Although they have yet to step foot on the court, or even put together a roster of players, there is already significant excitement about the coming addition of the Golden State Valkyries to US women’s basketball’s top-tier WNBA.
The franchise was announced as the league’s 13th back in October 2023, when rights to a WNBA expansion team were awarded to the Golden State Warriors franchise of the men’s NBA.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Four NBA Championships since 2015 and the emergence of stars Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and more made the Warriors the league’s most valuable franchise.
However, when the identity of the new women's franchise was revealed, it was violet and black, not blue and gold that the team’s branding was fashioned from.
Unlike many other WNBA affiliates of NBA teams, the Valkyries are more than happy to distance themselves from their successful brother franchise in favor of forging their own path forward.
“We want to make sure, even when you see our Valkyrie violet, that you think of us,” explained Jess Smith, Golden State Valkyries president.
How well do you really know your competitors?
Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.
Thank you!
Your download email will arrive shortly
Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample
We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form
By GlobalDataSpeaking at The Summit, part of the Leaders Week London sports business conference, Smith continued: “Do you think our merchandise, if we had chosen the blue and gold of Golden State, would have significant sales? Or do you think people would just buy Warriors gear and just wear it to our games?
“That's a key piece of the business initiative, and how your brand shows up number one. If you're a new brand, you're educating people. So, if it all looks the same on the market, if you're walking around the street and someone's wearing the team jersey and you can't tell if it's men's or women's, it's actually not helpful. You want two different products.”
Differentiation
This strategy of differentiating the Valkyries’ offering from that of the Warriors extends beyond just merchandising but into the overall commercial strategy at Golden State.
Smith explains that Valkyries’ branding being separate from the Warriors, alongside the different demographics that attend and follow the NBA and WNBA, will allow Golden State to diversify and expand its portfolio of partners as it attracts new fan segments.
“So often there's been the misinterpretation over the years that an NBA fan is a WNBA fan. That's not your core consumer. They're not the ones that come to every single game, they're not the ones that are going to watch every single game on TV.”
Smith, a former Angel City FC NWSL soccer team executive, continued: “When we started Angel City, one of the pieces that I researched before really putting our strategy together was what is the true crossover opportunity. We were playing in the same stadium as [MLS franchise] LAFC.
“What I found is that [even when] games were the same sport, or arenas where the same sport is played, regardless of your ownership or not, you're not seeing more than a 10% crossover of audience. So, stop trying to just assume that that audience is going to be where you're going to find your prime fans.”
As the WNBA targets different demographics than the NBA, so too will its franchises bring in different commercial partners that will look to exploit these different consumer segments.
Some sponsors of the Warriors, namely banking firm Chase and healthcare service Kaiser Permanente, will carry over into sponsoring the Valkyries team also having signed on as jersey sponsors for the inaugural Valkyries season.
Beyond these, however, the franchise is expecting to build its own sponsorship portfolio separate to that of the Warriors.
Smith: “You're going to talk to partners that only want to work with the women's team too. How does that feel for them? It can't just be ‘You're a partner here, but you're less than [a Warriors partner] because you're over here.’
“[That’s why] we're building up a separate partnership team, because it will be very important to them that what it means to be a Valkyries partner feels much different than what it feels like to be a Warriors partner.”
“We have some partners that work with both, but we're going to have a lot of partners that only want to work with us, and that's good for both.”
Building a fan experience
From the commercial partnerships level down to the bringing in of consumers, Smith expects that this strategy will help to carve out the Valkyries’ niche as the Bay Area’s only active WNBA franchise.
Encompassing the wider area around the San Francisco Bay that includes San Jose and Oakland, the Bay Area is one of the US’ strongest sports markets, boasting seven popular sports franchises (now eight with the Valkyries) across soccer, American football, baseball, basketball, and ice hockey, that have collectively accrued 14 national championships (20 when including teams that have since been relocated).
Only one other of these franchises however, the Bay FC soccer side, is a women’s sports team, and that team only made its debut earlier in 2024 after being founded in 2023.
