{"id":954730,"date":"2026-11-01T20:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T20:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/954730\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T20:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T20:36:11","slug":"golden-state-valkyries-complete-unprecedented-rise-with-wnba-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/954730\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden State Valkyries complete unprecedented rise with WNBA title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-franchises \">The Valkyries <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/10\/28\/build-and-rebuild-how-the-valkyries-and-dream-found-very-different-paths-to-the-wnba-finals\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/10\/28\/build-and-rebuild-how-the-valkyries-and-dream-found-very-different-paths-to-the-wnba-finals\/\">made history<\/a> by winning a WNBA championship just two years into their existence, and they did it with \u201ctheir typical grit and determination,\u201d completing the title run with a Game 7 victory Saturday against the Dream, 68-63. \u201cNone of them wanted to create the next Warriors. They were obsessed with being the first Valkyries,\u201d write COSTABILE and HAMILTON of THE ATHLETIC. The franchise had a \u201csingle-minded purpose before it had a name. Everyone goes back to the guarantee.\u201d So what if Valkyries owner Joe Lacob was wrong when he predicted a championship within five years? \u201cNobody was going bankrupt if an obscenely rich man\u2019s clock ran out and there still wasn\u2019t a trophy in the case. What\u2019s the downside of throwing $50 million into the well and making a wish?\u201d But after \u201cfulfilling his guarantee early, even Lacob was struck by the wonder of it.\u201d Lacob: \u201cIt\u2019s just a lot of good decisions, a lot of good execution, a great coach. I really want to give the credit to those three women (Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase, GM Ohemaa Nyanin and President Jess Smith).\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7742640\/2026\/10\/31\/wnba-finals-champion-valkyries-dream\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">THE ATHLETIC, 11\/1<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-franchises \">Expansion teams to win championship in fewest years, by league:<\/p>\n<p>WNBA: Valkyries, 2026, second season, 15 teamsMLB:\u00a0D-backs, 2001, fourth season, 30 teamsMLS: Fire, 1998, first season, 12 teamsNBA:\u00a0Bucks, 1971, third season, 17 teamsNFL: Ravens*, 2000 season, fifth season, 32 teams (*Ravens considered expansion team after move from Cleveland; Dolphins won after 1972 season in seventh season as traditional expansion team.)NHL:\u00a0Golden Knights, 2023, sixth season, 32 teams (SBJ)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-franchises \">The Valkyries\u2019 championship parade will be held at noon PT Wednesday, along the Embarcadero, the team said. The parade will start \u201cat the Ferry Building near Mission Street and ending at King and 2nd Street\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/valkyries\/status\/2116908985429458968?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow\" title=\"https:\/\/x.com\/valkyries\/status\/2116908985429458968?s=20\">X.com, 11\/1<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-franchises \">The get-in price for Game 7 was $407, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ticketdata.com\/directory\/nfl-football\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.ticketdata.com\/directory\/nfl-football\">TicketData.com<\/a>, the most expensive ticket price for any sporting event this weekend. Browns-Steelers was listed at $258 and Chiefs-Broncos was listed at $257 on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Valkyries made history by winning a WNBA championship just two years into their existence, and they did&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":954731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[461,49,48,82,630,4143],"class_list":["post-954730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-basketball","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954730","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=954730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/954731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}