Golden State Valkyries

Origins: from Warriors’ bid to a name that stuck (2023–24)

The WNBA confirmed on 5 October 2023 that the Warriors would operate the league’s 13th franchise, with home games in San Francisco and a headquarters and practice base in Oakland. The Oakland facility is the Warriors’ former training and office complex (1997–2019), reworked for the women’s team and kept in the East Bay to cement the club’s cross‑bay identity. In the summer of 2024, the franchise name, Golden State Valkyries, and a violet‑centred brand identity were unveiled, with the Bay Bridge worked into the crest and a colour the club calls “Valkyrie Violet” foregrounded across kits, court and merch.

The front office was put in place before the first ball was tipped. President Jess Smith, hired in early 2024 after a stint building Angel City FC’s commercial team, was charged with the women’s operation; on 6 May 2024 Ohemaa Nyanin, formerly assistant GM at the New York Liberty, was named general manager. Head coach Natalie Nakase, the ex‑Las Vegas Aces assistant and a UCLA alumna, was appointed on 10 October 2024 and presented at Chase Center the same day. The roster started to take shape through the 6 December 2024 expansion draft and subsequent free agency: the club’s initial 11 expansion picks included veterans such as Kayla Thornton and Temi Fágbénlé; free‑agent signings and camp contracts then rounded out the group.

An inaugural season that reset expectations (2025)

The Valkyries’ first regular‑season game arrived on 16 May 2025, a Friday night sell‑out of 18,064 against the Los Angeles Sparks at Chase Center. They lost 82–67, but the noise and colour were the story; local press documented the scene and the league’s game notes recorded the attendance. From there, Golden State settled quickly. On 4 September 2025 the club clinched a post‑season place with a home win over Dallas, becoming the first WNBA expansion team to reach the play‑offs in its maiden year and, by that point, the winningest expansion debut (23 victories) on record.

Demand didn’t dip. On 6 September 2025 the Valkyries announced they had set single‑season WNBA attendance records for average (18,064) and total home fans (397,408), with all 22 regular‑season dates sold out at Chase. Independent business coverage corroborated those numbers two days later. The club’s first play‑off home game on 17 September—moved to San Jose’s SAP Center because the Laver Cup tennis event had pre‑booked Chase Center—ended in a one‑point defeat to top‑seeded Minnesota, sealing a 2–0 first‑round exit. Even so, the night brought a curtain‑call of sorts: before tip‑off, Nakase received the 2025 WNBA Coach of the Year award and guard Veronica Burton—plucked in the expansion process and thrust into a lead role—was presented with Most Improved Player.

Building and refining: roster, culture and operations

The inaugural 12 included guards Veronica Burton, Tiffany Hayes, Kate Martin, Carla Leite and Julie Vanloo; wings and forwards Kayla Thornton, Stephanie Talbot, Janelle Salaün and Cecilia Zandalasini; and bigs Temi Fágbénlé, Monique Billings and Kyara Linskens. The group evolved as the year wore on: Thornton was lost to a right‑knee injury in late July 2025; veteran Monique Billings became a key rotation piece and, in the play‑offs, Golden State’s leading scorer in Game 2. Salaün—signed out of France before her WNBA debut—emerged as a stretch forward with feel in year one and, in 2026, has been a focal point in several signature wins. Transactions and temporary absences (for international duty) punctuated a busy first summer; by season’s end, the club’s own “roster in review” highlighted how much of the heavy lifting had been done by players either claimed in December’s draft or recruited smartly in January and February.

Off the court, the infrastructure was treated as part of the product. Across 2024 and early 2025, the Oakland practice facility was renovated and re‑opened for WNBA use, keeping the team’s training heartbeat in the city where the Warriors organisation built its previous era. On the business side, Smith’s staff passed 10,000 season‑ticket holders on 26 March 2025—cited later by the league when she was given its inaugural Business Executive Leadership Award that October—and the partner roster filled in around local and national brands. The combination of full‑house games, a coherent identity and a team good enough to keep the building loud gave the Valkyries competitive credibility unusually quickly for an expansion side.