San Jose had a short-lived WNBA franchise in the 2005 and 2006 seasons – the San Jose Spiders – but besides that team and Bay FC now, the area’s exposure to women’s sports, and women’s basketball in particular, has been limited.
In light of this, the introduction of the Valkyries may help to galvanize new fans – followers of women's sports and families, to name but two – to become consumers for a rapidly growing WNBA that is arguably more nationally relevant than ever.
What helps the Valkyries in this regard is that the material realities of the existing Warriors franchise have allowed the new WNBA franchise to enter the league with existing professional-level facilities that still allowed them to remain separate.
The Valkyries will play games at the Warriors’ 18,064-capacity Chase Center arena, but the Warriors’ old Oakland facility, which previously housed the team’s front office and practice court prior to the construction of the Chase Centre, will now serve as the women’s team's headquarters.
As Smith says: “We're renovating that heavily. It will be all Valkyries branding. It'll be more geared for our athletes and the needs and wants that they have on their daily grind, and [ensure] that our front office is there, connected with them. We're not just part of the [Golden State] organization. We are very much our own thing, but inclusive of [the wider organization] too.”
The team is already seeing dividends from this, with over 18,000 ticket deposits registered for the team’s debut season and merchandise sales already high after just the brand reveal.
“We're starting to see our premium ticket holders and conversions going astoundingly well, and we're starting to see some incredible financial progress there too. So we are relentless on that side of our business.”
Getting fans in the door is only half the battle though, and Smith says that the next step that the front office at the Valkyries is focused on is converting those customers into additional revenue around the game be it merchandise, concessions, or other avenues.
Deposits are going for as little as $25 each, in order to reach as wide a base as possible and not price out any income groups, a move that will also allow these fans to invest their cash elsewhere around the team.
“We believe in building a great experience. I can't tell you the number of fans that have come up to me over the last number of months and just said ‘Please make it cool. I will pay for it. Don't just invite me in and give me a hot dog and charge me $15, make it cool.’”
Smith explains that fans of the WNBA want to spend the money they would spend on the high-quality amenities and food at a men’s sports arena, at a women’s sports game, “and, we're going to have a version of all of that. I think you're going to see a lot of revenue leadership on this from the organization in a big way.
“Not only do we have all these new fans, but we have a lot of fans that have never been to Chase Center. That's a huge advantage for our company. [New fans] that are now coming into the arena for the first time, and we hope that they come back for concerts or dining or events.”
Knowing your worth
The finals of the 2024 WNBA season were the most watched in 25 years, but even before that, the league was set for a record new media rights deal that is worth as much as four times the current deal’s value.
In the past, Smith states, women’s sports properties – be they leagues or the teams themselves – did not value themselves correctly, a factor that has kept commercial values down and has inhibited growth.
One of the Valkyries’ biggest targets, she says on this subject, is to ensure that the value of what is being done is recognized.
“Often in women's sports, the inventory has been undervalued and there hasn't been the strategy around even understanding that and making sure that what you're building, you're charging correctly for in the marketplace."
Smith explained that at Angel City FC there was a time when a consultant told the team to sell its jersey sponsorship rights for far below what she believed they were worth, due to a lack of data knowledge on the growth and future growth capacity of the NWSL and the value of its brand.
“They were wrong, we didn't listen to them. We went to market for something much higher that I knew was [relative] to MLS deals [at the time].
“Similarly, right now with the Valkyries, with the visibility of the WNBA, with what Golden State is, with what we're planning to do with merchandise and merchandise sales, we're doing something that people haven't done before, so the valuation of those things is important. We have to take our key pieces of inventory and make sure that we monetize them correctly.
“The biggest plan is building a product that's worthy of the assets that we're making and valuing it correctly.”
This of course will take a team effort among all 13 (soon to be 15) WNBA franchises, in order to create a product worth the value that franchises such as the Warriors are putting into it.
“I want more, you know, and we're going to be bringing a lot to the league, but we also want other teams to succeed too. We need all entities to work together to obviously, build the best product possible.”
