Watch the Valkyries and the Dream LIVE Monday at 8 p.m. ET\/5 p.m. PT on TSN5, the TSN App, and TSN.ca.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cI did feel a different roar,\u201d coach Natalie Nakase said after Game 1. \u201cI was excited. They were really screaming when they got announced.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peer pressure, typically frowned upon in the real world, is happily accepted in Ballhalla. Violet T-shirts were placed on every seat before Finals games for fans to put on when they arrived. If they didn\u2019t — beware. There was a point during both home Finals games when cameras scanned the crowd, and any fans not wearing the T-shirt could wind up being shown on the videoboard and playfully berated by the in-arena host. Even if fans were already wearing a Valkyries jersey or some other piece of team merch, the host and other fans demanded they put the T-shirt on. The shaming was real.<\/p>\n
The noise is also real.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s like a constant roll of thunder that starts even before player introductions and rarely takes a lull, even when the team is struggling. The league put together a video post of decibel measurements during Game 1: A Gabby Williams corner 3-pointer reached 114.5 dBA. A Chen triple hit 114.7. The game-sealing free throws from Williams got to 112.1 on the meter.<\/p>\n
According to decibel scales, a measurement of 100.0 is comparable to a motorcycle, a subway train or a helicopter. A measurement of 110.0 compares to a chainsaw, industrial noise or a rock band. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders states that long or repeated exposure to sounds at or above 85 dBA can cause hearing loss.<\/p>\n
The only time Ballhalla quiets down is when the Valkyries are shooting free throws, and then the arena becomes so eerily quiet that you can hear the footsteps of people walking around. Even after a Game 2 loss, fans stood and cheered until the entire team had left the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably the best basketball game I\u2019ve ever been to, honestly,\u201d San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Mike Evans recently told reporters. \u201cI\u2019ve been to the Finals games. … Went to a lot of games, playoff games, and it\u2019s hard to beat that atmosphere last night. I knew it was going to be lit, I knew it was going to be a great environment, but I didn\u2019t know it was going to be the best I\u2019ve ever been to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Team president Jess Smith was the organization\u2019s first employee, tasked with creating the brand, hiring the rest of the staff and essentially building the entire organization from scratch. She had basically one edict from fans: They just wanted it to be cool.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the main groups of folks that have come out and supported this team are women\u2019s sports fans, and they have been underserved for a really long time,\u201d Smith said, \u201cThey are watching everything on TV. They are buying the merchandise they have access to, or they\u2019re supporting the players. Every single thing that they do, they\u2019re hyperaware of what that means, and yet, there hasn\u2019t necessarily been a property that\u2019s matched that energy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think so often, as folks were building in women\u2019s sports, there was often kind of this lens of like, \u2018OK, how do we make this something that doesn\u2019t fail?\u2019 But, in turn, what it was doing, it wasn\u2019t making it big and bold enough to draw people into the capacity that they wanted to invest.\u201d<\/p>\n
In San Francisco, they wanted to go big. That included high-end amenities. VIP clubs with sushi and champagne. One of the best dance teams in the league — the Violet Vibes. A sassy mascot named Violet. A hype squad labeled The Flock.<\/p>\n
But a unique, high-quality experience is a common goal for sports organizations across the world, let alone in the WNBA. So what makes Ballhalla different?<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is relentless in how she\u2019s wanted to create this one inclusive organization,\u201d Valkyries general manager Ohemaa Nyanin said of Smith. \u201cIt is a Golden State ethos, but she embodies it on a day-to-day basis.\u201d<\/p>\n
The success of Smith\u2019s plan in San Francisco seems driven by the perfect combination of several factors. The Bay Area is a market that has genuine interest in women\u2019s sports. The locale has an affluent, diverse and technology-driven community. The WNBA is currently at the height of its popularity. And the organization actively incorporates the community into everything it does. Music by Too Short and other local artists is played regularly. Bay Area rappers LaRussell and Larry June performed at halftime of the first two Finals games. Before the fourth quarter, there\u2019s an activation to \u201cGet Hyphy,\u201d an Oakland term for getting hype. Partnerships include companies that invest in women\u2019s sports. The Valkyries house a full-time store for team merchandise at time when league merch has sometimes been difficult to purchase.<\/p>\n
Smith and the Valkyries have another advantage that many other organizations don\u2019t: Their ownership group also owns the Golden State Warriors, a franchise that has won four NBA titles since 2015 and has developed one of the strongest brands in the NBA. That connection brought to the Valkyries institutional knowledge, resources and trial-and-error experience. The Warriors\u2019 history also informed a willingness to invest in a robust staff in a way not all other organizations are willing, or capable, of doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis region is very special in the world\u2019s landscape,\u201d Smith said. \u201cOne, it\u2019s where people look to see what comes next, whether it\u2019s how you treat people or what innovations are going to come next. But when you\u2019re here, what you realize is that that\u2019s just part of the culture of ethos of belief, and we don\u2019t wait for something to be proven. We want to prove it to the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think when we came out and did the right things, when it was building the brand, letting people know what this would mean, signaling to them that we were going to set a standard together for the future of women\u2019s sports and what that meant here, and what that means for the future investment, of course, this region was all-in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Players throughout the league appreciate what has been built. The noise is loud and constant, but in a good way. Lately the league has dealt with the issue of fans who cross the line from good-natured opposition to hateful and, at times, racial aggression. That hasn\u2019t been the experience inside Ballhalla.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though they\u2019re against you, they\u2019re still respectful,\u201d Dream guard Allisha Gray said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I like about Ballhalla. … When they go on a run, it does get really, really loud in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Valkyries guard Tiffany Hayes added, \u201cThe way that they support is not any negativity. They don\u2019t have to talk bad about other players. They don\u2019t have to talk bad about fans that come in from out of town to show support for their team. … That\u2019s why our crowd is unique.\u201d<\/p>\n
Too Short hasn\u2019t missed a single playoff game this season. Before Game 2 of the Finals, he stood on the court as a giant drum with the letters GSV printed on it was wheeled out. Wearing a Valkyries jersey, he took the oversized drumstick and banged as the crowd chanted \u201cG-S-V! G-S-V!\u201d<\/p>\n
From the entertainment to the building to the fanbase, the Bay Area represents in Ballhalla.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m from here, man, and we just really have that pride,\u201d Too Short said. \u201cSo the fans, in return, they take to it and they have the same pride. … It really is like a family.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO — Things happen inside Ballhalla — the moniker given to the Chase Center for Golden State…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[732,49,48,1612,82,630],"class_list":["post-947194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-atlanta-dream","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}