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First $1B WNBA franchise after one season sets comp for three expansion sales pricing above $150M.
$1 billion
making them the first WNBA franchise to reach that…
$2.2 billion
deal split across Disney
$15 million
per year starting in 2026
$3 million
under the expiring arrangement
The Golden State Valkyries are worth $1 billion, making them the first WNBA franchise to reach that threshold and doing so in their inaugural season. CNBC's 2026 franchise valuation study released the figure this week. The team began play in 2025.
The valuation arrives eight months before the league's new media rights package takes effect—a $2.2 billion deal split across Disney, Amazon, and NBCUniversal that runs through 2036. That contract quintuples the league's previous annual media revenue and guaranteed every team a minimum $15 million per year starting in 2026, up from roughly $3 million under the expiring arrangement. The Valkyries' ownership group, led by Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, paid an estimated $50 million expansion fee in 2023. The franchise is now worth twenty times that entry price.
Two factors explain the velocity. First, the Chase Center lease structure gives the Valkyries preferential access to a 19,000-seat building in a market where corporate hospitality inventory commands twice the national average. The team sold out eleven of fourteen home games in year one and generated $22 million in ticketing and sponsorship revenue, per people familiar with the financials. Second, the franchise benefits from the Warriors' sponsorship roster: shared relationships with Rakuten, JPMorgan Chase, and Kaiser Permanente delivered incremental seven-figure deals before the season tipped. The team operates as a subsidiary of the Warriors' parent company, which streamlines vendor relationships and back-office costs.
The Liberty and Fever rank second and third in the CNBC study, though exact figures were not disclosed. The Liberty's valuation is tied to Barclays Center economics and the team's Finals appearance in 2025; the Fever's reflects Caitlin Clark's first season, which drove attendance up 287% year-over-year and generated $38 million in local media and ticketing upside, according to Sportico's concurrent franchise report. Three more expansion franchises are scheduled to begin play by 2028, with Toronto and Portland confirmed. The league has received bids for a fourth slot from Philadelphia, Denver, and Nashville, all pricing their offers above $150 million.
The Valkyries' ownership group includes Sixth Street Partners, the private equity firm that holds minority stakes in the NBA's Spurs and MLB's Red Sox. That structure signals the franchise was built for liquidity events, not patient family-office holding. Sixth Street typically targets 18-22% IRRs on sports investments and has a four-to-six-year exit horizon. The $1 billion valuation sets a comparable for upcoming expansion sales and gives minority stakeholders a marked-up basis for secondary transactions. The league's collective bargaining agreement expires in 2027, and player agents are already citing the media deal and franchise appreciation in early salary cap conversations.
The next valuation inflection comes in March, when the new media contracts go live and the league's streaming packages launch. Amazon holds exclusive rights to Friday night games, and the company is expected to bundle WNBA access into Prime membership at no surcharge, which gives the league 200 million US households in distribution reach. Toronto tips off in May.
The branded-identity layer Chiefs of Staff and heritage CMOs route through — your name imprinted on real authorized stock, your pick of 200+ brands and 70,000 products, shipped from one accountable house. Nine editorial desks publish the intelligence those operators read before they sign.
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1997one house, since
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