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It’s year one. 23 wins. A frontrunner for Coach of the Year. A new league attendance record in rowdy “Ballhalla.” And a playoff berth that would’ve shocked everyone back when the season began in May. The Valkyries have set the perfect stage.
For Carlos Alcaraz?
The newly crowned US Open champion and the 2025 Laver Cup will move into Chase Center for the eighth edition of the top-tier professional tennis tournament from Sept. 19-21. And it’ll boot the Valkyries to San Jose.
The Valkyries became the first-ever WNBA expansion franchise to clinch a postseason berth in their inaugural season last Thursday when they pulled off a dramatic comeback to beat the Dallas Wings 84-80 at home. A loss to Minnesota to round out the week leaves Natalie Nakase’s team with just two games left in the regular season to decide playoff seeding. Golden State could still finish as high as fifth or as low as eighth depending on the outcome of games against the Storm and Lynx.
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And as a reward for their history-making crusade: an arena they’ve never seen before — SAP Center in San José, home of the NHL’s Sharks, for a home playoff game. It is the Laver Cup’s set-up and practice session that conflict with the WNBA’s playoff schedule, not the tournament itself.
The Valkyries will begin their postseason march on Sept. 14 against a to-be-determined opponent on the road. Then, the team will return to the Bay — 45 miles away from their familiar hardwood, for Game 2 on either Sept. 16 or 17. Game 3, if necessary, will be played at their opponent’s home court.
From top to bottom — players, coaches, and basketball operations staffers — Golden State’s organization is maintaining a positive outlook despite the relocation.
“Wherever we play, we are going to bring our basketball,” star point guard Veronica Burton said. “We are confident, we are excited, and it’s another opportunity to compete.”
“I can’t wait. So, we are playing in a different arena? Great,” Nakase said. “We’re still at home and we get to sleep in our own beds and I see that as a positive. And it’s probably going to be exciting for us to be in a new arena.”
For Valkyries fans, who have become known around the league for the fire they bring from tip-off to the final buzzer, there is, well, a little more fire.
All around Chase Center as the Valkyries hosted the top-seeded Lynx on Saturday, the murmurs grew louder.
“This wouldn’t happen in the NBA.”
“They didn’t believe in this team.”
“Why couldn’t it have been Oracle?”
Even a pull buried 50 years deep in Bay Area basketball history: “It’s the Ice Follies.” The reference was made with a nod to the 1975 NBA Finals, when the Warriors were notoriously bumped out of their home court in favor of a touring ice show.
So, was the scheduling conflict an internal cue that team owner Joe Lacob and the executives who run Chase Center underestimated just how far its own team could go in year one?
Logistically, the answer is no.
The city of San Francisco began the procurement process for the Laver Cup back in June 2021 — two years after Chase Center opened in 2019, and two full years before Lacob paid the $50 million expansion fee to bring a WNBA franchise to the city in 2023. The timeline makes it obvious: the tennis tournament was in the works well before the Valkyries were cleared for takeoff.
The Laver Cup, though relatively new (inaugurated in 2017), is a highly sought-after international event. It features a Europe vs. the World format that includes the top international men’s talent in tennis as a stop on the ATP Tour. Through three years, it generated $147 million in economic impact for its triad of host cities — an undoubtedly attractive proposition for any venue.
In fact, this long-standing scheduling conflict is arguably more understandable — at least optically — than the series of WNBA home-arena displacements in 2018. That year, the Washington Mystics, Los Angeles Sparks, Phoenix Mercury, and Las Vegas Aces were all relocated out of their home arenas to make way for concerts and even an Emmy’s red carpet event. Those instances felt like genuine slights. And they led to fair questions about where the WNBA ranked in the hierarchy of venue priorities.
When the Standard’s Tim Kawakami first reported back in June that Chase Center could face a scheduling conflict during the WNBA postseason, chatter among the Valkyries’ faithful was a bit different. It was actually optimistic — hopeful that this fate could potentially drive Golden State across the Bay to return to the former Oracle Arena, now known as Oakland Arena, which the Warriors left in 2019 after 47 years.
The Oakland Arena, too, was declared unavailable. And under circumstances notably more opaque than the high-profile, globally televised tennis tournament occupying Chase Center.
“Golden State vetted several venues, including Oakland Arena which has a scheduling conflict due to a property-wide private event,” said the Valkyries’ official press release, issued immediately after the team clinched its playoff berth.
Beyond sporting events and concerts, the nearly 60-year-old Oakland staple also serves as a site for a wide variety of private functions. These range from weddings, to large-scale trade shows, to corporate team-building retreats. When asked for details regarding the specific private event in question, the Coliseum Authority did not respond to a request for comment.
While Oakland Arena is under no obligation to prioritize the Valkyries or position itself as a fallback venue, a playoff matchup could have revived the energy of an East Bay fanbase that once packed the building for decades of Warriors basketball. It could have connected the Bay Area’s proud basketball legacy with a new, riveting chapter.
Despite the frustration among fans, there’s really no question that Valkyries supporters will make the trek— and they’ll bring a makeshift “Ballhalla” to San José.
“We have the best fans in the league, hands down,” Nakase said. “I know our fans will travel. So yes, we are not playing here [at Chase Center] but that’s OK, we like things that are a little bit different and our fans are still in the Bay … It's going to be new for everyone, but we are still home.”
There’s little reason to doubt the rookie head coach.
Golden State shattered WNBA attendance records in its inaugural season, setting new league-highs in both average attendance — 18,064 per game over 22 sold-out home dates— and total attendance with 397,408 fans flocking to the waterfront arena this summer.
Walk the concourse, peruse Thrive City, or scan the stands and you’ll find this fandom hails from every corner of the Bay Area. For many fans, showing up has never been about the convenience of the games, but instead a chance to celebrate the new era of basketball and the movement around women’s sports in the region.
Season-ticket holders routinely make the commute from Los Gatos, Santa Rosa, Lafayette, Fremont, and more. Heck, even when in-arena host Ari Waller calls fans from Sacramento to get loud, you’ll hear a roar.
Many season-ticket holders are, of course, San Francisco residents. They’ll have to leave the city to catch a Valkyries playoff game, but a win at SAP Center might provide them with more than just a memory.
If Golden State plays well enough, it’s possible the Valkyries and their fans haven’t seen the last of “Ballhalla” this season.