We spent some time covering the WNBA in our own history (the Las Vegas Aces, to be precise), and we certainly have chimed in recently on the sports media attempt to promote Caitlin Clark and “equality” in professional basketball. Today, our local WNBA franchise that begins play next year in the San Francisco Bay Area got a name: the Valkyries. We think that’s an awesome name for a women’s sports team. Yet …

The WNBA has a lot of issues. The Valkyries represent just the 13th franchise for the league, despite its formation in 1997—which was a long time ago. This is a statement of fact: The WNBA originated with 8 teams, and through expansion, contraction, and relocation, the league currently consists of only 12 teams—despite an overall total of 18 franchises in WNBA history. Without NBA money subsidizing this venture?

You get the idea: it would be dead and forgotten, because it’s been a financial failure. In fact, only 4 of the original franchises from 1997 remain: three in their original cities (Los Angeles, New York, and Phoenix) and one that has made a few stops along the way (Las Vegas, via Salt Lake City and San Antonio). The current teams in Dallas (via Detroit and Tulsa) and Washington, DC, joined the league in 1998 and remain.

Are you sensing a pattern here? It gets weirder.

In 1999, teams in Minneapolis and Orlando joined the league, but the latter was failing financially until a Native tribe bought the team and moved it to Connecticut. Let that sink in for a moment. Next, in 2000, Indianapolis and Seattle got expansion franchises that still exist in those cities today, respectively, and most recently, Chicago (2006) and Atlanta (2008) both saw expansion teams start up and survive to the present.

That’s a lot of expansion and relocation, of course, due to financial struggles in a nation that is allegedly “crazy for women’s basketball” if you’re to believe the mediot hyperbole. What about contraction? Charlotte, Cleveland, Houston, Miami, Portland, and Sacramento all had and lost teams. Charlotte won a conference title once, as did Cleveland. But Houston won the first four WNBA titles and still collapsed!

The Miami and Portland franchises really never succeeded enough on the court, but the Sacramento organization won the WNBA title in 2005—and still folded by 2009. Theoretically, cities with strong NBA followings were expected to keep WNBA teams afloat in the same markets, but it hasn’t always worked that way. Ironically, the Cleveland WNBA franchise folded right as LeBron James showed up in town to ball.

Portland is generally a great sports town, as the city support of the NBA’s Trail Blazers demonstrates, but even in a progressive metropolitan area, the WNBA couldn’t sustain financial viability. Miami also couldn’t hack it as a WNBA town; both the Miami and Portland franchises lasted just three seasons. The Valkyries should have better foundations, with Golden State Warriors money helping out, but that future is cloudy.

The Bay Area is a notoriously fickle fan base, in terms of bandwagon following: remember, the Warriors were the league laughingstock for 20 years until Stephen Curry showed up. No one cared about them then; we’ve seen MLB, NFL, and NHL teams bask in the glow of high attendance during championship seasons—only to see popularity crash when the on-field results aren’t so great. It’s California: plenty of things to do.

The WNBA is also planning to add a team in Toronto come 2026, which comes seven years after the NBA’s Raptors won a surprise championship. Did the league miss its window of opportunity? The Raptors were fourth in NBA attendance that year; within three seasons, the Toronto NBA attendance dropped to 30th in the league out of 30 teams. We wonder how a women’s team will do, even with the entire nation behind it.

As we commented earlier in a different piece, the WNBA plays only 40 games compared to the NBA’s 82 games, and the women’s game is only 40 minutes long compared to the NBA’s 48-minute games. Equal pay is not going to happen, based on those factors alone; when you throw in the financial struggles that have been consistent for 27 years now, it’s clear the WNBA is not any kind of worthwhile financial investment.