NEW YORK (WABC) — Thousands of people showed up to shower WNBA champion New York Liberty in ticker tape at the Canyon of Heroes in downtown Manhattan on Thursday.

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

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

Several veteran Liberty players from the early teams, including Teresa Weatherspoon, Vickie Johnson and Kym Hampton, attended the parade.

The route was packed with fans of all ages, with many children wearing jerseys of their favorite players. Jones carried her Finals MVP trophy atop her float as Stewart and Ionescu went into the crowd, giving high-fives and taking selfies with fans.

“This is awesome. I’ve been a Liberty fan since they first started playing,” Sarah Davis said of the WNBA’s inception in 1997. “It’s so cool that we won and we could 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 especially important for the younger generation of girls who attended the parade. Among them are Eyewitness News Anchor Mike Marza and the daughter of ABC News’ Rhiannon Ally.

The New Jersey girls basketball coach also shared with Eyewitness News how important this moment is for her and her team.

More videos of the parade route:

After the parade, the team received the keys to the city during a ceremony at City Hall.

History of the ticker tape parade

Thursday’s ticker tape parade is the first to honor a local sports team since 2012, when the Giants defeated Tom Brady’s Patriots for the second time in Super Bowl 46.

There have been more than 200 ticker-tape parades in New York. The most recent tribute to 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 to honor essential workers and first responders for their service during the coronavirus pandemic.

Not all New York sports champions have received the honor of the ticker-tape parade. New York City FC won their first Major League Soccer championship in 2021, but only got to celebrate at City Hall. Last year, NY/NJ Gotham FC won the championship of the NWSL women’s professional soccer league, but also didn’t get a ticker-tape parade.

With the rise of television and computers, tape became obsolete in the 1960s, but by the late 1800s, these one-inch-wide ribbons of paper were plentiful in the financial heart of New York City, according to the Downtown Alliance, an organization that now supports the city’s ticker-tape parades.

Office workers realized that the tape made a dramatic swirling motion when thrown through the windows of tall buildings, so the first ticker-tape parade seemed to begin as a spontaneous gesture to celebrate the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in 1886.

SEE ALSO | Behind the scenes look at the making of the ticker-tape parade floats

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