The Golden State Valkyries are worth $1 billion, according to CNBC's inaugural WNBA franchise valuation report released this week. The team began play in 2025. No professional women's sports franchise in any league has reached ten figures faster.
The valuation reflects $50 million in revenue during the Valkyries' first season, a Chase Center lease that shares infrastructure with the Warriors, and season-ticket deposits that exceeded 20,000 before the roster was announced. The franchise paid a $50 million expansion fee in 2023. Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, who own the Warriors, structured the Valkyries as a separate entity with dedicated front-office staff and a $25 million practice facility in Oakland that opened six months before tipoff. The team sold out 18 of 20 home games. Courtside seats ran $450 in the regular season, $750 for playoffs.
The valuation gap between Golden State and the rest of the league is wider than any comp in men's sports. The second-most valuable team, the New York Liberty, sits at $260 million per CNBC. The Las Vegas Aces are third at $240 million. The gap matters because it isolates execution. The Valkyries play in the same salary-cap system, draw from the same draft pool, operate under the same collective bargaining agreement. What differs: naming-rights deals ($8 million annually from a fintech sponsor before the first game), local broadcast revenue ($6 million from NBC Sports Bay Area for 15 games), and a front office that treats women's basketball like a margin business, not a branding exercise.
Family offices sizing WNBA stakes now have a reference point. When Portland and Toronto expansion bids closed in December 2024, the league required $125 million entry fees. Those franchises begin play in 2026. If the Valkyries model holds, a competently run expansion team in a top-12 media market should double its purchase price within three seasons. The league has received preliminary interest from groups in Philadelphia, Houston, and Nashville for a potential 2028 round. Expansion committee chair Carol Bartz told *Sports Business Journal* in January that the league would not exceed 16 teams before 2030, which puts a floor under existing valuations.
The Valkyries' revenue mix also clarifies what works. Ticket sales accounted for 38% of first-year revenue, sponsorships 34%, local media 12%, league distributions 10%, and merchandise 6%. That sponsor share exceeds the WNBA average of 22% and approaches NHL norms. The team signed 11 jersey-patch and court-sponsors before opening night, including deals with Accenture ($3.2 million), Google Cloud ($2.8 million), and Kaiser Permanente ($2.5 million). Three sponsors extended for additional seasons before the playoffs. The median WNBA team carries six sponsors at this tier.
Watch whether the Valkyries' front-office architecture spreads. The team employs 47 full-time staff, compared to a league average of 23. General manager Ohemaa Nyanin reports to president Jess Smith, who reports directly to Lacob, not through the Warriors' chain of command. The coaching staff of nine includes a dedicated shooting coach, a sports psychologist embedded full-time, and an analytics director who previously worked for the Sixers. Portland's expansion group, led by Melanie Whelan and Lisa Bhathal Merage, has already hired 32 people eight months before its first game. Toronto's group has 28.
The next signal arrives in April, when the league's national media rights renew. The current deal with ESPN, CBS, and Amazon pays $200 million annually and expires in 2027. Early conversations have centered on a package worth $350 million to $450 million, per sources familiar with the negotiations. If that number lands, league distributions to teams jump from roughly $5 million to $13 million, and the Valkyries' local revenue advantage narrows slightly. But the sponsorship and ticket infrastructure they built doesn't compress.
The valuation also clarifies what commissioner Cathy Engelbert meant in October when she told CNBC the league had "crossed into a different investor class." The Valkyries are now worth more than 11 NHL franchises, per *Sportico*'s December rankings, and roughly the same as the NBA's Charlotte Hornets ($1.05 billion) when Michael Jordan sold in 2023. Family offices that wouldn't consider women's sports three years ago now have a case study showing institutional returns in a non-institutional market.
The Portland franchise, set to debut in May, has already secured $32 million in sponsorships and 14,500 season-ticket deposits. Toronto's group has 11,200 deposits and a naming-rights deal with Scotiabank worth $6 million annually. Both teams hired their head coaches in January, ten months ahead of schedule, to begin building local presence. If either franchise crosses $500 million in valuation after two seasons, the WNBA will have three case studies instead of one, and the next expansion round will likely require $200 million to enter.