The Golden State Valkyries are worth $1 billion after one season of play, according to CNBC's 2026 WNBA franchise valuations released Monday. No other team in the league is close.
The Valkyries began play in May 2025 as the league's thirteenth franchise, paying an expansion fee of $50 million—at the time a record for women's professional sports. Fourteen months later, the franchise is worth twenty times that entry price. The New York Liberty, second on the list, are valued at $175 million. Las Vegas sits third at $140 million. The bottom six franchises—Indiana, Dallas, Washington, Atlanta, Minnesota, Connecticut—combine for $370 million, roughly a third of what Golden State commands alone.
The math is simple and the math is real. Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, who own the NBA Warriors, built the Valkyries inside the same Chase Center revenue machine that prints $765 million annually for the men's team. Season tickets sold out in four hours. The team averaged 18,064 fans per game, the highest mark in WNBA history and 91% of Chase Center capacity. Sponsorship inventory moved at NBA rates: jersey patch to Salesforce for $8 million per year, arena naming extension tied to both franchises, luxury suite blocks shared between calendars. The Valkyries played twenty home dates; the Warriors played forty-one. Same building, same operations team, marginal cost near zero.
Rookie forward Jacy Sheldon, drafted third overall out of Ohio State, signed endorsement deals with Nike, Gatorade, and JPMorgan Chase before her first game. Her All-Star selection in July triggered a local media spend from regional sponsors—Kaiser Permanente, Charles Schwab, Oracle—who had never bought WNBA inventory before. The Valkyries finished 19-21, missed the playoffs by one game, and still generated more sponsor interest in September than most franchises see in a full cycle.
What the valuation signals is not hype. It is infrastructure arbitrage. Lacob owns the building, the broadcast deal, the ticketing system, and the corporate partnerships. He did not build a WNBA team. He added twenty dates to an existing revenue calendar and let the margins compound. The Atlanta Dream, valued at $55 million, play in a 3,500-seat college gym and split sponsorship revenue with a landlord. Golden State plays in a $1.6 billion arena it owns and takes 100% of everything sold inside it.
The league's new media deal, effective 2026, pays $2.2 billion over eleven years across ESPN, Amazon, and NBC. Golden State's local rights, bundled with the Warriors on NBC Sports Bay Area, are worth an estimated $12 million annually, more than some teams' total revenue. The Warriors' regional network reaches 5.8 million households. The Valkyries inherit that distribution at no incremental cost.
Expansion is the tell. Toronto and Portland have submitted formal applications to join the league by 2028, with ownership groups that include MLSE and the Jody Allen Trust. Expected entry fee: $150 million to $200 million, triple what Golden State paid. If those bids clear, Lacob's $50 million check in 2024 will look like the trade of the decade.
The next catalyst is the CBA negotiation in December 2026. Players want 50% of league revenue, up from the current 9.3%. If that happens, team economics tighten everywhere except Golden State, where the Warriors' infrastructure absorbs the cost. Lacob has already said publicly he supports revenue sharing. Translation: he knows his margins can handle it and most teams' cannot.
Watch for Golden State to lead the conversation on revenue splits at the Board of Governors meeting in October. Also watch Portland's bid process. If the Valkyries are worth $1 billion after one year, Jody Allen will argue her bid should open at $250 million. The league needs the expansion fees, but lowballing now sets the floor for every future transaction.