NEW YORK — The seven-time NBA champion Golden State Warriors have been awarded a WNBA expansion team, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced today. The team will begin play in the 2025 season, making it the first new franchise to join the league since 2008.
The new team will be owned and operated by Joe Lacob, co-chairman and CEO of the Warriors, and Peter Guber, co-executive chairman, and will play home games at Chase Center in San Francisco. Additionally, Golden State’s Oakland complex, which served as the Warriors’ practice facility and front office from 1997 to 2019, will be the home of the WNBA team, housing a world-class practice facility and the team’s front office staff.
“We are excited to expand into the Bay Area and bring the WNBA to a region with passionate basketball fans and a strong history of supporting women’s basketball,” Engelbert said. “Joe Lacob, Peter Guber and their management team know how to build and manage a world-class organization, as evidenced by the immense success the Warriors franchise has enjoyed from both a business and basketball perspective over the years. the last decade. Their interest in joining the WNBA family is another sign of the league’s growth potential. »
The Warriors become the sixth NBA franchise to have a WNBA team, joining the Indiana Pacers (Indiana Fever), Minnesota Timberwolves (Minnesota Lynx), Brooklyn Nets (New York Liberty), Phoenix Suns (Phoenix Mercury) and Washington Wizards (Washington Mystics). ).
“The Bay Area is the ideal market for a WNBA team, and we are thrilled that this opportunity has finally come to fruition,” said Joe Lacob, co-executive chairman and CEO of the Warriors. “We have been interested in a WNBA franchise for several years, in part because of the rich history of women’s basketball in the Bay Area, and we believe this is the ideal time to implement this vision and build on this legacy. The WNBA continues to solidify itself as the preeminent women’s professional basketball league, and we look forward to supporting the world’s best women’s basketball players and our team beginning in 2025.”
The 2023 WNBA regular season saw record viewership, attendance and digital engagement as the league continues its business transformation. The offseason featured the most-watched WNBA Draft since 2004, followed by a sold-out preseason game in Toronto, the most-watched regular season in 21 years and a digital transformation centered on the WNBA app and WNBA.com. Other highlights this year include the addition of CarMax as a WNBA Changemaker and ION as a broadcast partner.
For more information on Golden State’s WNBA franchise, please visit https://www.wnba.com/golden-state.
About the Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors, entering their 78th season, are founding members of the National Basketball Association. Founded in 1946 as the Philadelphia Warriors, the team moved to the West Coast in 1962 and spent nine seasons as the San Francisco Warriors before moving across the bay to Oakland in 1971 and becoming the Golden State Warriors. In 2019, the Warriors returned to San Francisco to play at Chase Center, a privately funded, 18,064-seat state-of-the-art arena in the Mission Bay neighborhood. The team’s history includes seven NBA championships, 12 NBA Finals, a record 73-win NBA season, eight members of the NBA 75th Anniversary Team and 34 members of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. For more information on the Golden State Warriors, please visit warriors.com.
