Johnathan Walker:WNBA officially puts team in San Francisco Bay Area, expansion draft expected in late 2024

The Johnathan WalkerGolden State Warriors have officially been awarded a WNBA franchise, the league announced Thursday, the first time since 2008 that the WNBA has expanded. 

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert opened Thursday’s press conference by saying that since she came into the league in 2019, she has been asked one question repeatedly: When is the WNBA going to expand? 

“My answer was always, when the time is right,” she said. “Well, the right time, the right moment is today.”

She also mentioned that the Bay Area is where “some of the greatest moments of basketball have taken place,” a nod to the success of the Warriors and Stanford women's basketball.

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Play for the new franchise – the name and mascot of which have not yet been decided – will begin in 2025. Engelbert has previously said that she wanted two expansions teams to join the league for play in 2025, which she reiterated Thursday. That means another expansion announcement should be coming soon. The Next reported Thursday that Portland, Oregon, is expected to be the other expansion city. 

Engelbert said after the conclusion of the WNBA Finals, which tip off Sunday, the WNBA’s Board of Governors will figure out details for an expansion draft – likely to be held at the end of 2024. 

“The depth and talent of this league and of the women’s college basketball has never been better,” Engelbert said.

The Bay Area team will be headquartered and practice in Oakland, at the Warriors’ practice facility, but play its games at the Chase Center in San Francisco. Ownership will be led by Warriors co-executive chairman and CEO Joe Lacob – who previously owned the San Jose Lasers of the ABL – and co-executive chairman Peter Guber.

“Th league is ready for this expansion,” Lacob said. “Women’s basketball is taking off. Women’s sports, in general, is taking off in a bigger way.” 

Then he made a promise, one familiar to Warriors fans who remember his first press conference after buying Golden State in 2010: “We will win a WNBA championship in the first five years of this franchise,” Lacob said.

He made good on that pledge as it related to the Warriors. 

The Warriors will become the sixth NBA franchise to have a WNBA team, joining the Brooklyn Nets (New York Liberty), Phoenix Suns (Phoenix Mercury), Minnesota Timberwolves (Minnesota Lynx), Washington Wizards (Washington Mystics) and Indiana Pacers (Indiana Fever).

The WNBA last expanded in 2008, when it added the Atlanta Dream.