How The Golden State Valkyries Won The Most Unlikely Championship

SAN FRANCISCO — Every championship is different, though they're all composed of the same emotional materials. A champion is supposed to have overcome circumstances, smelting the raw materials of loss and pain into a durable alloy of resolve. For fanbases, titles are redemptive, victory transmuting heartbreak into joy. The form can accommodate many particularities, but whatever the preceding heartbreak, a championship's message is always the same: It was all worth it. This template breaks down in the case of the Golden State Valkyries. They haven't had to overcome anything. They've enjoyed ubiquitous, unqualified adoration from the entire region since they flashed into existence two years ago. As I watched the confetti rain down on the freshly crowned WNBA champs and 18,000 screaming fans in San Francisco on Saturday night, I was struck foremost by a sense of surreality. None of this was supposed to happen. Owner Joe Lacob made waves by boasting that the Valks would win a title within five years, only for reality to prove a then-bold prediction needlessly conservative. This championship redeemed no visible struggle; there was no narrative convention to adhere to. So how do you make sense of something this unexpected? I think the place to start is with the fans, the bloc of people who expected it the most. One of the more remarkable early developments of the Valkyries' rise was the immediate coherence of a huge fanbase. You'll see in every writeup that the Valks have sold out every single game of their existence, at an NBA arena no less. That only hints at the broader dynamics that have made this team so beloved since before there were players on a team to even love in the first place. The ongoing women's sports boom started booming away from the Bay Area, leaving people in the region to look enviously over at their counterparts in Los Angeles or Portland and wonder when it would be our turn. The NWSL's Bay FC started playing a year before the Valkyries, though they were all the way down in San Jose, an hour from either San Francisco or Oakland, and therefore have never been as easily integrated into the cultural fabric of the region.

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