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The Valkyries are attracting the happiest sell-out crowds in recent Bay Area history, and right now, they have the happiest owner, too.
It takes a lot to meet and even exceed the expectations of Joe Lacob, who is committed to speaking and spending triumphant things into existence. But there he was after Saturday night’s victory over the Seattle Storm, in front of the Valkyries’ fifth sellout in its first five Chase Center regular-season games, recalculating some short-term estimates and eagerly forecasting what this means for the future.
Lacob does not project small or mundane achievements for himself or his teams and has four Warriors championship trophies as verification. And the Valkyries are just flying through this first stage.
“All I can say is — this is self-serving — but if I were a player in this league, this is where I’d want to be,” Lacob told me. “I mean, all you have to do is take a look around. Sellout crowds — no one’s ever done that before (as an expansion team) — great venue, great coach.
“There’s nothing about this that isn’t appealing. And that’s our goal, to do that, to attract free agents in the future. Yeah, I’m pretty positive about it going forward.”
The Valkyries’ implied formula has always been to go bonkers on the financial side, get the Bay Area fan base thoroughly revved up about this new WNBA team, and build a culture on the basketball side in Year 1 of expansion that’s a living sales pitch to the three-quarters of the league that will be free agents next offseason.
On the basketball side, even after the recent departures of three key players to the EuroBasket tournament, the Valkyries have won three in a row to get to 5-5 and, at least for now, are in real competition for a playoff berth. General manager Ohemaa Nyanin has proven she can find smart, versatile players who have been overlooked here or internationally. And coach Natalie Nakase has shown that she can meld these kinds of players into a tough, bonded, and entertaining team. The Valkyries have been without one of their most talented players, Tiffany Hayes, for most of this season with a nose injury, but they already have won more games than the league’s last expansion team, the Atlanta Dream, won in its entire inaugural 2008 season.
The Valkyries are already no-doubt WNBA revenue monsters — they’re set to pull in first-season revenues “in excess” of the $55 million estimated recently by Forbes, Lacob said, which would put the Valkyries at the top of league money-makers.
Meanwhile, Valkyries players, and even a few opponents, are raving about the atmosphere at Chase, which, I can attest, is unique among big-event sports in this region. This is all new, so maybe the sheer enthusiasm and joy will wear out eventually. But probably not if the Valkyries keep playing like this. And not if they can add one or two foundational stars in free agency — stars that might be very interested in playing this style of basketball under Nakase and for these fans.
“The word’s starting to get out,” Lacob said. “People are starting to notice. I mean, you have to notice. … The place is full. We lead the league in attendance. No (expansion) team has ever done that. … I don’t know, we might sell out all the games.
“What’s amazing is how great our fans are. As you can see, at the end of games, they’re all still there, standing, cheering the team. It’s a pretty exciting experience.”
One sign that the Valkyries are playing above even internal expectations: Chase Center is pretty much booked in September with the Laver Cup and concerts, which would be an issue for the playoffs. Oh well, that’s a good problem for an expansion team to have.
The Valkyries aren’t just ahead of schedule, they’re messing up the schedule.
You can just see the solid roster construction. Kayla Thornton is the veteran leader Nyanin knew from their time together with the New York Liberty, Veronica Burton and Kate Martin are young players who fit Nakase’s system and culture wonderfully, and Janelle Salaün (at EuroBasket) and Carla Leite, in particular, are young building blocks that Nyanin spotted in international play. Plus, there’s 19-year-old potential star Justė Jocytė, who is playing in Europe this season but is expected to join the Valkyries next season.
They’re quite competitive now. They’re already a tough team to play at Chase, as best evidenced by their crushing of the Las Vegas Aces on June 7. And imagine the Valkyries next season, when they can add Jocytė, another first-round pick, and one or two centerpiece veterans in free agency.
Right now, Nakase built this team to scrap and hustle on defense, rebound, pass, cut, and shoot threes. They’re only making 26.7% of their threes as a team, worst in the league while taking the second-most attempts. But they’re surviving this because the Valkyries have the fifth-rated defense in the league and are No. 1 in defensive-rebounding percentage.
“What our GM did to put this thing together, to find players that no one knew about in Europe is pretty incredible,” Lacob said. “Ohemaa deserves a lot of credit. And Natalie Nakase is proving to be an excellent coach. I’m so impressed with the job she’s doing, really amazing, making everyone play together as a team, the style of play.”
Before the roster was even assembled, Lacob memorably declared that the Valkyries would win a championship within five years — the same prediction he made in 2010 when he and Peter Guber bought the Warriors (which they cashed in with the 2015 title). This is all very Lacob, of course. But I look at what possibly could happen in the offseason as a result of everything that’s happening now and I wonder: Could this go even faster than that?
“We’ll keep to the five years,” Lacob said with a chuckle when I asked him. “That would obviously be incredible. I don’t think it’s impossible (to do it faster than five years). But let’s just say we want to be competitive, try to make the playoffs this year. See what happens over the next few years.”
The basketball is the most important part, but the Valkyries likely will win the attendance race this season. They’re averaging 2,000 more at their home games than the No. 2 team, Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever, who come to Chase on Thursday. So you know that one will be sold out. They probably could sell 30,000 tickets to that game.
“You never want to look ahead, but you also want to be appreciative of what has been established here with the 18,000 fans,” Nakase said Saturday. “We’re not taking it for granted. We understand that’s an opportunity that only 12 players in the league get to experience. The type of support — they stay within the game, they cheer and they scream at the right times. When there’s bad calls, they scream, they holler. It’s really good to have that camaraderie with the fans.
“We show up, too, now for them. The fact that they’ve been consistently showing up, 18,000, sold-out crowd. We’re playing for them.”
The most significant long-term question, though, is whether the Valkyries can turn all this into the kind of talent that can win a championship. Or if you use Lacob’s goals, multiple championships.
That’s why Lacob and Guber bought the Valkyries for the $50 million expansion fee a year and a half ago — not to just be in the WNBA, but to win WNBA titles. Also to make money, of course, and, well, let’s just say that the valuing of this franchise would be quite a bit higher than $50 million now.
“It’s like people always say, ‘When you bought the Warriors, you bought them cheap,”‘ Lacob said. “No, we didn’t buy them cheap. It was a record — $450 million. This was a record, also. The job is to go out and execute, get great management in here and execute. Great coaching. And we’re doing that. It’s just on an accelerated timeline here. It’s going pretty fast.”
If it’s faster than even Lacob could’ve predicted, folks, that’s very fast. Maybe it’ll slow down at some point. Maybe the Valkyries are due to hit a speed bump or two. But they’re accumulating the resources to get themselves out of most problems and they’ve already figuring out how to turbo-charge every moment. It’s probably only going to get faster.