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Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Why The Golden State Valkyries Will Be The WNBA's Most Valuable Team Next Year
The Golden State Valkyries made their WNBA regular-season debut with an 84-67 loss to the Los Angeles Sparks on May 16, but even before tipoff, the game felt like a victory. A capacity crowd of 18,000 packed into the Chase Center in downtown San Francisco, with many of the fans already wearing the team's purple-and-black color scheme—and eager to return a few nights later for the Valkyries' second game, another sellout. Just over a year and a half after billionaires Joe Lacob and Peter Guber paid a reported $50 million for the expansion franchise, all of the hard work of starting up a professional sports team was paying off. 'Having actual games changes everything,' team president Jess Smith tells Forbes. 'We've been building and building up to this point, and now it's like we're actually launching the product. It's a different phase of the business.' The Valkyries are now 2-5, near the bottom of the WNBA's Western Conference standings, where they are expected to remain all year with a roster lacking top talent as it starts from scratch. Regardless of how this inaugural season plays out on the court, however, the Valkyries have guaranteed themselves success on their balance sheet. According to Forbes estimates, the team has locked in at least $20 million in sponsorship revenue this season and is projected to earn another $35 million from its 10,000 season-ticket holders and various premium ticket packages—figures that dwarf what any other WNBA team can generate. By comparison, the Indiana Fever led the league with an estimated $32 million in revenue last season from all business lines. In fact, the Valkyries' $55 million in revenue—a number that does not even include league distributions from national media and sponsorship deals, or income from merchandise and other ancillary streams—would exceed Forbes' estimates for what eight teams collected last season in MLS, a more established men's league. Although the Valkyries were not included in Forbes' 2025 ranking of the WNBA's most valuable teams, which employs a methodology grounded in past financial performance, league insiders unanimously believe Golden State will be at the top of next year's list, vaulting past the $400 million New York Liberty. And in a women's sports landscape where financial sustainability was not entirely assured a few short years ago, the Valkyries are being held up as a symbol of where the WNBA might be headed. 'The center of the tech sector in the U.S. is the Bay Area, and we didn't have a WNBA team in one of the most progressive markets in the country? It just never made sense to me,' says one league executive. 'I'm not surprised at all by their success.' The Valkyries' natural advantage begins with Lacob (net worth: $2.3 billion) and Peter Guber ($1.5 billion), who are also part of the ownership group for the Golden State Warriors—the NBA's most valuable franchise in each of the last three years, worth an estimated $8.8 billion. By the time their expansion bid was selected in October 2023, the WNBA had not added an expansion team in 15 years. But the two billionaire owners had been planning for that day since they and the Warriors helped finance the construction of the Chase Center, which broke ground in 2017, opened in 2019 and now serves as the home arena for both teams. For example, while Chase Center suites include concerts alongside Warriors games in their long-term lease contracts, there was a carve-out provision in case the building was able to land a WNBA team, foresight that is now allowing the Valkyries to sell all of the venue's premium spaces. More broadly, the Valkyries are able to profit from revenue streams that are not available to some other teams around the league, such as concessions and parking, because their owners control their arena. "It's such a joy to oversee the [profit-and-loss statements] here and have an ownership group that also oversees our real estate, after coming from recently being a tenant,' says Smith, who previously served as head of revenue at the NWSL's Angel City FC, which rents BMO Stadium in Los Angeles for its home games. Shared ownership has its perks, but Smith's first job when she was hired in early 2024 was differentiating the Bay Area's WNBA newcomer from its NBA incumbent. Sponsors like JPMorgan Chase, Kaiser Permanente, CarMax and United Airlines were already paying the Warriors top dollar to reach a fan base associated with Silicon Valley innovation and early adoption, but Smith sold them on the fact that the Valkyries and Warriors' season-ticket bases have an overlap of less than 5%, a trend that holds true in many WNBA markets. 'We're not selling them something that's an extension,' Smith says, relaying the sales pitch. 'We're truly selling them a unique audience who happens to play in the same building in a market that's already important to them.' Of course, none of that would matter if the team had not demonstrated strong fan support and signed up those 10,000 season-ticket holders, which is around the same number the Warriors have in the same arena—albeit at a lower price. Smith says a key to building the Valkyries' fan base has been merchandise. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in men's sports—where a fan might like an athlete or a team, go to a game to see them play and then eventually buy a jersey or a hat—WNBA league officials told Smith early on that the league's audience tends to travel in the opposite direction, buying merchandise before becoming a fan of the team and eventually attending a game. Box Office Ballers: Temi Fagbenle and the Golden State Valkyries have attracted 10,000 season-ticket buyers—around the same number the Warriors have in the same Valkyries focused early efforts on their branding and color scheme, and Smith says that in 2024, before they had played a single game, the team had higher merchandise sales than any WNBA team had had the year before. The figure was more than double what Smith recalled selling at Angel City FC in that team's first year. The Valkyries also lucked out with their timing. Last season proved to be transformational for the WNBA as interest skyrocketed around the rookie season of Fever guard Caitlin Clark, and teams continue to find ways to benefit from the so-called Caitlin Clark effect, with the Valkyries putting tickets to a Fever game in each of their two mini-package offerings this summer. 'The league was growing, but [Clark] obviously was the secret ingredient that took the league to another level,' says Ivo Voynov, the head of sports finance at Citi Private Bank. 'If [Golden State] had done this in 2019, it would be a different story, but on the heels of Clark and Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers, it's a perfect storm.' The Valkyries' owners know more than most about the importance of timing. In the mid-1990s, Lacob invested in the American Basketball League, a women's professional competitor to the brand-new WNBA, and purchased the operating rights to one of its franchises, the San Jose Lasers. In December 1998, midway through the league's third season, it declared bankruptcy and shut down. Prospects for the WNBA look much more promising. The 12 teams valued by Forbes this year are worth an average of $272 million, and as the league expands, the leading contender for the next slot is believed to be a group in Cleveland led by Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, which has reportedly offered to pay the WNBA a roughly $250 million fee. That number represents a significant jump not only from the Valkyries' $50 million but also from the $50 million and $125 million that Toronto and Portland reportedly paid last year to join the league in 2026. The valuations, Voynov says, are far more indicative of investors' optimism for the future than of what franchises are currently worth. 'This is still a venture-capital-type investment. We're not kidding ourselves—there's risk to it,' he says. 'And it's hard when you're looking at your investment go from $50 million to $250 million in a span of five years to not start thinking, 'Maybe I should get out—I could take my winnings and then let someone else figure out if this is a sustainable business long term.' 'But the ownership group at Golden State is not doing that, clearly. They're building for the long term—and that's exactly what the league needs.'
