{"id":898457,"date":"2026-10-29T06:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T06:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/898457\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T06:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T06:52:12","slug":"how-the-valkyries-and-dream-found-very-different-paths-to-the-wnba-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/898457\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Valkyries and Dream found very different paths to the WNBA Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

WNBA<\/a> presidents gather weekly for a call to discuss team and league business, share insights and, more often than not, offer a helping hand where they can.<\/p>\n

For Atlanta\u2019s Morgan Shaw Parker and Golden State\u2019s Jess Smith<\/a>, that mutual respect and support comes even as their franchises sit in very different positions.<\/p>\n

The Dream, once the newest team until Golden State was awarded expansion rights in 2023, offer lessons in rebuilding. Following its sale to new owners in 2021, the franchise has had to build a new image and change from the front office to the front court.<\/p>\n

The Valkyries, meanwhile, offer an unparalleled trajectory of success, setting attendance, revenue and valuation records<\/a> in just their second season \u2014 milestones that were unthinkable in women\u2019s sports as recently as a few years ago. <\/p>\n

And both teams sit on the potential brink of their first championship, with Golden State holding a 3-2 series lead heading into Game 6 on Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe support each other. We call each other and we say, \u2018How do you do this?\u2019\u201d Shaw Parker said. \u201cAnd yes, it happens in men\u2019s sports, but we do it all the time. Jess and I are on the phone constantly. We will do anything for each other that we can.\u201d <\/p>\n

Added Smith, \u201cEvery market has had their own journey in this league because it\u2019s such a young league. Yes, it\u2019s 30 years old, but that\u2019s not that old. And the Dream has been here since 2008. That\u2019s not that long. And so I really view it as they have good leadership over there. I love working with Morgan and what she\u2019s building.\u201d<\/p>\n

Far from simply the marks of good sportsmanship or professional respect, their collaboration \u2014 and what they can share from their vastly different paths \u2014 represents a boon of a learning curve to other WNBA franchises. <\/p>\n

Though many might not have had to dig out of the hole of underinvestment and adversarial ownership the Dream have, their rebuild offers lessons to several teams. And with the WNBA continuing to expand – with two new teams this season and three more joining by 2030 \u2014 the Valkyries\u2019 meteoric rise serves up plenty worth borrowing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat this matchup just shows is the dichotomy of where we are in women\u2019s sports and how there are different paths to success,\u201d Shaw Parker said. \u201cThere\u2019s not one right way to build these organizations, and there\u2019s room for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond starting over for the Dream<\/p>\n

By the summer of 2020, with the COVID pandemic forcing the WNBA season into the \u201cbubble,\u201d Dream co-owner Kelly Loeffler wrote to the WNBA taking issue with its promotion of \u201cBlack Lives Matter\u201d on its courts.<\/p>\n

It was a campaign issue for Loeffler, then a Republican Senator running for election in Georgia against Raphael Warnock. In a majority-Black league, several players took a stand for a candidate they could support, wearing \u201cVote Warnock\u201d T-shirts.<\/p>\n

Within months of Warnock\u2019s win, Loeffler sold the Dream to a group led by real estate investor Larry Gottesdiener, Northland president Suzanne Abair and former Dream star Renee Montgomery. They inherited a team muddling through chronic underinvestment, with just seven front office staff and players breaking down film in the hallways of Agnes Scott College.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen our ownership group came in in 2021, the Dream was really an existing franchise with a lot of history and a lot of baggage,\u201d said Shaw Parker, who left Arthur M. Blank Sports & Entertainment to take the role. \u201cWe really couldn\u2019t just start over.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t go out and say, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re the Dream and here we are and it\u2019s going to be great basketball,\u2019 because it wasn\u2019t,\u201d Shaw Parker said. \u201cBasketball was not good. The infrastructure was not good. They were not supported, even down to employee benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rebuild took on all fronts, with the Dream also hiring away GM Dan Padover from the Aces to shape the basketball operations side as Shaw Parker built the business.<\/p>\n

That meant growing the front-office staff, which now sits at more than 70, and investing in facilities and wellness for the team\u2019s players. It meant rebuilding a relationship with the family of Martin Luther King Jr., whose \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech inspired the team\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

And it meant convincing the Atlanta community that had reason to be skeptical. Between 2016 and 2024, the Dream only topped .500 once. And since 2016, it has been last or second to last in attendance, dipping as low as a 1,347 average in 2021.<\/p>\n

The Dream leaned into community building and social change, signing sponsors that could have community impact. A deal with CashApp and ForgiveCo last season eliminated $10 million in debt for Atlanta families<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe really listened to what Atlanta needed,\u201d Shaw Parker said. \u201cEvery partner that comes in, we centered the partnership, not around LED screens and all of the in-arena inventory because frankly, we didn\u2019t have it. And so we centered our organization around the impact that we could create in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

