Valkyries cement best startup ever status: ‘This is what happens when you invest in women's sports'

The Golden State Valkyries celebrate after the team's victory over the Atlanta Dream in Game 7 of the WNBA Finals at Chase Center, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026, in San Francisco. (Santiago Mejia/S.F. Chronicle) Breathtakingly fast. Historically impactful.Incredibly, improbably and spectacularly: WNBA champions.Seventeen months, two weeks and one day after they played their very first game, the Golden State Valkyries raised the WNBA championship trophy. It is the fastest a North American professional sports team has ever won a title."It's insane," said Joe Lacob, the man who set the bar at five years and saw the Valkyries clear it with three years to spare.Insane, perhaps, but what happened Halloween night in a packed, joyous Chase Center also felt inevitable. The Valkyries have made history with every step of their rocketship ride. There were 18,000 true believers in the building and millions more scattered around the globe, from San Francisco to Paris to Italy to Taiwan to Japan. And the overwhelming sense was that there was no way that this wasn't going to be a happy, beautiful ending."For all the people that have been underrated, misunderstood, this is for y'all," coach Natalie Nakase said. "This is proof. If you put all your heart and soul in, you f-ing win championships."And the Valkyries did. Playing the first Game 7 in WNBA history, the last game was much like the previous six against the Atlanta Dream: a defensive, physical grinder of a game. The Valkyries' offense was clunky in the first half, Gabby Williams was invisible, and the Valkyries trailed the Dream by six. The building was getting a little nervous.But then something unlocked in Williams and she became unstoppable, doing things on the court that we've usually seen from No. 30 on the men's side. She scored 28 second-half points and led her team to victory. She was named the MVP of the game. In a beer-soaked, profanity-filled postgame press conference that jumped from team bonding to wine preference to Nakase's father to questions in French, Nakase was eventually asked a basketball strategy question about adjustments."Y'all think I know what I'm doing!" she exclaimed.Actually, yes we do. Nakase, the first woman coach of color to win a WNBA championship, not only coached the hell out of this team, she helped bind them into an unshakable unit. Williams, who brought the French national team to within a basket of the gold medal, who finished runner-up to the United States again in last summer's FIBA World Cup, who never felt she was fully appreciated by her other WNBA teams, found a home with Nakase and the Valkyries."Sometimes the best thing is right in front of you, the people who love you, who you love," Williams said. "That's what got me going tonight, going all season… I walked into a group full of love and that just changed the entire trajectory of my career."That's the beauty of the Valkyries. For all their overwhelming financial success, their valuation and revenue and consecutive sellouts, for their immediate and ubiquitous impact on the Bay Area sports scene, their story is one of love. Of inclusion. Of a group of players who had faced rejection at other stops banding together. Of fans who may have never fully felt welcomed or included at other sporting events finding a community."We know who we're fighting for," Nakase said before the game. "This is a special opportunity."Together the team and its fans created a magical, lavender universe almost overnight. "It did not exist before," Lacob said. "My career was venture capital. I love starting things. A VC friend has told me this is the best startup he's ever seen. Sometimes starting things can be an advantage because you get to create the culture and everything about it."Lacob made sure to point out he did not create it. He credited himself with making good hires but noted that Nakase, general manager Ohemaa Nyanin and president Jess Smith were the three-headed braintrust behind the team's success. The Golden State Valkyries celebrate after the team's victory over the Atlanta Dream in Game 7 of the WNBA Finals at Chase Center, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026, in San Francisco. (Santiago Mejia/S.F. Chronicle) Lacob has brought the Bay Area our last five championships: four with the Warriors and now one with the Valkyries. He got emotional talking about his journey: Lacob was an early investor in the American Basketball League 30 years ago and has always been a believer in the potential of women's basketball. He saw things in the game that few other business men recognized.But the women who play the game have always known it. Tiffany Hayes, the fifth oldest player in the league, has witnessed the WNBA's transformation since she arrived in 2012."This is what happens when you invest in women's sports," Hayes said. "I knew there would be a turnout. Because we're worth it. We always give more than is expected of us."All of the players on the floor in this series gave more. This was the longest postseason in WNBA history and the physical nature of the Finals games took so much out of every player. These are the first women to play a seven-game series, with the demanding cross-country travel, relentless game schedule and - for an added twist - unpredictable start times."No one had experienced this Game 7 type of vibe," Veronica Burton said. "But it was about understanding not getting too low or too high. Just staying steady."Hayes played in a championship in 2013, her second year in the league. It was over in three games. Thirteen years later, Nakase said the Valkyries wanted to "win it for Tip." Hayes became a starter in Game 4 and played 187 minutes over seven games."My body hurts," Hayes said, bending down to look her questioner directly in the eye. "I'm 37. My body hurts. I ain't even get to celebrate the way I wanted because I had to sit down in a chair. My heart feels good but my body hurts."The team without a single player named to the all-WNBA teams, with a coach who finished second in coach of the year voting, which had never even played a game 18 months ago, just made history."Joe said, ‘look, whoever takes this job has to win in five years,'" Nakase said. "I was like yes! That's going to happen. But even faster. I'm impatient."Impatient. Improbable. Incredible. The Golden State Valkyries are just getting started.SubscribeThere’s more to San Francisco with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25¢.This article originally published at Valkyries cement best startup ever status: ‘This is what happens when you invest in women's sports'.