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Warriors, Knicks top CNBC's Official NBA Team Valuations for 2025
The average National Basketball Association team is worth $4.66 billion, according to CNBC Sport's official NBA valuations. This places the league between the average National Football League team, worth $6.49 billion, and the average National Hockey League team, worth $1.92 billion. The most valuable NBA team is the Golden State Warriors, worth $9.4 billion. The Warriors generated $781 million in revenue — net of their revenue-sharing payment — during the 2023-24 season, the highest in the NBA. The Warriors own their home arena, San Francisco's Chase Center, from which they also earn revenue from non-NBA events. The team raked in nearly $200 million in sponsorship revenue last season, nearly double that of any other team, according to a league executive. It may not be surprising that the value of the Warriors has increased at a 24% compound annual growth rate since Joe Lacob and Peter Guber paid $450 million for the team in 2010. After all, the Warriors have won four NBA titles over the past decade, moved into their state-of-the-art arena in 2019 and have been led by two-time league MVP Stephen Curry. But even the small-market Memphis Grizzlies, the NBA's least valuable team, worth $3.2 billion, have been a great investment for owner Robert Pera. The Grizzlies have not been to the NBA Finals since entering the league in 1995 and generally rank in the bottom third of the NBA in average attendance. Yet, the value of the Grizzlies has increased at a 19% annual rate since Pera paid $377 million for the team in 2012. According to team executives, the biggest reason for the rising tide in NBA valuations has been the increase in national media rights, which are divided equally among the league's 30 teams. In July, the NBA agreed to a new media rights package worth $76 billion over 11 years, beginning with the 2025-26 season. On an average annual basis, the new deal is worth $6.9 billion a year, nearly 160% more than its current deal is worth. Revenue and EBITDA figures represent the 2023-24 season. Here is CNBC's methodology for ranking the NBA teams. This article was originally published on Sign in to access your portfolio
NBC News
14-02-2025
- Business
- NBC News
Warriors, Knicks top CNBC's Official NBA Team Valuations for 2025
The average National Basketball Association team is worth $4.66 billion, according to CNBC Sport's official NBA valuations. This places the league between the average National Football League team, worth $6.49 billion, and the average National Hockey League team, worth $1.92 billion. The most valuable NBA team is the Golden State Warriors, worth $9.4 billion. The Warriors generated $781 million in revenue — net of their revenue-sharing payment — during the 2023-24 season, the highest in the NBA. The Warriors own their home arena, San Francisco's Chase Center, from which they also earn revenue from non-NBA events. The team raked in nearly $200 million in sponsorship revenue last season, nearly double that of any other team, according to a league executive. It may not be surprising that the value of the Warriors has increased at a 24% compound annual growth rate since Joe Lacob and Peter Guber paid $450 million for the team in 2010. After all, the Warriors have won four NBA titles over the past decade, moved into their state-of-the-art arena in 2019 and have been led by two-time league MVP Stephen Curry. But even the small-market Memphis Grizzlies, the NBA's least valuable team, worth $3.2 billion, have been a great investment for owner Robert Pera. The Grizzlies have not been to the NBA Finals since entering the league in 1995 and generally rank in the bottom third of the NBA in average attendance. Yet, the value of the Grizzlies has increased at a 19% annual rate since Pera paid $377 million for the team in 2012. According to team executives, the biggest reason for the rising tide in NBA valuations has been the increase in national media rights, which are divided equally among the league's 30 teams. In July, the NBA agreed to a new media rights package worth $76 billion over 11 years, beginning with the 2025-26 season. On an average annual basis, the new deal is worth $6.9 billion a year, nearly 160% more than its current deal is worth.
