It was a busy weekend at Chase Center preparing for a first-of-its-kind event inside the San Francisco arena. But, somewhat surprisingly, it wasn’t for the Golden State Valkyries’ first-ever WNBA home playoff game. Moving trucks were still milling around Chase Center on Monday setting up for the Laver Cup, a premier international tennis tournament set for this upcoming weekend. The WNBA playoff game on Wednesday will instead head down to downtown San Jose’s SAP Center, located about 45 miles south of San Francisco.
In an interview with SFGATE at a first-look media event for the Laver Cup, Golden State President and Chief Operating Officer Brandon Schneider said the organization looked into everything it could to try and get the Valkyries game inside “Ballhalla” but ultimately couldn’t find a way to make it work.
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“The Laver Cup is a global tennis tournament that we booked several months before we were awarded a WNBA team,” Schneider told SFGATE. “There was no way to avoid this. This is a 12-, 13-day thing. If it was a concert, you would say, ‘OK, move the concert.’ But that clearly is not an option with this.”
According to Schneider, the Laver Cup team has been inside the building all throughout the Sept. 12-14 weekend preparing for the tournament, which runs from Sept. 19 to 21 and is almost completely sold out already. Outside of Chase Center, Laver Cup signs and wrapping for the tournament were up all around the Thrive City area on Monday, while inside, the entire court setup was already in place, save for the team benches — tennis star Casper Ruud was even spotted getting some practice swings on the newly installed court.
It’s fair to say the entire Valkyries season has blown past everyone’s expectations, even from famously bombastic owner Joe Lacob. In an interview with Bay Area News Group, Lacob said, “I don’t think we expected to make the playoffs, but we’ve done that.” Lacob also told the outlet the team wanted to “try to make inroads into the upper bowl over time,” but ended up selling out all 22 regular season games at Chase Center this year.
The atmosphere at “Ballhalla” has drawn praise from all around the sports world and made any possible playoff game relocation a touchy topic. (The Valkyries declined multiple SFGATE requests for interviews about the arena situation before the playoff spot was clinched.) But Schneider pushed back on the idea that the dilemma has been weighing on those within the organization.
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“There is no angst because we treat scheduling, we treat the Valkyries the same as we treat the Warriors,” Schneider said. “We’re going to do everything we can to protect regular season dates, playoff dates. Just as we do for the Golden State Warriors, we’re going to do the same thing for the Golden State Valkyries. That’s what we’ve done in our existence and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.”
For some within the WNBA, Schneider’s answer will ring hollow. Most WNBA teams have relocated at least one playoff game to a different arena because of a prior conflict. Even the best intentions won’t matter in the face of action.
But the WNBA provides its teams and hosts with unique challenges compared to other leagues. For one, the league’s specific calendar is in constant flux. The number of games has been growing with each season, and the postseason footprint has widened, too. On top of that, the league’s schedule window changes year by year, depending on whether the Olympics or FIBA World Cup are happening. (There is also the collective bargaining agreement, which expires after this season and is leaving pretty much everything about the future of the league uncertain.)
The organization has already shown its ability to tweak schedules at Chase Center around the Warriors and Valkyries. Metal band Disturbed canceled a Chase Center concert in May because the Warriors advanced to the second round of the NBA playoffs. Had the Dubs won a second game in the second round, they would have had a rare three-day break in between NBA playoff games to allow the Valkyries to play their inaugural game at home on its scheduled date. Schneider stressed the organization views the Valkyries on “the same plane as” the Warriors.
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SFGATE gave Schneider a chance to guarantee that the Valkyries would never relocate a playoff game from Chase Center in the future.
“What I can guarantee is that we will treat the WNBA playoffs the same way we treat the NBA playoffs,” Schneider said. “Of course, there’s a lot of circumstances that go into all of this, but we treat it the same way. And that is, of course, Valkyries playoff games need to be at Chase Center, just as Warriors games need to be at Chase Center.”
The Valkyries will try to fight off elimination against the top-seed Minnesota Lynx, who cruised to a 101-72 win in Game 1. Game 2 is set to tip off from SAP Center at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, with the game televised on ESPN. Schneider and everyone around the organization is hopeful the atmosphere can move south with the team.
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“The way we look at it, we are ecstatic to be in the playoffs and this is a ‘great’ problem to have,” Schneider said, putting air quotes around the word great. “The game on Wednesday at SAP Center is going to be awesome, and we can’t wait. Ballhalla, our fans have been amazing, and they’re going to be amazing at SAP Center.”