Amid record-setting season, WNBA players thinking ahead to expansion Valkyries

Bay Area's Valkyries, set to debut next season, are part of thriving WNBA landscape.

PHOENIX – The Golden State Valkyries are 10 months away from playing their first game, but they’re top of mind for WNBA All-Stars anxious for the league’s first expansion since addition of the Atlanta Dream in 2008.

The All-Star weekend is crammed with storylines. The league is surging from attendance and viewership records in the first half of its 28th season. A reported $2.2 billion, 11-year new media rights deal is bound to make a major impact. Rookies Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, plus the U.S. Olympic team, are hot topics.

But there was still space to talk about the Valkyries and broader expansion.

“I’m looking forward to expansion, more roster spots, to what yields from this media rights deal,” nine-time All-Star Nneka Ogwumike said. “We’re at a very transformational moment right now.”

WNBA Commission Cathy Engelbert spoke about the Valkyries on Saturday before the All-Star Game and expansion coming at a time when the league is in a “thriving position now” that includes the addition of charter flights this season without amending the collective bargaining agreement “as a benefit to players.”

“They are doing great,” Engelbert said. “As I always say to grow a business, you have to hire great people. They’ve hired a GM and team president and others (including Vania Cernivec this week as vice president of basketball operations) to fill out their team. They’re gearing up from a business and basketball perspective.

“It’s a high momentum time (for the league) and being in the Bay area with that fan base is going to great for the league.”

Ogwumike, a three-time All-American at Stanford, knows all about the Bay Area and, as president of the WNBA Players Association, about the importance of expansion for a league stuck on 144 total roster spots since 2010.

In her early WNBA days with the Los Angeles Sparks, Ogwumike recalls of 2013-14, there was speculation of a move to the Bay because of an ownership change.

“I was actually quite excited because the amount of investment and respect for women’s basketball in the Bay for anyone who doesn’t know is certainly there,” Ogwumike said. “There was a want to have a professional team there so for it to finally materialize makes a lot of sense.”

Valkyries president Jess Smith was in Phoenix for the All-Star Game, coincidentally in the same week that the NWSL Angel City FC sold for $250 million. Smith was Angel City’s head of revenue for more than three years before being hired by the Golden State Warriors to lead the Valkyries launch.

“I built a team from the ground up when no one else was doing it,” Smith said. “In that project on Angel City, there was not this inherent rise of women’s sports that’s happening right now. There were not the broadcast dollars that exist today.

“You can tell I’m a glutton for punishment having just gone through this and choosing to do it again. That is a clear advantage for me of how to drive it and giving the confidence to everyone in our ecosystem of if we do this, this will happen then watching those results come in.”

Results like 15,000 seat deposits waiting to be converted into season ticket holders at Chase Center in San Francisco. The team will be headquartered in Oakland, giving it a presence on both sides of the Bay.

“The little kid in me is excited because I’m from there and so to be able to go back to the Bay area is going to be great,” said Chelsea Gray, the 2022 Finals MVP who grew up in Stockton. “I have a lot of family and friends that will be able to come out.”

Same for Sabrina Ionescu, who progressed from high school in Orinda to Naismith Player of the Year at Oregon to three-time WNBA All-Star with the New York Liberty.

“Growing up in the Bay Area, being born and raised there, being able to see the growth of women’s sports in that area is super exciting,” Ionescu said. “The Warriors helped a lot with creating a great environment for basketball and now knowing that there’s going to be a WNBA team is huge to continue to provide opportunities.

“There’s going to be so many young girls that are going to be able to go to games and be able to wish to be in the WNBA as well because they’re able to see what it is to be a WNBA player.”

Gray will be playing in her second Olympics, with Ionescu making her Olympic debut in Paris. The American Olympic team played Team WNBA, including Ogwumike of the Seattle Storm, in Saturday’s All-Star Game.

All three will be unrestricted free agents in 2025 (Ogwumike) or 2026 (Ionescu, Gray) along with a large number of other attractive players who might be willing to consider the Valkyries or 2026 expansion addition Toronto.

“Any new team that comes in and actually has cap space to do what they want of course there’s some advantage to just a clean slate of how we’re going to build this team,” Smith said.

“What is going to be that strategy. That has everything to do with Ohemaa (Nyanin, Valkyries general manager) and nothing to do with me. But just as a sports fan, that’s what’s interesting about it. Where do you start, how does this come together, what are the priorities, what offense and defense are you going to play and what type of personalities are you trying to bring in here. Those are all really exciting to follow.”

An expansion draft will be held, likely in December, then the Valkyries will join other teams in the April 2025 draft, probably picking fifth in the first round after lottery teams.

Nyanin will have a lot on her plate. She was with the New York Liberty for five years and before that with USA Basketball as national team assistant director.

“They came out of the gate running with who they’ve hired in leadership,” Ogwumike said. “I’m very biased to Ohemaa. “She is someone who’s been in this business for a long time doing some really wonderful things on the leadership end. It’s no surprise that’s who they hired to be the GM.”

The Valkyries have yet to name their coach. Ogwumike said she would not be surprised if recently retired Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer was “consulted” in one way or another. Smith described VanDerveer as a “friend” of the Valkyries and its ownership group and acknowledged that they look forward to continuing to chat with her.

For A’ja Wilson and Diana Taurasi, two of the WNBA’s highest profile players, expansion can’t come soon enough.

“I know from what they’re done with the Warriors they like to win and they’re willing to win at any cost,” said Taurasi, 42. “To have a team in the Bay that loves basketball, it’s going to be a cool place for a WNBA team.”

“We have a lot of talent and a lot of people that are out there that should be in the league and the last thing we should have to tell them is no roster space,” said Wilson, the Aces’ two-time WNBA MVP.

“I just hope the team and the ownership is really invested because that’s how we can continue to expand and grow. I don’t want anything to be half-assed. This league is now past the half-assin’ part of it. So hopefully they really invest into those players and to that franchise so it’s going to grow and it’s going to boom.”