That community has grown. <\/p>\n

The Dream have called Gateway Center Arena home, with its 3,500 capacity representing the smallest venue in the league. By moving six regular season games to State Farm Arena, their 6,928 attendance this year represents the second highest mark in franchise history.<\/p>\n

Since the Dream\u2019s ownership group took over the team, it has had 65 sellouts overall, including eight in State Farm (capacity 17,044) in the past three seasons. In the past five years, it\u2019s seen more than 400% growth in season ticket members. In 2026, the franchises\u2019 partnership revenue grew 60% year-over-year and its retail sales doubled.<\/p>\n

Shaw Parker has compared the Dream\u2019s game-day experience to a family barbecue in the cozier confines of Gateway, but it will move to State Farm permanently<\/a> next year to accommodate its growth.<\/p>\n

There it can pack the house. Its 2026 finals games became a star-studded celebration of Black culture in the South, drawing former NFL QB Cam Newton and actress Kerry Washington, with rappers including 2 Chainz, Big Boi, T.I. and many more either performing or sitting courtside.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have growth plans. This probably came a little sooner than what we planned on when we were starting out in 2021,\u201d Shaw Parker said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re an independent team and when you\u2019re rebuilding an organization, it\u2019s a lot different than starting from scratch.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Valks\u2019 masterclass in building<\/p>\n

By the time the WNBA granted expansion rights to Golden State, the league, its fans and the Bay Area were ready for something to capture the pent-up demand in growing the league and the booming interest in women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n

Co-owner Joe Lacob made Smith, who had helped build Angel City FC from the ground up, the franchise\u2019s first hire in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt that the timing was perfect as the quality of players has improved greatly, Caitlin Clark emerged with her great following,\u201d Lacob said. \u201cAnd the world was just very ready for women\u2019s sports in general. Our business team did a terrific job on execution. Branding. Logos. Game operations. Strategic marketing. All well executed.\u201d<\/p>\n

With their successful ownership of the Warriors, a shared venue in the Chase Center and early investment, Lacob and co-owner Peter Gruber laid the foundation for the Valkyries success. The Valkyries front-office staff has grown 40% since last year and currently sits at 88, with some shared service with the Warriors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey weren\u2019t doing this to just be like, \u2018OK, we\u2019re just going to have a women\u2019s team.\u2019\u201d Smith said. \u201cThey were doing this because they wanted to buy another franchise and make it the best at what it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

At most every turn, the Valkyries have done that by building their brand and knowing their fans.<\/p>\n

Golden State\u2019s unique purple color, Valkyries name and V logo \u2014 which incorporates the Golden Gate Bridge in its design \u2014 all resonated. Before they played a game, the Valkyries sold merchandise in all 50 states and more than 70 countries.<\/p>\n

The franchise invested in understanding its fans, segmenting them into basketball diehards who were hungry for more of the sport; \u201cBright Believers,\u201d largely Gen Z fans who could buy into a values-based message and identify with the team; and women\u2019s sports fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be able to tell our story, and we need to know what our story is,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThere\u2019s actually a ton of data out there around the fandom of women\u2019s sports and female athletes, basketball and otherwise. But how are you actually packaging that to earn that fandom in a way that we felt hadn\u2019t been done before? Everything from our branding, team experience, how we show up in the community, intentionality around everything that we do to match what we know they are as consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In their first two years, the Valkyries have turned Ballhalla into an electric environment. Golden State has sold out every home game there, averaging a league-best more than 18,000 per game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in this to win and provide the best possible experience for our fans,\u201d Lacob said. \u201cSo, while we expected to create the best sports environment in the world for women\u2019s sports, we have exceeded even our expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus far, they have expanded the market. The Valkyries this season became the first women\u2019s sports franchise to exceed $100 million in revenue and to earn a $1 billion valuation. Golden State\u2019s success has already helped it secure hosting rights to the WNBA All-Star Game next season, and Smith is eyeing how the franchise can better reach more communities in the Bay Area as it builds out its global strategy. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be very fun because even last year to this year, the answer was more,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThe foundation that we had was something that we were very proud of, [but] not satisfied.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a very different foundation, Shaw Parker might say the same. Soon, either the Dream or Valkyries will end their journey with a championship. And it\u2019ll be another perspective for Shaw Parker and Smith to share on those weekly calls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WNBA presidents gather weekly for a call to discuss team and league business, share insights and, more often…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[3444,4804,99,434,1765],"class_list":["post-898457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-atlanta-dream","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-sports","tag-wnba","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898457","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=898457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}