The WNBA is coming to the Bay Area.
With a long history of support for women’s basketball, particularly the teams at Cal and Stanford, the Bay Area was a natural spot to add a professional franchise. The expected became official on Thursday when WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said that the Warriors ownership would be granted a WNBA expansion team. The plan is for the team to begin play in 2025 at the Chase Center in San Francisco, while practicing at the Warriors facilities in Oakland.
This brings one of the most successful ownership groups in the NBA — from winning four titles to getting a new arena built — to the WNBA.
“[Our] first press conference of the Warriors, I said, we will win a championship in the first five years, and I am telling you right now, we will win a WNBA championship in the first five years of this franchise,” Warriors co-executive chairman and CEO Joe Lacob said at a ceremony for the announcement.
WNBA expansion has been talked about for a while but the league has proceeded slowly after getting burned in the past (the league moved faster in the early 2000s, getting up to 16 teams, but a few of those teams folded, bringing the WNBA to its current 12 franchises). Some of the league’s new owners — such as Joe and Clara Tsai of the New York Liberty, and Mat Ishbia of the Phoenix Mercury — have been willing to spend and invest because of the fast-growing interest in the league. Lacob said the Warriors would follow that path.
There has been a push for the league to take advantage of this momentum and grow, and this is the first step. Another franchise, a 14th, is expected to be awarded in the coming years.
“But why is right now the best time? Because the league is ready…” “I just think for the Warriors, as well, it’s the right time. We had an arena to build. That took seven years and a lot of capital to do it and a lot of hard work. We had the pandemic, and everyone around — all the employees of our organization kept saying, when are we getting a WNBA team because this is the right place to do it. It was the right place, and it’s now the right time. We’re very happy to be able to do that. Extremely excited.”
Lacob also talked about this being a full-circle moment for him. The first professional sports team he owned was the San Jose Lasers of the American Basketball League — a league competing with the fledgling WNBA for the women’s basketball market in the 1990s. The ABL folded, but Lacob and company are now in with the WNBA.
And if this ownership group’s NBA track record is any indication, the WNBA just got a new powerhouse walking in the door.