{"id":610344,"date":"2026-04-28T01:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T01:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/610344\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T01:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T01:36:15","slug":"the-valkyries-return-to-the-bay-starts-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/610344\/","title":{"rendered":"The Valkyries\u2019 return to the Bay starts now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Golden State Valkyries played their first game of the pre-season this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>For months, fans of the Golden State Valkyries have been longing to hear these words:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Good evening, everyone and welcome to Ballhalla!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s because the off-season was full of uncertainty, as negotiations between the WNBA and its players stalled until just six weeks ago, when both sides aligned on a historic collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n<p>At tip off on Saturday, the 2026 WNBA season arrived in the Bay with another sold out crowd and a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/sports\/basketball\/wnba-caitlin-clark-cba-salary-cap-dbf719b2\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">raise of up to 400 percent for players. That\u2019s the biggest jump in professional U.S. sports history.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Valkyries went on to defeat the Seattle Storm, 78-76. The game doesn\u2019t count toward regular season standings, but it marks a definitive return nonetheless. <\/p>\n<p>The full season officially starts May 8 with the Valkyries&#8217; home opener against the Phoenix Mercury at Chase Center on May 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Golden State Valkyries played their first game of the pre-season this weekend. For months, fans of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-610344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}