The WNBA's Most Valuable Franchise May Surprise You - But It Shouldn't
WNBA expansion teams in Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia were formally approved by the WNBA and NBA board of governors on April 9. Those teams won’t start play until 2028, 2029, and 2030, respectively, but the expansion Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo have joined the league for this season.
The Ringer founder Bill Simmons called the WNBA’s addition of Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia franchises “staggeringly stupid and an unapologetic money-grab that will immediately make the league worse.”
“You can't just frantically add new teams like fast food franchises the moment you have a little success,” Simmons wrote on X. “We have 7 decades of evidence. Build slowly and smartly. This isn’t smart.”
All due respect to Simmons, sincerely, but he’s wrong here.
The Golden State Valkyries proved him wrong before he even sent the tweet, and the WNBA is in a position to make the take age poorly for years to come.
The Valkyries joined the WNBA as an expansion franchise last season. By finishing 23-21, the Valks became the first-ever expansion team to make the WNBA playoffs in its inaugural season.
But more importantly to this conversation, Golden State set all-time regular-season attendance records - among all WNBA teams, not just expansion - in total attendance (397,408) and average attendance (18,064).
According to Sportico’s new WNBA valuations list, Golden State’s “Ballhalla” isn’t a myth, and the Valkyries success can’t be chalked up to unsustainable novelty.
The Valkyries have the highest 2026 valuation among 13 WNBA franchises - Portland and Toronto were exempt - at $850 million. Golden State also had the highest revenue in 2025 at $78 million.
The New York Liberty ($600 million), Indiana Fever ($560 million), Seattle Storm ($425 million), and Phoenix Mercury ($420 million). The Las Vegas Aces, winners of three of the past five WNBA titles, came in sixth at $410 million.
There’s a “rising tide lifts all boats” situation happening league-wide, as seen below:
Sportico also relayed that the WNBA “has the highest value-to-revenue multiplier of any major sports league” in America:
The WNBA’s issue has never been a lack of fan fervor for women’s basketball. The league’s first-ever game between the Los Angeles Sparks and New York Liberty drew 5.04 million viewers on June 21, 1997. The issue has been a lack of infrastructure and investment, but the W is sturdy now.
In July 2024, the WNBA announced an 11-year media rights deal with Amazon Prime Video, Disney, and NBCUniversal, valued at approximately $2.2 billion, per ESPN. That led players to opt out of the collective bargaining agreement in October 2024.
A long, tedious negotiation between the WNBA and WNBPA finally resulted in a new historic, lucrative CBA, which was ratified on March 24.
The Valkyries gave the blueprint to future expansion franchises, and it’s already working outside of the Bay. The Tempo just played their inaugural preseason game before a sold-out crowd in Toronto.
Portland general manager Vanja Cernivec recently told reporters, “I think we’re gonna sell out every game.” Fittingly, Cernivec added, “I’m hoping it’s gonna be louder than Golden State. Golden State, last year, I had goosebumps every game. Every home game, I had goosebumps because of the fans.”
Looking ahead to 2030, Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier’s Unrivaled league brought 21,490 fans to Philadelphia’s Xfinity Mobile Arena in January, the highest attendance of any regular-season women’s basketball game at the arena in its history, per ESPN.
The WNBA will begin its 30th season on May 8. This has been three decades in the making. And all along, people have shown their eagerness to support. Why wait any longer?
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This story was originally published May 1, 2026 at 5:36 PM.