NEW YORK - Every year, the big Pride March draws an animated crowd of activists to Greenwich Village.

But over the years, the marchers have been joined by merchants.

Organizers of this year's Pride events list dozens of corporate sponsors, from T-Mobile to Tiffany & Co.

For some gay rights leaders, the big money muddles a message of activism.

"We don't go to the Pride Parade anymore, because instead of it being a political community event, it has become a corporate Mardi Gras," said activist Ann Northrop. "And that is so opposed to everything we stand for."

Northrop is so fed up with the parade that she's helping to organize a rival event, the Queer Liberation March and Rally.

It kicks off at 9:30 Sunday morning - a couple of hours before the big parade - and travels north from 7th Avenue, just below Christopher Street, to a rally in Central Park.

It's a sign of disagreement over the direction of the gay rights movement, on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

"People, no corporate floats, just people in the streets, marching for justice, liberation, mourning our dead, celebrating our victories and committing to the struggles that are still before us," Northrop said.

The event is expected to resemble the early gay pride marches, when the focus was on gaining rights for a group of people who had none.

Back then, corporate sponsors wanted nothing to do with the LGBTQ community.

But as the marches led to acceptance, companies wanted in.

Now, businesses throughout the city put up rainbow images of support in June.

On its website, the Pride Parade tells companies, "sponsorship's [sic] are a great way to support NYC Pride while building a strong LGBTQIA+ presence for your brand."

"It's a sign of our success that as we grow the number of events that we do there's a need for a larger pool of resources to make those events happen," NYC Pride Spokesman James Fallarino said. "But the reality is most of these sponsorship agreements started at the employee level."

While the parade is dividing activists, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who is gay, told us he will march in both events, even as he acknowledges the corporate influence isn't his favorite part of the Pride Parade.

"I'm less excited about the corporate floats," Johnson said. "And I think having a more activist spirit in the age of Donald Trump, where transgender people are being targeted every single day by the federal government, that's a good thing. And that's why I’m going to be at both marches."

Two marches to mark one event in two competing ways.