Joe Lacob's longtime vision sprung to life barely three years ago, on Oct. 5, 2023. That's when Lacob and his Golden State Warriors ownership group announced they would bring a WNBA expansion franchise to San Francisco.
At that point, the franchise didn't have a name. No team president or general manager. No head coach or players. Just the league's license to launch.
And now, less than 37 months later, the Golden State Valkyries stand as WNBA champions.
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The team's meteoric rise, from distant concept to Bay Area phenomenon, culminated with its Finals triumph over Atlanta in Game 7 on Saturday. The Valkyries not only ruled the world of women's professional basketball in only their second season of competition, they also planted themselves on the region's cultural landscape.
It happened quickly, yes - already the franchise's identity is seared into our consciousness. We know Ballhalla is the boisterous venue (sort of Chase Center's alter ego) where the Valkyries play home games, and violet is the color of choice for true fans to wear.
We also know team president Jess Smith is the sharp executive who made Golden State an instant business success. And Ohemaa Nyanin is the shrewd general manager who stitched together a roster of players deemed expendable by other teams. And Natalie Nakase is the intense head coach who must remind herself to stay hydrated.
And her team shall play defense, defense, defense. Always.
All these elements merged in the past three-plus years, producing the Bay Area's eighth championship of the 21st century (Warriors four, Giants three, Valkyries one). It's the first title since Stephen Curry and Co. dispatched the Boston Celtics to lord over the NBA, again, in 2022.
Lacob and his group paid a $50 million expansion fee to join the WNBA in '23; now the Valkyries are worth $1 billion (according to CNBC in May), becoming the first women's sports franchise to reach that milestone. Golden State also became the first women's team to surpass $100 million in annual revenue (Sportico estimated this year's revenue could reach $130 million).
This financial equation begins with attendance figures even Lacob might have struggled to picture. The Valkyries have sold out all 44 regular-season games at Chase Center over their first two seasons, to lead the WNBA in attendance. They also played before capacity crowds in all eight playoff contests this year (and also one playoff game last season at SAP Center in San Jose).
Every time, 18,064 people cram into the arena, dancing and shouting and creating an unapologetically happy community.
The Valkyries sold about 10,500 season tickets last year, when they became the first expansion team to make the playoffs, and then bumped the total to more than 12,000 this season. There's only an 8% crossover with Warriors season-ticket holders, according to Smith.
So how did the Valkyries connect so quickly with their audience?
First, they satisfied a pent-up thirst for women's sports in a region historically consumed with pro basketball - see big Warriors crowds in Oakland, pre-Curry, to watch terrible teams. The Valkyries also arrived at an ideal time, when they could play in a state-of-the-art arena amid explosive growth in the women's game, fueled in part by Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark.
Local interest in women's basketball, specifically, was built partly through the Bay Area's college programs - and especially Stanford. The Cardinal won three national championships and made 12 other Final Four appearances under Hall of Fame coach Tara VanDerveer, who retired in 2024.
Also, the region long ago was home to women's pro basketball - the San Francisco Pioneers for two seasons in the Women's Basketball League (1979-81) and the San Jose Lasers for two-plus seasons (1996-98) in the American Basketball League. Lacob owned and operated the Lasers.
More recently, he twice flirted with an existing WNBA team amid ownership uncertainty in Los Angeles and San Antonio. So when Lacob finally landed the Valkyries three years ago, he poured in resources.
He made smart hires, too, starting with Smith, who had been instrumental in the success of Angel City FC, the Los Angeles entry in the National Women's Soccer League. She came to the Bay Area and soon confronted a simple, fraught question: What colors?
Smith told the Chronicle last year it was "the most important decision" she and her front-office colleagues made between the franchise's birth in October 2023 and brand launch in May 2024. They studied the color schemes of the 12 other WNBA teams at the time, and pondered the precedent of women's sports franchises (typically soccer) often mirroring the colors of men's teams in the same market.
The Valkyries considered some hue of blue and gold, to ride the Warriors' wild success. But they also realized fans would associate any version of those colors with Curry and the Warriors, given their global appeal from four championships in an eight-year span.
"To build something just as powerful, not underneath that, was the task," Smith said in the June 2025 interview. "What does the Bay Area want? What will make them rabid fans? They want something powerful, that's how they show up. They expect you to be bold and make big decisions."
So the Valkyries went bold: violet and black, with deep gold in reserve. The blend, and especially the violet, was an instant hit. Smith contended the violet - "regal and confident," a team spokesperson once said in conveying its appeal - put the Valkyries on the map even before their on-court debut, drawing in and energizing fans.
Warriors guard Brandin Podziemski, who often attends Valkyries games in team garb, called their colors "really cool" and "better than ours."
In the four months after announcing the team name, logo and colors, Smith said, the Valkyries sold merchandise in all 50 states and 70 countries. Revenue from 2024 merchandise sales, before the team played a game or put together its first roster, exceeded what any other WNBA team sold in 2023. The past two years, the Valkyries competed for the top spot in the league in merchandise sales, according to Smith.
"It's completely resetting the bar for what's possible in the WNBA, and probably in all of women's sports," said Rick Welts, the former Warriors president who was deeply involved in the WNBA's launching in the 1990s.
As for the team name: In an initial survey of customers in Golden State's database in October 2023, about 25% of the respondents wrote in "Valkyries." Team officials explored other possibilities but ultimately came back to this choice, Smith said, partly for its blend of femininity and power.
The name's uniqueness and connection to the Warriors also were appealing. Valkyries originated in Norse mythology and are a "host of warrior women who are fearless and unwavering," according to the team's initial announcement in May 2024.
This highlighted the Valkyries' careful consideration of how deeply to lean into the affiliation with their NBA big brother. Now it's the "Golden State Store" outside Chase Center, selling both Warriors and Valkyries merchandise; and the Warriors Basketball Academy, a popular youth camp, was re-branded as the Golden State Sports Academy.
"We don't want people to not know we're part of Golden State," Smith said in last year's interview. "There's a ton of pride, and yet how do you build your own legacy within that? How are we our own and together at the same time?"
They struck a good balance, based on public response. Crowds at Chase Center offer an eclectic mix of people, many of them clad in violet.
For that June 2025 story, the Chronicle spoke to one fan, Beverley Ellis of Richmond, who owned two season tickets. She offered a straightforward explanation for the Valkyries' swift popularity, even before they began winning games.
"It's women's basketball, and there's pride in that," Ellis said. "This is the Bay Area. We lost teams in Oakland, so we needed something to spark us back up. This is it."
The spark included Lacob himself. He tries not to be as emotional with the Valkyries as he is with the Warriors, he said in an Oct. 6 interview, but it usually doesn't work. He quickly came to love this year's team, from Nakase's voracious work ethic to the players' meandering journeys to Golden State and how hard they compete.
They not only competed in their first two seasons, they won at an unprecedented rate. The Valkyries went 23-21 last year, then posted the WNBA's second-best record this season at 32-12.
More importantly, they steamed through the playoffs - beating Dallas in the first round, defending champion Las Vegas in the semifinals and Atlanta in the Finals. That completed the Valkyries' stunning, magical ride over the past three-plus years, on and off the court.
Back in October 2023, Lacob called the Bay Area the "perfect market for a WNBA team." He also vowed to win a championship within five years, echoing the 2010 promise he made when taking over the Warriors. Curry and his teammates delivered.
So did the Valkyries, ahead of schedule.
SubscribeThere’s more to San Francisco with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25¢.This article originally published at How Valkyries swung big on and off the court, leading to improbable WNBA title.