The WNBA is getting bigger. Last week, the league announced that the NBA’s Golden State Warriors have been awarded a WNBA expansion team that will begin play in the 2025 season. It will be the first new franchise to join the league since the Atlanta Dream in 2008.
Warriors co-executive chairman and CEO Joe Lacob and co-executive chairman Peter Guber will own the WNBA expansion team. The home games will be played at the Chase Center in San Francisco, and the team headquarters will be at Golden State’s Oakland facility.
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“We are thrilled about expanding to the Bay Area and bringing the WNBA to a region with passionate basketball fans and a strong history of supporting women’s basketball,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a statement. “Joe Lacob, Peter Guber and their leadership team know how to build and operate a world-class organization, as witnessed by the immense success the Warriors’ franchise has enjoyed from both a business and basketball perspective over the last decade. Their interest in joining the WNBA family is yet another sign of the league’s growth potential.”
“The Bay Area is the perfect market for a WNBA team, and we are thrilled this opportunity has finally come to fruition,” Lacob said in a statement. “We have been interested in a WNBA franchise for several years, due in part to the rich history of women’s basketball in the Bay Area, and believe now is the ideal time to execute that vision and build upon the legacy. The WNBA continues to solidify itself as the preeminent women’s professional basketball league, and we look forward to supporting the best women’s basketball players in the world and our team starting in 2025.”
The Warriors are 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 WNBA was founded in 1996 and features 12 teams.
“I believe we’ll have the No. 1 revenue of any WNBA team,” Lacob told ESPN. “And I think we can do very, very well as a business because we know how to do this. We have all the facilities, and we can bring sponsor dollars to the team and ultimately to the league that will help the league in a big way.”
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