt like Brooklyn.

Ellie isn’t just another mascot with eyelashes (though hers are lush, to be sure). She is, in the language of New York’s trailblazing underground ballroom scene, a femme queen.

She doesn’t walk up stairs; she slinks and sashays. She duckwalks and death drops, shimmies and cha-chas. When she’s not dancing, a designer bag hangs on the crook of her arm.

She double-cheek kisses fans and pops her hip in photos. When she looks at you, it’s with the conspiratorial head-tilt and finger-wave of a good girlfriend. If she wants to add a little drama to the occasion, she’ll whip her signature braid – the one that hangs down to her tail.

Ellie’s performances are high-energy, choreographed affairs that usually include splits and headstands. Her most memorable halftime segments have channeled Black female artists. She’s paid tribute to Mary J. Blige and Lil’ Kim and Beyoncé (twice) – performing their signature moves and wearing elaborate costumes and wigs inspired by them.

It’s no wonder Ellie has resonated so strongly with two groups who have long been ignored by major sports franchises: Black women and LGBTQ fans, the very soul of the WNBA. A majority of WNBA players are Black and all but one of its 12 teams have out queer players.

Ellie’s popularity comes at a pivotal moment for the WNBA, with stars such as Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and A’ja Wilson driving up attendance and ratings across the league. And Ellie’s success has put other teams on notice. Stephenson said she’s been fielding calls from other franchises looking for advice on how to update their mascots.

At West Indian Night, Alcian Trought, a 33-year-old Black woman from Queens, admitted sheepishly that the first time she came to a Liberty game was “solely to see Ellie.” She’d been back three times since, she said, and was considering going to the next game on Sunday.

That night, when Ellie vibed to dance hall music, Trought stood and up and danced along with her; when Ellie backed it up, Trought backed it up.

“I just love the energy all the time,” she said about Liberty games.

In the fourth quarter, Ellie led the crowd in the “Ellie Wave,” a new late-game tradition in which the crowd raises one hand up and down like an elephant trunk, raucous and unified.

“See, Post?” a Crown Heights resident named Patricia Jones-Ellis yelled up at the media table behind her. “That’s what New York do!”

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Ellie the Elephant shakes up dude-coded sports mascot environment | National Sports

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