The Golden State Warriors’ Gui Santos is confident the Bay Area will embrace the new WNBA team, the Golden State Valkyries, as the franchise prepares for its 2025 debut. Speaking during NBA All-Star Weekend festivities, Santos emphasized the community’s passion for basketball and the organization’s commitment to ensuring the Valkyries’ success.

“They’re going to have a lot of support here,” Santos said, as reported by Janie McCauley of the Associated Press. “Especially because the Warriors in the last 10 years have made so much progress with that, and now we have a lot of people who love basketball in the Bay Area, so it’s not going to be different for the Valkyries.”

The Valkyries, announced as a WNBA expansion team in 2023, mark the league’s return to Northern California since the Sacramento Monarchs folded in 2009. They will call Chase Center home, where Golden State has already unveiled a new locker room and a 31,800-square-foot training center in Oakland. The team held its expansion draft in December 2024.

Warriors help lay ground work for Valkyries

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The Warriors’ organization has been instrumental in laying the groundwork for the Valkyries, integrating their history with a vision for the future.

“You see the All-Star, you see the WNBA team coming up and you see how the Bay Area community is enjoying that, everybody’s watching the teams,” said Santos. “You have everything going at the same time, it’s very good for the Bay Area. The Warriors, the whole organization, are trying to help them, trying to make all the Golden State fans turn into Valkyries fans and we all want to be one together because we are representing the Bay Area, we are representing the people that live here.”

Santos also highlighted how the Valkyries’ introduction aligns with the growth of women’s basketball globally. During the All-Star Weekend, WNBA players were actively engaged in community events and showcased their skills in various games. The energy around women’s basketball was palpable, with the Valkyries drawing attention from NBA players like Draymond Green and Trae Young, who expressed their support for the franchise.

“This is one of the elite franchises in the league today,” Young said about the Warriors. “It’s a no-brainer to have a WNBA franchise out here.”