For many of New York’s teams, 2024 was a year of progress.
The Yankees and Mets embarked on their deepest playoff runs in years, fueling an electric October.
The Knicks and Rangers also captivated the city with their own playoff successes, even if neither ultimately advanced as far as they hoped.
And the Liberty delivered the long-awaited first WNBA title in franchise history, in the process snapping New York’s similarly extensive championship drought.
There were duds, too, particularly for the NFL teams that call MetLife Stadium home.
Indeed, it was an eventful year in the five boroughs, even if most of the local teams failed to live up to the city’s championship-or-bust expectations.
Here are the biggest New York sports stories of 2024.
YANKEES RETURN TO WORLD SERIES
The Yankees entered 2024 with plenty of pressure.
Fresh off of a playoff-less 2023 season that general manager Brian Cashman labeled as a “disaster,” the Yankees made a franchise-altering trade for Juan Soto, hoping the superstar slugger would help them return to the World Series for the first time in 15 years.
Soto delivered, hitting a career-high 41 home runs while forming an all-time tandem with Aaron Judge.
Judge’s season was even more prolific, as he led the majors with 58 home runs, 144 RBI, 133 walks, a .458 on-base percentage, a .701 slugging percentage and a 1.159 OPS en route to his second American League MVP Award.
The Yankees went 94-68 to win the American League East and clinch the AL’s top seed. They cruised past the Kansas City Royals in the ALDS in four games and the Cleveland Guardians in the ALCS in five — ending the latter with an instant-classic home run by Soto.
That set up a star-powered World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers — but that’s where their fun ended.
Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and the Dodgers disposed of the Yankees in five games, during which defensive lapses in Games 1 and 5 proved to be the Bronx Bombers’ undoing.
Still, the run marked the Yankees’ first trip to the Fall Classic since 2009, when they won their 27th championship.
METS MAGIC
While the Yankees’ run didn’t sneak up on many people, the Mets’ path to the postseason came out of nowhere.
After trading away multiple big-name veterans during a disappointing 75-win season in 2023, the Mets appeared poised for more misery in 2024 when they started the season 0-5.
They were 11 games below .500 as late as June 2.
And then the magic happened.
Led by first-year manager Carlos Mendoza, the Mets finished the season on a 65-28 run to earn a National League wild-card spot.
Fans rallied around Grimace, the super-sized McDonald’s mascot whose ceremonial first pitch on June 12 coincided with the Mets’ first big winning streak.
The unexpected contributions of journeyman second baseman Jose Iglesias became representative of the Mets’ rag-tag nature, while the Latin pop song he wrote, “OMG,” became their anthem.
But, more than anything, it was an MVP-caliber season by Francisco Lindor that sparked the Mets’ turnaround.
More magic ensued in the playoffs, where Pete Alonso’s go-ahead home run in Game 3 of the Wild Card round sent them past the Milwaukee Brewers, and Lindor’s NLDS Game 4 grand slam pushed them past the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Mets would go on to lose to the Dodgers in the NLCS in six games, ending the franchise’s longest run since a trip to the 2015 World Series.
SOTO SWEEPSTAKES
The end of the baseball season did not spell the end of the drama for the Yankees and Mets, who went head-to-head in a high-stakes bidding war to sign Soto.
The Yankees knew full well that Soto intended to test the free-agent market when they acquired him a year earlier, and they badly wanted to keep him, offering a reported 16-year, $760 million contract.
But the Mets’ Steve Cohen, the richest owner in baseball, would not be denied. He signed Soto to a 15-year, $765 million contract that can max out at $805 million.
Fans can debate whether the Mets’ marquee Soto signing is symbolic of a changing of the guard in New York. But what is not debatable is that the loss of Soto is a big one for the Yankees — and a huge gain for the Mets.
FOOTBALL DYSFUNCTION
The 2024 season was supposed to go much differently for the Jets.
Aaron Rodgers returned from the Achilles tear that ended his 2023 after only four offensive snaps, bringing with him Super Bowl aspirations.
Play-making weapons Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson returned, as did a stout defense headlined by cornerback Sauce Gardner.
But the Jets never looked the part of a contender.
Head coach Robert Saleh was fired after Week 5, and general manager Joe Douglas was canned six weeks later.
Rodgers, 41, did not resemble the future Hall of Famer who won four NFL MVP Awards with Green Bay. The hamstring, knee and ankle injuries he played through did him no favors.
Even the arrival of Davante Adams — Rodgers’ favorite target with the Packers — did not energize the offense until it was too late.
The Jets were eliminated from playoff contention by Week 14, when they fell to 3-10.
More changes are likely coming.
The year wasn’t any better for the Giants.
Their decision to move on from Saquon Barkely backfired as the superstar running back put up MVP-type numbers with the rival Philadelphia Eagles.
They benched Daniel Jones after falling to 2-8, then granted him his release after an awkward practice in which he operated as the fourth-string quarterback.
Tommy DeVito and Drew Lock did little to enhance the quarterback position as Jones’ replacements.
The Giants will try again next year to find a long-term solution at QB after failing to do so last offseason.
GIVE THEM LIBERTY
The Liberty were the only original WNBA franchise to have never won a championship.
They were 0-5 in WNBA Finals appearances, including last year’s, when they fell in four games to the Las Vegas Aces.
The 2024 season marked the second year of the Liberty superteam, with Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Sabrina Ionescu motivated by their unfinished business.
And they finally reached the pinnacle.
The Liberty slayed multiple dragons to win the 2024 WNBA Finals, including beating the Aces in the semifinal round of the playoffs.
They then topped the Minnesota Lynx — who gave them trouble all regular season — in an instant-classic WNBA Finals in which all five games went down to the wire.
The result was New York’s first sports-related ticker-tape parade since 2019, when the Canyon of Heroes celebrated the United States women’s national soccer team for winning the FIFA World Cup.
KNICKS KICK
Nothing energizes New York quite like a competitive Knicks team, and the Knicks were certainly that in 2024.
Jalen Brunson further emerged as the face of the Knicks, scoring at least 39 points in six of their 13 playoff games.
His historic production helped lead the Knicks to a six-game series victory over the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round, during which Joel Embiid became New York’s newest villain.
The Knicks went to seven games with the Indiana Pacers in a similarly epic second-round series, but a rash of injuries proved too much to overcome.
OG Anunoby, Mitchell Robinson and Bojan Bogdanović all went down over the course of the postseason, joining Julius Randle, who suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in January.
Even Brunson broke his left hand — his shooting hand — during the Game 7 loss to the Pacers at Madison Square Garden when the score was likely already out of reach.
Following that encouraging run, the Knicks doubled down in the offseason by extending Brunson and making blockbuster trades for Mikal Bridges and Karl Anthony-Towns.
OPEN EXCITEMENT
Title droughts in New York did not only apply to the local teams.
Nearly two decades of shortcomings have hung over the American men in the U.S. Open, where no U.S. male had reached the final since 2006 or won it since 2003.
But multiple American men made runs in 2024, taking advantage of a wider field no longer dominated by Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer.
That set up an All-American semifinal match between Frances Tiafoe and Taylor Fritz, with the latter outlasting his countryman in five sets in an epic bout at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Fritz became the first American man to make the final since Andy Roddick 18 years earlier, but he lost in straight sets to Jannik Sinner. Roddick remains the last American man to win the Open final.
American women have had much more success in the U.S. Open, but while Jessica Pegula also advanced to the 2024 final, she lost in straight sets to Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka.
