The WNBA tips off its 30th season on Friday, but across those three decades, it has never experienced anything like the Golden State Valkyries, on the court or off it. Last year, the Valkyries became the first expansion franchise in league history to reach the playoffs in its inaugural season and sold out all 22 of their home games to set a league record with average attendance of 18,064.

By the end of the regular season, Golden State had generated $78 million in revenue, not only breaking another WNBA record but also surpassing more than half of the clubs in a more mature men’s league, MLS. As the team enters its second season, the Valkyries have raised prices yet managed to expand their season-ticket base by 2,000 seats, to 12,000, proving that there is still room to run—and helping them race to the top of the WNBA’s most valuable teams, worth an estimated $780 million.

The Valkyries are not the only ones on a financial fast break, however. The 2025 WNBA season also saw the three next-best revenue totals in league history—the Indiana Fever’s $58 million, the New York Liberty’s $43 million and the Las Vegas Aces’ $34 million, according to Forbes estimates—and no team is now worth less than $250 million.

In fact, seven franchises outrank the most valuable clubs from every other women’s league in the world—including Angel City FC, No. 1 in the NWSL at $340 million—and the WNBA’s 13 existing teams (excluding the Portland Fire and the Toronto Tempo, who begin play this season) are collectively worth nearly $5.4 billion.

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To put that big number a different way, WNBA teams are now valued at an average of $414 million, up 52% from 2025’s $272 million. In the 29 years that Forbes has valued professional sports teams, only one published ranking has ever featured better year-over-year growth: the NBA’s 74% during the 2014-15 season, after Steve Ballmer’s $2 billion purchase of the Los Angeles Clippers reset the market for clubs.

The WNBA hasn’t had a single inflection point like that, but its momentum has been building. Seven years ago, the Liberty sold for a reported price between $10 million and $14 million, and the Aces went for $2 million in 2021. Now, billionaire Tilman Fertitta has an agreement to buy the Connecticut Sun for a reported $300 million—slotting them in at No. 11 in Forbes’ valuation ranking—with plans to move them to Houston, where he already owns the NBA’s Rockets.

Expansion fees have........

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