EDITORS NOTE: EDS: EXPANDS graf "They were cheering ..."; UPDATES time element in subsequent graf; REVISES graf "Under her leadership ..."; other minor edits; REMOVES embargo note. Story first moved Saturday, Sept. 13, at 4:47 p.m. ET.); (ART ADV: With photos.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Fans craned their heads toward the giant scoreboard screen to watch a video of female winged warriors flying over San Francisco. At both ends of the basketball court, flames shot up from behind the backboards.
San Francisco's new mayor was in the crowd. A few San Francisco 49ers players and their wives sat courtside. Angela Davis, a social justice activist who is now 81, stepped onto the court grasping a mallet, then repeatedly swung it at a large bass drum.
The sold-out crowd of more than 18,000 people rose to its feet. They cheered so loudly, Chase Center, an arena on the edge of San Francisco Bay, seemed to vibrate.
"G! S! V!" the fans hollered, one letter for each thwack of the drum.
They were cheering for the Golden State Valkyries, the WNBA's first expansion team in 17 years. But they also seemed to be cheering for something more: the surge of excitement in San Francisco over women's sports and the return of optimism and joy to the city after a brutal pandemic and its aftermath. (The Golden State Warriors' 2022 NBA championship notwithstanding.)
On the last night of August, the Valkyries were about to take the court against the Indiana Fever. A few wins later, they would become the league's only expansion team to make the playoffs in its first season; they entered the WNBA playoffs Sunday as the eighth seed against the No. 1 Minnesota Lynx.
The Valkyries had already set records. They were the first WNBA team to sell out every home game. They set a league expansion team record with 23 wins. Perhaps most strikingly, the Valkyries became the first professional women's franchise in any sport to be valued at $500 million, according to an analysis by Sportico.
But the true meaning of a Valkyries summer was not found in any statistic. It was a vibe.
The Players
Brand-new teams draft players other teams don't want, and aren't usually good in their first season. The Valkyries were cobbled together by general manager Ohemaa Nyanin, who found hidden gems on other rosters and by scouting in Europe.
"We're a team of sixth women," explained Temi Fagbenle, the team's 6-foot-4 center, referring to how the Valkyries were often bench players on other teams. "We don't have any egos. We need to prove ourselves."
The team's coach, Natalie Nakase, refused to accept that her first-year team would be mediocre. To get the job, she promised owner Joe Lacob a championship within five years.
Under her leadership, the scrappy players have gelled and become the stars they hadn't been before. People form long lines outside the arena's packed merchandise store to buy the jerseys of Tiffany "Tip" Hayes, Kate "Money" Martin and Monique "Mo" Billings.
Like Nakase, the first Asian American head coach in the WNBA, Kaitlyn Chen, a 23-year-old rookie, has become a favorite of the Bay Area's large Asian American community.
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Riley Hom, a fourth grader from Daly City, California, who plays on three basketball teams and dreams of going pro, arrived at the Fever game early to watch the players warm up. She had her heart set on seeing one in particular.
"Kaitlyn Chen!" she answered. "She's Asian!"
Chen said it means a lot to be a role model.
"There aren't really a lot of us out there who are playing in professional sports," she said. When she was a girl growing up in the Los Angeles area, her idol, Kobe Bryant, looked nothing like her, she noted, with a laugh.
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Veronica Burton, 25, is another fan favorite -- a point guard and a front-runner to be named the league's most improved player. Last year, with the Connecticut Sun, she averaged 3.1 points and 1.9 assists per game. For the Valkyries, she has averaged 11.9 points and 6 assists.
"We love each other, and that's huge when it comes to basketball," she said in an interview. "Chemistry is such a powerful thing. It really does feel like a family."
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The Valkyries regularly dance together before games and admire each other's "tunnel fits," the stylish outfits they wear to the arena.
They live in the same apartment building, paid for by the team. They often eat breakfast together and relax over shows, including the romantic drama "The Summer I Turned Pretty."
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While the players credit team executives for the summer they turned famous, there is the question of whether they will benefit from the unexpected boom in ticket, merchandise and sponsorship sales. The salary cap for each team this year is $1.5 million, a far cry from the $154.6 million salary cap for the upcoming NBA season, a number that will be exceeded by many teams, including the Golden State Warriors, through various exemptions.