2026, dated: results, records and recognition

Year two has been about tightening the screws. Golden State opened 2026 with a road win in Seattle on 9 May, then pieced together long unbeaten stretches through July and into August. On 9 August they beat the Sparks 84–78 to move to 23–9, followed by a 91–71 win over Chicago on 12 August (24–9). A 78–70 home win over Dallas on 17 August clinched a second straight play‑off berth; Minnesota then handed them a 77–66 loss on 19 August (25–10) before the Valkyries flipped the series in San Francisco on 24 August, winning 80–66 to go 26–11. Two nights later they routed Connecticut 89–64 at Mohegan Sun; by 30 August they had banked another home victory over Portland. On 2 September the league named Nakase its Coach of the Month for August.

There’s been symbolism alongside the scorelines. The club has continued to style Chase Center as “Ballhalla” on home dates, foregrounding the violet palette and a live‑events running order that borrows as much from music and club culture as from traditional US sports presentation. The 2026 campaign, rolled out in April with the line “This Is Ballhalla”, returned for the home opener on 10 May with T‑shirt giveaways; the season’s promotional schedule has layered in heritage and community nights through summer. And San Francisco press continued to characterise the Valkyries’ crowds as among the most raucous in the sport, with one August 2026 dispatch calling “Ballhalla” a mindset that travelled with the team even when dates fell away from Mission Bay.

What the crowd actually gets: the anatomy of a Valkyries home game

On the floor, WNBA games run to four 10‑minute quarters with a 15‑minute interval and the usual TV time‑out windows; in practice, an evening at Chase lasts around two hours once intros, stoppages and post‑buzzer lap are folded in. The club has been deliberate about what fills that time. For the inaugural season it named an in‑arena host (Ari Waller), a PA voice (Jamie Coffee) and resident DJs—DJSHELLHEART and DJ LadyRyan—whose sets book‑end quarters, power time‑outs and link into giveaways. KQED, reporting courtside in August 2025, traced how those DJs helped build the atmosphere with music that fits the Bay, while the club’s own game‑day brief outlined a hype team (The Flock) to keep the upper bowl moving.

The “Ballhalla” language is more than a hashtag. The club christened the top tier the Crown of Ballhalla—positioned as a noisy supporters’ zone—and in August 2025 unveiled a mascot, Violet the raven, during a halftime reveal at a sold‑out game against Connecticut. Theme nights have become a reliable on‑ramp: the 2026 home opener (10 May) featured Olympian Eileen Gu on the pre‑game drum, Bay Area singer Lynnea Moorer on the anthem and Sheila E. at halftime; Juneteenth programming in June wrapped performances, art and city‑wide activations into the fixture. Local features from 2025 and 2026 repeatedly describe tightly packed lower bowls, violet lights, and an audience skewing younger and more female than the average NBA crowd. The team’s own materials and match‑night run‑downs now routinely use “Ballhalla” on graphics, T‑shirts and plaza screens.

Why it matters now

The results have covered the hype. In 2025, Golden State sold out every regular‑season home date and set league records for both average and total attendance, then delivered the first play‑off berth by a debutant expansion team. Burton’s year‑one leap and Nakase’s control of end‑game situations gave them a spine. In 2026, as of late August, the Valkyries had already clinched a return to the play‑offs and stacked statement wins against Western rivals, while the league recognised Nakase’s month of work by naming her Coach of the Month on 2 September. The club’s live show has become part of the value proposition: a professionalised, music‑first presentation that sits comfortably in a modern arena built for touring pop shows as much as for basketball. In pure live‑event terms, the Valkyries’ home nights are a case study in how to launch and sustain demand for a new team—and, crucially, how to turn that demand into a repeatable game‑night experience.