The Golden State Valkyries have changed everything. They have changed what’s possible. They have changed what’s expected, and what comes next for the entire women’s sports ecosystem.
Basketball Insider
A new bar has been set for every team, every league that comes after because of what the Valkyries have accomplished in San Francisco. And while not every market or every ownership group is the same, the playbook is there.
With the right people and the right investment, you can build culture from scratch. You can build a winning team. You can build financial success. And you can build it with women in the lead.
Only a third of the WNBA’s 15 teams have an all-female leadership team (president, general manager and head coach) — Golden State, Indiana, Las Vegas (Nikki Fargas is both President and GM), Seattle and Toronto.
Valkyries team president Jess Smith, GM Ohemaa Nyanin and head coach Natalie Nakase built something both individually and together that is truly remarkable.
Fifty straight sellouts of more than 18,000 people. Two playoff runs in their first two seasons. The brilliance of Ballhalla as both a venue and a vibe, the distinctive violet color scheme, the Bay Area-specific sensibility in community outreach, fashion and music that has created an unmistakable sense of place. There is the outreach to sponsors, who have come running by the dozens.
The embrace and collaboration of the Bay Area sports community, building relationships, certainly with the Warriors, but also the 49ers, the Giants, Bay FC of the NWSL and new pro league launches in volleyball and women’s hockey. The team has been an antidote to the culture wars, confrontations and challenges that roiled the league in its 30th season.
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And on the business side, the Valkyries are an unprecedented success. The team that owner Joe Lacob and his partners paid $50 million for in 2024 is now worth an estimated $1 billion. This season, the Valkyries became the first team in women’s sports history to clear $100 million in annual revenue and that was before this playoff run.
“The Valkyries have provided such a great playbook for how you do a startup in this league, especially at a time of hyper-growth” said outgoing WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert. “They were able to hire great people. It’s always about hiring great people, who could really grow the community here, make it feel different than men’s basketball. Obviously, we see that here. Every time I come here, I’m amazed at what’s been accomplished in such a short period of time.”
After last season, Smith said she, Nyanin and Nakase met to reflect on what they had accomplished — a playoff run, 22 sellouts and earning the excitement of the entire community.
“I think when we together have a chance to dissect what has worked, I think we really understood the power of those decisions that we made together and what it was that we did together,” Smith said. “All three of us came in with the expertise that we had and asked one another ‘What are we going to do? What do you need from me? What do I need from you to succeed?”
“I think we did it in a way that people haven’t done before. We came with a vulnerability between one another, what we weren’t good at, what we needed the other person for and from all of that came trust. Natalie is the best at what she does. Ohemaa is the best at what she does and I hope I’m decent enough at what I do. And I think the magic of all that, of being malleable and feeding one another, is what we needed to be successful.”
Nakase, the most front-facing of this trio, is the hard-driving, profane perfectionist, demanding of her players, but perhaps most of all of herself. Throughout the season she shared openly about her lack of sleep, her middle-of-the night texts, how she gets so wrapped up in her “passion” that forgets to eat and drink. And that drive showed itself earlier in the playoffs when Nakase, arguing with a referee’s call, nearly fainted on the floor. She got up to coach the rest of the game, but considered the moment a “wake-up call” after scaring her family and herself.
“You guys know I’m obsessive and you know basketball is my passion and I have a lot of fire,” Nakase said, saying she needs to work on her patience. “Just continuing to instill confidence. There are going to be some highs and there’s going to be some lows. Be there for the players for the lows and then it’s OK.”
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Nyanin is soft-spoken, thoughtful and keeps a low-profile during the season, the first to greet players in the hallway after games, but not the first to grab a microphone. She uses the term “athletes” instead of “players” and built the entire roster around finding players she knew would be selfless first in service of the team. While this year’s signing of Gabby Williams brought in a star-caliber talent, the roster is still deep with players who were underutilized or underappreciated elsewhere. That sentiment has been mined by Nakase for a team-first approach that has become the team’s calling card.
“If I’m talking to an athlete, I already know they can play the sport, so it becomes about ‘What else can you bring to the organization.’” Nyanin said. “I’ve talked to our athletes about being a product of your experiences. But to sum it up, I think it’s the relentless pursuit of excellence, and not allowing ‘no’ to be the end of your story. I wanted them to buy into the system and really want to be connected off the court and on the court.”
Nyanin talked about her relationship to and with Smith and Nakase last week before the WNBA Finals began, explaining that the three are both complementary and complimentary to each other.
Of Nakase, Nyanin called her authentic and completely “herself”.
“She was asked a question, and she just put her hand on my shoulder and said ‘She is not going to let me fail.’ And that was a very important moment for her and I,” Nyanin said, recalling Nakase’s introductory press conference. “We are both really opinionated and our relationship is founded in respect and care.”
Nyanin called Smith, who hired her to be the Valkyries’ GM, an “elite human.”
“She is a mom of two gorgeous daughters. She’s a wife. She is an entrepreneur. She is someone who has built two very successful franchises,” Nyanin said. “And she is extremely open and kind. She is the exact human that I need to lead this organization with.”
Smith, the Bay Area native, has had a long career in professional sports, beginning in ticket sales with the Oakland A’s. She came to Golden State as Lacob’s first hire after building Angel City FC in the NWSL into a marketing juggernaut.
“They are people you learn from and can recognize as powerful women and see them in positions of power and you want to be like them and are motivated by them,” Valkyries guard Veronica Burton said of the trio. “I think they recognize it in other people as well and they have shaped the culture here and understood how important that is in terms of building a successful organization.”
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The energy in Ballhalla night after night is unmistakably feminine. Not because of the makeup of the crowd — which is wildly diverse — but if female “energy” is defined as supportive, nurturing, collaborative and creative, it’s all there in the 18,000 joyful participants in this grand adventure.
“There are women and men and boys and girls, and people of all ages and everyone is running around this arena connected to each other,” Smith said. “It’s an environment of support and connection and joy. Everyone comes here to be joyful.”
Smith’s young daughters spend a lot of time around the team. She laughs that they will run to Nyanin, while the general manager is in the middle of a conversation, to get a hug, and when they run into Burton in the hallway, she comes over to compliment their purple sparkly boots.
“I think the fact that the girls are surrounded by this innately, I can’t wait to see what they do, because their brains are infused with ‘Why not?’,” Smith said. “Anything is possible with people who are kind, people who work hard and care, and people who represent what I hope we represent as a franchise.”
This week in women’s basketball
Michael Waterloo reflects on Angel Reese’s impact in Atlanta.
Don’t miss Kelly Johnson’s reporting on the Aces’ early offseason strategy.
Check out our 2026-27 NCAA previews:
- Rob Knox breaks down the CAA
- Angie Holmes has everything you need to know about the MVC
- David Mendez-Yapkowitz and Thomas Costello get granular on the Big Ten
Soccer: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer
Tennis: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer
Basketball: Howard Megdal, @HowardMegdal, The IX Sports
Softball: Maren Angus-Coombs, @Maren-Angus, The IX Sports
Golf: Marin Dremock, @MDremock, The IX Sports
Hockey: @TheIceGarden, The Ice Garden
Gymnastics: Jessica Taylor Price, @jesstaylorprice, Freelance Writer
