A fan walking into Chase Center on May 16, 2025 for the Golden State Valkyries’ first regular season game saw something no one in the WNBA’s 29 year history had ever seen. Every one of the 18,064 seats was occupied.
There was nothing about the arena that felt like a new team. The corporate boxes were packed. The premium clubs were packed. Even the upper bowl where empty seats usually stand out on TV was completely full.
By the end of the season, every one of the team’s 22 home games had sold out. Total home attendance reached 397,408. A record! Average attendance of 18,064 surpassed the previous record by more than 1,000 fans a game. The most important number that changes how you see everything, out of 12,000 season ticket holders, only 8% also attend the Golden State Warriors games. This shows what the Valkyries are Building!
The financial side tells the same story. In October 2023, Joe Lacob and Peter Guber paid WNBA a $50 million expansion fee, spread over 10 years. By May 2026, Sportico valued the Golden State Valkyries at $850 million, making them the most valuable team in the league for the 2nd year in a row and most recently CNBC, putting the franchise at $1 Billion. This means the franchise has grown in value by about 1600% in just 2.5 years (taking Sportico’s valuation), which is something no other North American sports team has ever achieved this early in its life.
In 2026, the WNBA average team value reached $427 million, up 59% from 2025 and up from $96 million in 2024. Sportico now values the league at 13.6 times revenue, the highest among major North American leagues. The 13 WNBA teams that played in 2025 are now worth a combined $5.55 billion per Sportico. On top of that, the league has signed a new 11 year media rights deal starting in 2026 with Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon Prime Video worth about $2.2 billion, or $200 million per year, compared to the previous deal of around $60 million per year. This means every team is now earning about 5x more from media rights alone, even before selling a single ticket.
The Golden State Valkyries are valued at $423 million more than the WNBA average team, which shows just how far ahead they are. Their valuation alone is more than 3X that of the lowest valued team, the Atlanta Dream at $280 million. In late 2024, Forbes estimated their first year revenue at $55 million, but Sportico later reported that their actual 2025 revenue was $78 million, which is about 48% more than the Indiana Fever, the second highest earning team in the League.
The Valkyries did this without a Caitlin Clark. They did this without a Sue Bird, A'ja Wilson, or Sabrina Ionescu.
This report goes into the business of the Valkyries and answers why this specific franchise in this specific market produced a number this far outside the rest of the league….