One stark fact: All of the Valkyries players combined make less than the lowest paid member of the Warriors, who have the same owners and play in the same building.
Another thing that wouldn't happen in the NBA: The Valkyries won't play Wednesday's home game in their best-of-three first-round series at Chase Center because the Laver Cup, a men's tennis tournament, has the arena. The Valkyries will play at SAP Center in San Jose, California, instead.
The 'Startup'
Lacob sat on a couch in the owners lounge of the arena he built for the Warriors six years ago. It was another sold-out game night, with the Valkyries playing against the New York Liberty, one of the original WNBA franchises.
Lacob, a billionaire venture capitalist, and Peter Guber, a billionaire entertainment mogul, combined to pay $50 million in 2023 for the rights to a WNBA expansion team. That investment has ballooned by a factor of 10.
"I love this startup," Lacob said. "It's so Silicon Valley."
The name "Valkyries" was a top fan suggestion that referenced the female version of male warriors in Norse mythology. Lacob admitted that he did not initially like the name because he was afraid that nobody would know what it meant or how it was spelled.
He also did not care for the team color, violet, because he felt that men would not wear it. But, sporting a violet pullover himself, he said that he had been proved wrong.
Valkyries executives would not disclose revenue numbers. Despite Chase Center selling out each game, a local television deal, sponsorships from the likes of Sephora and Waymo and jerseys selling like mad, the players struggle to make a living wage by Bay Area standards.
Burton's base salary, before any incentives, is $78,831 this season -- which, as an annual salary, would qualify as low-income in San Francisco -- and some of her teammates earn even less.
"This is what it's been, unfortunately," Burton said, noting that the players union is fighting for a better contract to replace its current agreement, which expires Oct. 31.
The union argues that women should earn the same percentage of their league's revenue as the men do from theirs. Recent analyses have put the women's share around 9%, while the men receive 50%. At the WNBA All-Star Game this summer, players wore shirts that said, "Pay Us What You Owe Us," and numerous Valkyries fans wear T-shirts or wave signs with a similar sentiment.
"I'm optimistic," Burton said.
Lacob declined to say much about players' salaries during contract negotiations, saying he could be fined $500,000 by the league for doing so. But he did say that the WNBA has long struggled to make a profit and that the Valkyries have provided a road map for how women's teams can succeed financially. Five more expansion teams are slated to start playing in the next five years.
"They're going to do a lot better," he vowed of his players' salaries. "They deserve to."
The Fans
The Valkyries nicknamed their arena "Ballhalla," a twist on Valhalla, the hall of the slain in Norse mythology.
On game night, Ballhalla feels as if somebody shook a Bay Area snow globe, and an unlikely swirl landed inside. Local celebrities, including comedian Ali Wong, rapper E-40, and Steph Curry and Steve Kerr of the Warriors, have attended.
The team partnered with fashion designers to develop merchandise more interesting than the typical hoodies and T-shirts; popular fan gear includes corsets, leather jackets and cargo shorts. The team strives for the effortless cool of the Bay Area itself.
"If we were a fan, what would just blow our minds?" Jess Smith, the Valkyries president, said of the team's guiding principle.
Just 7% of those who bought season tickets had previously purchased Warriors season tickets, meaning the Valkyries have built a whole new fan base. The team has had broad appeal in its first season, and just over half of those with season tickets have been men and boys, the team said. There is also a big LGBTQ+ contingent.
"I love it when we win, but when we lose, I leave just as happy," said Jennifer Price, 61, who bought season tickets with her wife. "I see all types of people. All different ethnicities, all different ages, kids, parents, queers, straights."
An LGBTQ+ fan club, the Valqueeries, has more than 2,000 followers on Instagram. Audacious Wilson, 46, said she is part of the Ballhalla Babes, women who happened to buy season tickets in Section 103 and became fast friends.
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In a home north of Golden Gate Park, Vanessa Hutchinson-Szekely uses her daughters' room to record a new podcast, "Valkyries, Say Less," with her friend and fellow teacher, Raina Mast.
Their name for the makeshift recording space? Bunk Bed Studios.
