WNBA Golden State Expansion: 5 Things to Know About League’s 13th Team

After days of hints, the WNBA made it official. The league is coming to the Bay Area.

The WNBA announced on Thursday morning that the NBA's Golden State Warriors have been awarded a WNBA expansion team. The franchise will practice at the Warriors' headquarters in Oakland and play its games at the Chase Center in San Francisco.

“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.

The team, which is yet to be named, will begin play in the 2025 season. With that, here are five things to know regarding the newest WNBA franchise.

Who owns the new WNBA Bay Area expansion team?

The new WNBA team will be owned and operated by Golden State Warriors Co-Executive Chairman and CEO Joe Lacob and Co-Executive Chairman Peter Guber. Lacob and Guber have owned Golden State since 2010.

The two are clearly committed. According to Sportico, the Warriors' ownership group is committing $50 million to bring the WNBA to the Bay Area, with the amount being paid over 10 years.

This is not Lacob's first foray into women's basketball. The 67-year-old was a primary investor in the American Basketball League, which was in existence from 1996-98, but folded after the WNBA launched in 1997. During the ABL's short lifespan, Lacob owned the San Jose Lasers, which went 48-51.

The Warriors are now the sixth NBA franchise to have an affiliated WNBA team, alongside the Indiana Pacers (Indiana Fever), Minnesota Timberwolves (Minnesota Lynx), Brooklyn Nets (New York Liberty), Phoenix Suns (Phoenix Mercury) and Washington Wizards (Washington Mystics).

Golden State is first WNBA expansion team in 15 years

Expansion has been a long time coming for the WNBA. The last time the league added a team was in 2008, when the Atlanta Dream began play.

The Dream had quick success, reaching the WNBA Finals in 2010, 2011 and 2013. But WNBA expansion — while long desired — has been a moving target in recent years.

Engelbert said in 2022 that the WNBA hoped to identify one or two cities for expansion by the end of the year — a timeline that went unfulfilled. In May, Engelbert told Front Office Sports that the league was looking at 10 potential cities for expansion, with hopes of having two new teams in place ahead of the 2025 season.

Engelbert has long said the league was waiting for the right time and was doing its due diligence, a reference she called back during Thursday's press conference.

"The right time, the right moment is today," Engelbert said.

What about the promise of two new WNBA teams?

So what about that second team?

"Our goal is to have a 14th team by 2025 as well," Engelbert said Thursday.

While the shortlist of cities also included Toronto, Charlotte, Nashville, Denver and Philadelphia, it is looking like the Portland may be the winner.

The Athletic reported on Thursday that the city is firmly in the running for an expansion franchise, while the Toronto Star reported that the Canadian city — has dropped out.

How will the expansion draft work?

An expansion team also means that an expansion draft is coming. Engelbert confirmed as much, saying that an expansion draft would be held in late 2024, after the lottery for the 2025 WNBA Draft, but before the college draft itself.

Engelbert noted that the league's Board of Governors and Competition Committee will discuss the format for the expansion draft after this year's WNBA Finals (which start on Sunday between the Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty).

The 2008 expansion draft, which saw Atlanta add its first players, could be a useful tool for the league to use. That year, each franchise designated six players to "protect" from the expansion draft -- with Atlanta allowed to select one player from each team that it had exclusive negotiating rights with to discuss a contract.

As for how Golden State wants to see the allocation draft unfold?

"We'd like the best players from those other teams, if possible," Lacob said with a grin, eliciting some laughter from the audience.

How long until the WNBA Golden State team is competitive?

Can Lacob and Huber replicate their stellar NBA track-record in the WNBA? Well, winning four championships in eight seasons was extremely difficult, even with the likes of Bob Myers, Steve Kerr, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green within your organization.

But Lacob was his usual confident self during Thursday's press conference, proclaiming that the newest WNBA team "will win a championship in the first five years of this franchise."

Lacob's bravado aside, what is a reasonable timetable for this team to become a contender? Obviously, it depends on whether the players the Bay Area franchise bring in via the expansion and college drafts pan out.

However, it is not out of the realm of possibility for the franchise to become a contender in short order. After all, the Dream had their run in the early 2010s, and other professional sports leagues have seen young franchises make a quick statement.

In the NHL, the Vegas Golden Knights reached the Stanley Cup Final in their first year of existence in 2018, and won the whole thing this past June. In the NWSL, the San Diego Wave (which began play in the 2022 season), are currently atop the league standings, with less than two weeks before the regular season ends.

Obviously, it will be difficult — try almost impossible — for the new Bay Area team to win a title in year one, given the depth of talent in the league.

But given recent precedent, Golden State's top-tier facilities, as well as Lacob's confidence, this team could quickly find success.