The Golden State Valkyries are worth $1 billion, according to CNBC's 2026 franchise valuations released May 4. The expansion club played its first season in 2025. No women's basketball team has carried a ten-figure price tag before.
The number matters because it arrived twelve months after the franchise paid a $50 million expansion fee to enter the league. The implied 20x return in one year tells sponsors, broadcasters, and the six ownership groups circling Portland and Nashville slots exactly what the entry price will be by 2027. It also resets what existing franchises should command in any sale process. Las Vegas, New York, and Los Angeles now have a public comp when their minority stakes or full control come to market.
The valuation is not speculative. The Valkyries share ownership with the Warriors, who run Chase Center, sell 18,064 season tickets across both franchises, and stacked the front office with the same infrastructure that made the Warriors worth $9.14 billion in Sportico's latest NBA rankings. The Valkyries sold out their inaugural home opener in 47 seconds. Their jersey sponsorship with Kaiser Permanente was signed before the roster was finalized. Their local media rights bundled into the Warriors' NBC Sports Bay Area deal at rates the league had never seen a regional sports network pay for women's basketball. When Joe Lacob writes a check, the accounting is shared across two franchises under one roof. Chase Center hosts 44 Warriors games and 20 Valkyries games per season. The fixed costs are already paid.
What this does to league expansion is immediate. The WNBA announced Toronto for 2026 and is finalizing Portland for 2027. Those expansion fees were rumored at $75 million to $100 million before the Valkyries valuation dropped. Now the league has a public benchmark showing that a well-capitalized, NBA-adjacent franchise in a major market can double that fee in twelve months. Expect Portland and Nashville bidders to see a $150 million entry price when term sheets circulate this summer. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has said the league will expand to 16 teams by 2028. The Valkyries just added $600 million to the total value the league will extract from those four remaining slots.
The structure also clarifies what works. The Valkyries are not a standalone entity trying to fill an arena on off nights. They are a product line extension for an organization that already built the distribution, the sponsor relationships, and the premium seating base. The Washington Mystics and Dallas Wings, by contrast, share ownership with NBA franchises but do not share facilities or fully integrated operations. The Valkyries model is what happens when the women's team is not an afterthought. It is also what happens when the NBA franchise is worth $9 billion and can afford to treat the WNBA team as a long-dated call option on a league that is underpriced relative to its audience growth.
Watch for two follow-on events. First, whether the New York Liberty's ownership—led by Joe Tsai, who also owns the Nets and Barclays Center—attempts a similar integration now that the Valkyries have proven the premium. The Liberty already draw well and won the 2024 championship. If they formalize shared operations with the Nets and price accordingly, their next minority sale will test whether the Valkyries number is replicable outside the Bay Area. Second, whether the league's next media rights deal, which comes up for renewal in 2027, uses the $1 billion franchise valuation as leverage in negotiations with ESPN, Amazon, and NBC. The league's current deal pays roughly $60 million per year across all partners. That figure was signed before anyone thought a single franchise would be worth sixteen times the league's total annual media revenue.
The Valkyries are worth $1 billion because the math works when you do not have to build the building.