Both podcasters played basketball in high school, and Mast played in college. They said it's stunning that women's basketball games are now packing arenas and being broadcast on TV, a reality they never imagined as girls.
"This is a historical tipping-point moment in women's basketball," Hutchinson-Szekely said. "It's time."
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A few miles away, in the Castro, a historic gay neighborhood, a new women's sports bar called Rikki's serves as the fans' overflow gathering space. Sara Yergovich and Danielle Thoe, the co-owners, wanted a space where they could watch women's sports free from loud drunkenness -- so they created one.
A sign on the wall reads, "You Belong Here." Signature cocktails include The Queen Is King.
On Sept. 4, the Valkyries needed one more win to make the playoffs. After a back-and-forth nail biter against the Dallas Wings, they got it.
At Rikki's, fans were glued to the television screens in anxious silence until it was clear in the game's last few seconds that the Valkyries had won. When the buzzer sounded, they leaped from their seats, screamed with joy and embraced total strangers.
On the court, the players hugged and bumped chests. Violet streamers fell from the ceiling of Ballhalla. And somehow, some way, the crowd got even louder.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Temi Fagbenle, a guard on the WBNA's Golden State Valkyries, walks in a fashion show for local designers in San Francisco on Aug. 28, 2025. Sellout crowds for the WNBA's first expansion team in 17 years are cheering for more than just the playoffs-bound Valkyries -- the return of optimism and joy to the city after a brutal pandemic and its aftermath. (Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times) GABRIELA BHASKAR NYT
The Golden State Valkyries Kaila Charles, second right, blocks a New York Liberty player's shot, at Chase Center in San Francisco on Sept. 2, 2025. Sellout crowds for the WNBA's first expansion team in 17 years are cheering for more than just the playoffs-bound Valkyries -- the return of optimism and joy to the city after a brutal pandemic and its aftermath. (Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times) GABRIELA BHASKAR NYT
A raucous crowd cheers as the WBNA's Golden State Valkyries hosted the Indiana Fever, at Chase Center in San Francisco on Aug. 31, 2025. Sellout crowds for the WNBA's first expansion team in 17 years are cheering for more than just the playoffs-bound Valkyries -- the return of optimism and joy to the city after a brutal pandemic and its aftermath. (Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times) GABRIELA BHASKAR NYT
A sign in support of pay equality as the WBNA's Golden State Valkyries hosted the Indiana Fever, at Chase Center in San Francisco on Aug. 31, 2025. Sellout crowds for the WNBA's first expansion team in 17 years are cheering for more than just the playoffs-bound Valkyries -- the return of optimism and joy to the city after a brutal pandemic and its aftermath. (Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times) GABRIELA BHASKAR NYT
A raucous crowd cheers as the WBNA's Golden State Valkyries hosted the New York Liberty, at Chase Center in San Francisco on Sept. 2, 2025. Sellout crowds for the WNBA's first expansion team in 17 years are cheering for more than just the playoffs-bound Valkyries -- the return of optimism and joy to the city after a brutal pandemic and its aftermath. (Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times) GABRIELA BHASKAR NYT
Golden State Valkyries fans cheer on their WNBA team at Rikki's Bar, a womens' sports bar in San Francisco on Sept. 4, 2025. Sellout crowds for the WNBA's first expansion team in 17 years seem to be cheering for more than just the playoffs-bound Valkyries -- the return of optimism and joy to the city after a brutal pandemic and its aftermath. (Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times) GABRIELA BHASKAR NYT
Fan headgear in the team colors as the WBNA's Golden State Valkyries hosted the New York Liberty, at Chase Center in San Francisco on Sept. 2, 2025. Sellout crowds for the WNBA's first expansion team in 17 years are cheering for more than just the playoffs-bound Valkyries -- the return of optimism and joy to the city after a brutal pandemic and its aftermath. (Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times) GABRIELA BHASKAR NYT
Members of the WBNA's Golden State Valkyries walk in a fashion show for local designers in San Francisco on Aug. 28, 2025. Sellout crowds for the WNBA's first expansion team in 17 years are cheering for more than just the playoffs-bound Valkyries -- the return of optimism and joy to the city after a brutal pandemic and its aftermath. (Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times) GABRIELA BHASKAR NYT
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