The historic first-ever exhibition game of SF’s new women’s NBA team the Golden State Valkyries tips off at 7 pm Tuesday night. It’s streaming online (for a price), but tickets are shockingly affordable by Chase Center standards

It’s been a year and a half since we learned that San Francisco would be getting a WNBA team. In that time, it has since been announced that they would be called the Golden State Valkyries, and what their inaugural-season schedule looks like. And that schedule (sort of) starts tonight, as the Valkyries take on the Los Angeles Sparks in their first-ever exhibition game Tuesday night at the Chase Center at 7 pm.  

The Sparks will be without Stanford product, huge WNBA star, and the very commercial-friendly Cameron Brink, who’s still out with an injury. Those two Golden State Valkyries pictured above are last year’s women’s Finals MVP Carla Leite and Caitlin Clark’s former Iowa teammate Kate Martin. So in the early going, Liete and Martin figure to be your two main Valkyries players to watch.

And as NBC Bay Area points out, the Valkyries unveiled what their Chase Center court will look like when they set up the new hardwood on Monday.

As of press time, tickets for tonight’s game start at $14, an unheard-of price for the Chase Center. (Whereas courtside seats are $2,300 apiece.) The game is technically streaming and on TV, but not normal streaming and TV. KPIX will be broadcasting plenty of Valkyries games, but tonight’s exhibition tilt is relegated to their quasi-station KPIX+, which is Channel 44 on the air, might be part of your cable package, and is available with a paid Youtube TV subscription.  

The Chronicle has a detailed rundown of the Valkyries roster and lineups, but it has one glaring omission. It does not mention their top draft pick Justė Jocytė. Though as Bay Area News Group points out, the 19-year-old Lithuanian prospect is off in Europe playing for Lithuania’s national team, and will not join the Valkyries until mid-season (July) at the earliest.    

So your most promising Valkyries rookie is UConn’s Kaitlyn Chen, who’s fresh off winning the national championship, and parenthetically the WNBA’s first Taiwanese player. Chen was their third-round pick, and stunningly, they’ve already cut their second-round pick Shyanne Sellers. It is not unusual for WNBA teams to cut second- or third-round picks before the season has even started.    

Though this underscores an important point — the Valkyries do not expect to be good this year. That doesn’t matter, ticket sales have gone through the roof (tonight’s cheapo exhibition game notwithstanding), and owner Joe Lacob is going to make his money. The franchise seems to be saving ther gunpowder for their 2026 season, because going into next year, most big WNBA stars will be free agents.  

The Valkyries’ real regular season starts next Friday, May 16, against these same Los Angeles Sparks. Their big national TV games will be Saturday, June 7 at 12 noon against the Las Vegas Aces (ABC), and Saturday July 12 at 1 pm, and again against the Las Vegas Aces (CBS). The normal broadcast KPIX channel will also cover 13 games over the course of the season, starting on Friday, May 27.

Related: WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries Announce 2025 Schedule (and the Games When Caitlin Clark is Coming to Town) [SFist]

Image: @ChaseCenter via Twitter