The WNBA's Newest Team Grew 20x in Two Years, and It Wasn't the Stars
The Golden State Valkyries went from a $50 million expansion fee to a billion-dollar valuation by defining the brand before entering the market, pulling nine founding partners to the same table, and treating ticketing as just a small slice of the business.
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Men's and women's team fan overlap is under 10%
At Angel City, Jess Smith ran a very personal round of research — she just called people and asked. The conclusion: when men's and women's soccer share a stadium, fan crossover tops out at 10%. That number was her lightbulb moment on the spot: you build the product for the other 90%, then invite the 10% in. This judgment overturns the default assumption that a women's team can piggyback on the men's existing audience, and it explains why the Valkyries dared to launch a brand before they had a single player.
— Jess SmithSelling merch with no players, into 70 countries in 60 days
The Valkyries launched their brand a year early, on the opening day of the 2024 WNBA season, when the team had no players at all. Within 60 days they had sold merchandise in 70 countries and all 50 US states. Jess says the brand holds up because it ‘belongs to itself, has power, represents the Bay Area but isn't only the Bay Area’ — the moment people saw the purple Valkyries, they knew this was ours. For anyone building a new brand, the mechanism is: define who you are first, then enter the market, because you only get to enter the market once.
— Jess SmithIf the brand isn't defined, don't go see sponsors
When Jess arrived, a pile of brands said ‘let's talk.’ Her answer was ‘not yet.’ Because what it meant to ‘be a partner of the Valkyries’ wasn't defined yet, and you only get one shot at the market — going too early without knowing what you're charging ultimately does more harm than good. She first locked down the name, the brand, the launch approach and how the story would be told, and had to keep it secret (she says this was very hard), while getting the merchandise ready, and only then went to talk to season-ticket holders and brands. It's the classic product-before-sales sequence, except the product is the brand itself.
— Jess SmithNine founding partners sit at the same table
The Valkyries didn't treat sponsors as a row of logos. They set up an influence council that all founding partners sit on, and there are now nine at the table: Sephora, JP Morgan Chase, Kaiser Permanente, Olly Vitamins, Rakuten and others. Jess says these partners don't just put in money — they each have distinctive programs in the community producing results, and this group is about to discuss together what to do next. She says nobody has done this before, and it still isn't visible today. Organizing sponsors into a joint decision-making body rather than signing them one by one is the core difference in this playbook.
— Jess SmithThe power order in sports has flipped
Jess contrasts her NFL experience: back then the league's ordering was protect the league, then the clubs, then the players. The reality now is players, then clubs, then the league. The reason is that new fans discover these athletes through college basketball and follow the people into the WNBA; they don't have the traditional loyalty of ‘this is our family's team’ and can choose which W team to support because they like a certain player. So what a team can control is ‘how we represent this region, no matter who's on the roster,’ and what the league has to do is make every media partner understand the weight of these athletes.
— Jess SmithHire the revenue team before earning revenue, not after
Asked what she'd redo, Jess says she gives herself credit for understanding the power of ‘staffing the revenue team first, then going to earn revenue’ — doing it the other way around hurts the product. But she'd do it faster: she should have been more aggressive with those resources in year one, and she says she should have listened to her own gut. This lines up with the usual blitz scaling conclusion: the market keeps rewarding supply, so go as fast as you can. She also calls out the investor piece: Joe Lacob and Peter Huber believed in her and the whole team from day one, asked hard questions and demanded a clear position, but once they believed, they nodded.
— Jess SmithTickets are only a small slice of this business
The Valkyries draw over 18,000 a game and have sold out every game in franchise history, with resale prices that aren't cheap — Jess admits this may mean leaving some money on the table. Her pricing logic: the on-court product is elite, so ticket prices should match the world's best athletes; at the same time they hold $15 early-bird tickets and reserve and donate tickets for every game. But she stresses the most important point — tickets are only a small part of the business, and the world's most successful sports brands often have only 1% of their fans ever set foot in the building. So this year the Valkyries set up 40 bars across Northern California, committing to broadcast every Valkyries game.
— Jess SmithA 15% bigger schedule equals three more ticket-selling chances
Jess breaks the next two to three years of opportunity into three parts. First, Portland and Toronto have joined, with Philadelphia, Cleveland and Detroit on the way, and big markets bring more opponents. Second, media rights, which she says are ‘just beginning’ and will keep changing how casual viewers enter — walking into a sports bar now, she already hears different crowds talking in real time about WNBA scores, standings and the playoffs. Third, the number of games is genuinely increasing: few mature sports leagues have ever added 15% more games at once, and for a team that means three more home ticket-selling opportunities, three away games and six more games to watch in total.
— Jess SmithIn their own words · checked verbatim
And what I found through very exclusive research that I did by calling people was that it was actually no more than 10% that you saw a crossover. So that immediately became a lightbulb for us: you have to build for the 90s and then invite the 10s to be a part of it, of course.
Jess Smith5:06
And I think there are ways to build where mission and capital coexist, and that's what made these two products really powerful because they do both . They don't apologize for being awesome, and they're not going to stop.
Jess Smith8:06
And so many brands said, "Let's talk." And I had to say, "Not yet ." Hmm. Because what it means to be a Valkyrie partner has yet to be defined. And so we had to figure that out and be sure of that before we went to market, because you can only go to market once.
Jess Smith16:08
Going back to my experience in the NFL, um, the league looked at it as protecting the league, uh, the club, and then the player. The reality of where we are in sports right now, in general, is that, while both the Valkyries and Angel City are exceptions to that in many ways , it's really the player, the club, and then the league.
Jess Smith21:09
I give myself credit for understanding the power of hiring and staffing to generate revenue versus having to first achieve revenue and then hire because that hurts your product. However, I would have done it even faster in the first year.
Jess Smith25:09
But I think the most important thing to remember is that tickets are only a small part of our business. And when you look at the most successful sports brands in the world, they often see 1% of their fans ever attend a game.
Jess Smith29:09
You look at the entire spectrum of mature sports leagues and wonder if any of them have added 15% more games. Well, that's what happens in the WNBA, right? So as a team, that's three additional ticket sales opportunities. That's for three additional away games and six spectators in total.
Jess Smith30:10
Figures
| Valkyries expansion fee to valuation | $50 million expansion fee, roughly two and a half years to a billion-dollar valuation | 3:06 |
| Men's/women's team fan crossover | No more than 10% | 5:06 |
| Sales reach after brand launch | Sold into 70 countries and all 50 states within 60 days | 6:06 |
| Number of founding partners | 9 | 18:08 |
| Share of women leaders with organized-sports experience | 94% | 9:06 |
| Valkyries attendance per game | Over 18,000, sold out every game in franchise history | 34:13 |
| Number of partner bars in Northern California | 40 | 29:09 |
| WNBA schedule increase | 15% | 30:10 |
| Share of fans who have been to a game (top sports brands) | About 1% | 29:09 |
| Age of the WNBA | 31 years | 10:06 |
Glossary
- expansion draft
- The mechanism by which a new team picks players from existing teams' rosters, with those teams allowed to protect some players.
- influence council
- The joint decision-making body the Valkyries formed out of their nine founding sponsors, rather than signing each one separately.
- blitz scaling
- Pouring resources into grabbing market share far faster than normal during a window, accepting inefficiency and chaos.
How to listen
Founders and marketing leads in consumer brands, sports or entertainment — especially those designing sponsorship systems and pricing strategy.
The roughly two-minute sponsor interview at the top and the mid-episode Jim Collins summit promo can be skipped.