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A **$1 billion** mark resets expansion pricing and gives the Warriors ownership proof that WNBA assets compound faster inside NBA facility infrastructure.
$1 billion
according to CNBC's annual WNBA franchise valuations released May…
$50 million
expansion fee ownership group GSV Basketball paid the league…
$7.7 billion
in *Forbes*' most recent NBA assessment
$165 million
per CNBC
The Golden State Valkyries are worth $1 billion, according to CNBC's annual WNBA franchise valuations released May 4. The franchise began play in the 2025 season. The valuation is twenty times the $50 million expansion fee ownership group GSV Basketball paid the league in 2023.
The Valkyries share ownership infrastructure with the Warriors, including Chase Center, the Warriors' corporate partnership apparatus, and Joe Lacob's family-office capital base. CNBC's methodology weighs revenue multiples, comparable sales, facility control, and market demographics. The Warriors are valued at $7.7 billion in *Forbes*' most recent NBA assessment. The Valkyries play 20 home dates in a building already fitted for basketball with established luxury hospitality and a San Francisco zip code that commands the highest median sponsorship CPM in American sports outside Manhattan.
Context: The league's second-most valuable franchise is the New York Liberty at $165 million, per CNBC. That's an 83% discount to the Valkyries despite playing in Brooklyn and reaching the 2024 WNBA Finals. The Las Vegas Aces, back-to-back champions in 2022-23, are valued at $140 million. The gap reflects facility economics more than on-court performance. The Valkyries control a $1.6 billion arena the Warriors financed privately; the Liberty lease Barclays Center from a Tsai family entity that also owns the Nets, creating split incentive structures on sponsorship inventory and suite upsells. The Aces play in a 12,000-seat college arena and are mid-negotiation on a Strip-proximate facility that won't open until at least 2028.
The valuation surfaced the morning of May 4 while Valkyries staff were waking up across the Bay Area, according to one report. Timing is relevant: The WNBA is in active expansion discussions for franchises in Portland and Philadelphia. League president Cathy Engelbert has said publicly the next round of fees will exceed $100 million. A $1 billion comp resets the floor for what ownership groups need to model in pro forma returns. Private equity firms sizing allocations now have a benchmark. The Valkyries comp suggests a Portland franchise with Moda Center access—19,393 seats, NBA tenancy, Rose Quarter infrastructure—could justify a $125-150 million fee if ownership can demonstrate Warriors-adjacent corporate partnership velocity.
The valuation also clarifies why Lacob's group moved quickly on roster construction. The Valkyries signed Satou Sabally to a supermax extension in February. She's the franchise cornerstone. The team went 18-22 in year one, missing the playoffs by two games. Attendance averaged 13,241 through 20 home dates, third in the league behind Las Vegas and New York. That's 72% capacity at Chase Center's WNBA configuration. The Warriors averaged 18,034 for NBA regular season games in 2024-25, also at Chase Center. Relevant: The Valkyries have not yet activated Chase Center's full 18,064-seat basketball capacity for a regular season game, leaving upside in gate revenue if playoff runs materialize.
CNBC's release comes three weeks before the WNBA Draft on May 26. The Valkyries hold the No. 7 pick. Front office additions are expected before draft night; the team has interviewed three general manager candidates since March, per league sources. One name circulating: Kayla Alexander, currently Portland's director of basketball strategy, who worked under Lacob lieutenant Kirk Lacob in the Warriors' G League program from 2019-22. An announcement before the draft would let the new GM run the war room and signal continuity to Sabally's representation at Excel Sports Management, which negotiated her extension with interim leadership.
Sponsor renewal windows open in July. The Valkyries' founding partnership tier included $3-5 million annual commitments from JPMorgan Chase, Google, and Rakuten. Those deals were structured as three-year terms with mutual options. A $1 billion valuation gives the sales team a headline number when renewing those conversations. It also complicates inventory allocation: Warriors sponsors have right-of-first-refusal language on overlapping Valkyries categories, per deal structures disclosed in 2023. That limits how aggressively the Valkyries can re-price assets if incumbent Warriors partners decline to activate WNBA assets.
The WNBA's next media rights deal begins in the 2026-27 season. The league's current 11-year package with ESPN and CBS expires after 2025-26 playoffs. Reported frameworks have the league seeking $300-500 million annually, up from roughly $60 million under the current deal. A $1 billion franchise valuation implies the league's total enterprise value exceeds $6 billion if all 13 franchises trade at half the Valkyries' multiple. That figure makes venture-scale returns harder to model for pre-2024 expansion entrants who paid $25 million or less. It makes them very easy to model for Lacob, who now holds an asset marked at twenty times cost after 18 months.
The valuation was released four days after the Warriors were eliminated from the NBA playoffs in the first round. The Valkyries open their second season May 15 at home against the Seattle Storm.
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