Despite having no star players, a mediocre record, and playing in just their first season, your Golden State Valkyries have scored the highest average home game attendance numbers in the entire WNBA.
The SF Giants, 49ers, and Golden State Warriors have spoiled us with so many championship parades over the last few decades that Bay Area Sports fans are disappointed when any of those teams has a .500 record, that is, when they’ve won about the same number of games that they’ve lost. And our brand new WNBA expansion team the Golden State Valkyries have notched a 19-18 record so far this season, so they’re one game above .500. I guess that’s good for a first-year expansion team, but that is not a good record by Warriors or 49ers standards.
And yet. The Golden State Valkyries are somehow a ticket-selling juggernaut, and have the highest average attendance for home games of any team in the WNBA. Yes, even better than Caitlin Clark’s team, the Indiana Fever.
WNBA sets an all-time attendance record with 2,501,609 fans as of 8/20/25. In 2002, the record was set with 16 teams across 256 games. This season, the WNBA broke the record with 13 teams and just 226 games. pic.twitter.com/rknKFpMekn
— WNBA Communications (@WNBAComms) August 21, 2025
We arrived at this finding after being intrigued by last week’s report that the WNBA has broken its all-time attendance record this year, and did so with two-and-a-half weeks left in the season. You can scoff that it’s just that they've added more teams and more games to the season, but still, they broke their all-time record.
The day that news broke, Yahoo Sports’ report on the topic credited the Valkyries with driving that attendance surge. That outlet noted that “Playing in San Francisco's Chase Center, which also hosts the NBA's Golden State Warriors, the Valkyries have sold out all 17 of their home games so far, pulling in a league-best average of 18,064 fans.”
Image: Across the Timeline
We then found this graph from the sport statistics site Across the Timeline ranking the Valkyries Number One in home game attendance. But that site does not list any sources, or ways to verify this claim. So SFist reached out to the Golden State Valkyries organization.
“We have sold out all 17 home games this year at Chase Center,” Valkyries communications manager Christine Jacobsen told us Wednesday, though she did add a technicality. “We have the highest average attendance in the league, but not the most total fans as, we haven’t had as many home games as the teams who do lead the league in total fans.”
In other words, the Valkyries have not yet had as many home games as some other teams have, so they do not have the highest overall number of home-game tickets sold. But they’re about to embark on a five-game home stand starting this weekend, and that includes another Caitlin Clark game Sunday at 5:30 pm, which will be broadcast live on KPIX.
It’s kind of remarkable that the Valkyries are selling out all of their home games. The team has no star players, their only player who made the All-Star team is out for the season with a knee injury, and their Number One draft pick is off playing in the European leagues for the year. And again, they’ve lost just about as many games as they’ve won.
So why are the Valkyries still packing the Chase Center and selling out every single home game? It could be because of the huge Bay Area women’s basketball fan base, established by decades of Stanford’s women’s basketball program being magnificent. It could be because the Valkyries’ name and logo are pretty kick-ass. Or it could be that the Bay Area is just a more receptive region to women’s sports.
And despite their middling record, the Valkyries currently hold the Number Seven spot in the WNBA playoff race, in which the top eight teams make the playoffs. And that would be a problem for the Chase Center, which has already booked the Laver Cup tennis tournament for the September dates of the first round of the WNBA playoffs.
So the Valkyries will likely have to find another venue in which to play those games. But wherever that venue is, Valkyries fans are probably going to sell the place out.
Related:Golden State Valkyries Are Now The First Women’s Sports Franchise Valued at $500 Million [SFist]
Image: ARLINGTON, TEXAS - AUGUST 24: Kate Martin #20 of the Golden State Valkyries celebrates after scoring a three point basket against the Dallas Wings during the first half at College Park Center on August 24, 2025 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)