{"id":509,"section":"sports","section_label":"Sports","url":"https://www.brokenews.co/sports/509","headline":"Valkyries reach WNBA Finals in just their second season","dek":"Golden State will face the Atlanta Dream in a best-of-seven series that begins Saturday on NBC/Peacock.","body":"The Golden State Valkyries didn't exist two years ago. Now they're playing for a championship, having turned an expansion slot into a Finals berth faster than just about anyone expected.\n\nThe Valkyries made the postseason in their first year, a notable achievement for any expansion team, and have now pushed through to face the Atlanta Dream for the title. Neither franchise has won a WNBA championship, so the league is guaranteed a first-time champion this year.\n\nGolden State swept the season series between the two teams, though the sample size was small and the games bunched together over an 11-day stretch earlier in the year. Only one of those three meetings was decided by double digits, and both sides have reportedly improved since then, so the regular-season results may not mean much once the series actually starts.\n\nOff the court, the Valkyries have been a phenomenon since entering the league, leading the WNBA in attendance, arena atmosphere and revenue in their debut season. Owner Joe Lacob had tried to bring a women's pro team to the Bay Area long before the Valkyries existed, with the franchise's roots tracing back to the 1990s.\n\nThe series begins Saturday on NBC/Peacock.","published_at":"2026-10-13T04:46:28.436033+00:00","source_count":3,"written_from":[{"outlet":"ESPN","publisher":"ESPN","title":"How the Valkyries made it to the WNBA Finals ... just two years after their debut","url":"https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/50162878/wnba-finals-2026-golden-state-valkyries-expansion-team"},{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"WNBA Finals questions: Do Valkyries or Dream have the defensive edge? Will Gray be back?","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/wnba-finals-questions-valkyries-dream-101607072.html"},{"outlet":"New York Post","publisher":"New York Post","title":"How the Golden State Valkyries went from expansion team to the WNBA Finals in two seasons","url":"https://nypost.com/2026/10/11/sports/how-the-golden-state-valkyries-went-from-expansion-team-to-the-wnba-finals-in-two-seasons/"}],"more_coverage":[{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"Can Valkyries solve Dream's Angel Reese? WNBA Finals matchup could hinge on it","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/valkyries-solve-dreams-angel-reese-022156003.html"}],"image":{"url":"https://a1.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2026%2F1012%2Fr1729517_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg","credit":"ESPN","width":1296},"embed":null,"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","attribution":"Analysis data is licensed CC BY 4.0. Credit brokenews and link to the story page you took it from. Source headlines, story titles taken from a source headline, and quoted passages remain the property of their publishers and are quoted for comparison, not licensed onward.","terms":"https://www.brokenews.co/about#reuse"}