The Valkyries Went From Expansion Bet to WNBA Champions in Record Time
The Valkyries Went From Expansion Bet to WNBA Champions in Record Time
Golden State’s championship story began on Oct. 5, 2023, when Joe Lacob’s Warriors ownership group announced a San Francisco WNBA expansion team with no name, roster or coach. The organization paid a $50 million expansion fee, then built aggressively around an independent violet-and-black identity rather than simply borrowing the Warriors’ blue and gold.
That decision became a commercial and cultural wager. Team president Jess Smith said the challenge was to create something “just as powerful, not underneath” the NBA franchise. The Valkyries sold out all 44 regular-season home games across their first two seasons, while the franchise was valued at $1 billion and projected to generate as much as $130 million in annual revenue.
On Halloween night, the business case met basketball history. In the WNBA’s first Game 7, Golden State trailed Atlanta by six at halftime before Gabby Williams erupted for 28 second-half points. The Valkyries held on for a 68-63 win at Chase Center, becoming champions just 17 months and change after their first game — the fastest title by a North American professional sports team.
Coach Natalie Nakase, the first female coach of color to win a WNBA title, framed the breakthrough as larger than one locker room: “For all the people that have been underrated, misunderstood, this is for y’all.” Veteran Tiffany Hayes made the financial argument equally bluntly: “This is what happens when you invest in women’s sports.”
The city moved quickly to claim the moment. Mayor Daniel Lurie said the two-year-old club had been “taking the sports world by storm,” while transit-agency details briefly posted Saturday pointed to a noon Wednesday parade from the Ferry Building along the Embarcadero to Second Street. Officials had not publicly confirmed the route or timing by Saturday night.
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