Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot focused on elevating the Liberty and WNBA

Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot made their debut as members of the Liberty on Thursday morning at Barclays Center, and though the event had all the regular trappings of an introductory news conference, it was clear from the get-go that this was more than just a photo op. It was more, too, than a chance to tell the world that they intend to bring this team its first championship.

No, Stewart and Vandersloot laid out a blueprint for both the franchise and the league: Become the first New York pro basketball team to win a title since 1976, raise the WNBA’s profile in the biggest sports media market in the country, work on lifting the league’s ban on charter flights and maybe even influence the hard salary cap that prompted the two superstars to take less money just for a shot to win it all.

“I want to be surrounded by greatness,” said Stewart, widely considered the best player in the league. “When you look at these people up here [on the dais] and the many people that are part of the Liberty organization, everybody wants to be better, everybody wants to continue to raise the standard and move the needle. We want to do that on the court, off the court, whatever the case may be to help this organization and the league be better . . . We’re fighting to elevate the standard.”

To do that, the Liberty have built an NBA-style superteam — one that includes Stewart, Vandersloot (who is one of the best point guards in the league), and All-Stars Jonquel Jones and Sabrina Ionescu. Liberty co-owner Clara Wu Tsai said Thursday that, compared with this time last year, season-ticket sales are up about 55%, “and this is only just the beginning of us being able to market them . . . Every game is going to be a show.”

Wu Tsai and her husband, Joe Tsai, were integral in wooing free agents Stewart and Vandersloot, and though Wu Tsai could not comment on the charter flight issue for risk of being fined by the league, she noted that her stance was made plenty clear last year. The Tsais were fined $500,000 in 2022 for chartering flights for their players during the second half of the season.

“I just need to be a constant voice and be as influential as I can,” Wu Tsai said. “I do believe it’s enough of a topic within the league and enough of the governors where it is going to be addressed by the commissioner.”

The WNBA prohibits teams from chartering flights for their players, as it believes it leads to a competitive advantage. Stewart has vehemently argued against the provision, saying that flying commercial, especially for cross-country trips or back-to-backs, hurts the on-court product and adversely affects player health and safety. She’s also offered to pitch in her own money to create flight equity for teams that cannot afford to charter planes.

The salary-cap issue may be a bit thornier. Though it’s not clear how much Vandersloot and Stewart are making, general manager Jonathan Kolb acknowledged that it’s lower than the max contract they likely could have gotten elsewhere. The 2023 salary cap stands at $1,420,500, meaning superteams can happen only if players are willing to offer themselves at a discount. Vandersloot and Stewart pushed back at the idea that this establishes a bad precedent, though Stewart said she hopes the next collective bargaining agreement addresses the concern.They do, however, make the majority of their money through sponsorships and EuroLeague contracts.

“Taking less is kind of like the sacrifice that you have to make to be on a championship team,” Vandersloot said. “It is what it is right now and hopefully it’s not always that way.”

Both already have won a WNBA championship, and Stewart noted that though the roster as a whole has a strong playoff pedigree, the Liberty itself is the only existing original WNBA team without a title. She wants the drought to end with her.

“I think we’re really interested in figuring out how to check that box,” Stewart said. “Sloot and I were coming over in the car an hour ago and it’s like, can you believe it, we can’t believe we’re actually here, we actually were able to make it happen . . . I’m just excited.”

Excited to start. Excited to win. And excited, too, for what this means for the WNBA landscape as a whole.

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.