GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 5, 2023

Joe Lacob

Peter Guber

Cathy Engelbert

London Breed

Brandon Schneider

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: Hello, everybody. Hello, and welcome to Chase Center, and hello to everyone who is watching right now on the NBC Bay Area and also on the WNBA app.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Malika Andrews; I'm the host of NBA Countdown and NBA Today on ESPN, and I'm smiling like this because I am so excited to be here with all of you today on what is a huge day for women's basketball, on what is a huge day for the Bay Area.

I'd like to start by introducing a panel of folks that really need no introduction but are esteemed guests today. The Warriors co executive chairman and CEO, Joe Lacob is with us; the Warriors co-executive chairman Peter Guber is with us; WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert; the Mayor of San Francisco, London Breed; and also the Warriors president and chief operating officer, Brandon Schneider.

(Applause.)

That's not all, my friends. We have some WNBA legends that are in the building with us, as well. Seimone Augustus, the WNBA champion with the Minnesota Lynx four times and an eight-time WNBA All-Star; four-time WNBA champion with the Houston Comets, six-time WNBA All-Star and a Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame inductee, when I said to my dad that she was going to be here, he said, oh, my gosh, that's my hero, it is Sheryl Swoopes.

Seimone and Sheryl will both be participating in some youth basketball camps at the Claremont Middle School in Oakland as well as the Willie Brown Middle School in San Francisco following this.

We also have some notable guests joining us from the women's basketball community all over the Bay Area. Please join me in welcoming the three-time NCAA champion, the winningest coach in women's college basketball history, Tara VanDerveer; from the East Bay, please join me in welcoming Cal's women's basketball coach, former WNBA and ABL player, Charmin Smith; and from the Hilltop, please join us in welcoming the University of San Francisco women's basketball coach, former ABL and WNBA player and former Stanford Cardinal, Molly Goodenbour.

As you can see by the star-studded lineup that is joining us in this building today, it is a monumental day, and without further ado, please welcome to the podium, once again, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert.

CATHY ENGELBERT: Thank you, Malika. Welcome to everyone. It is great to be here in the Bay Area where some great moments, some of the greatest moments in basketball have taken place.

But before I get started, I do want to take this time to recognize the passing of senator Dianne Feinstein, a true champion of equality and empowerment for women everywhere. She was a trailblazer, breaking barriers and shattering ceilings throughout her remarkable career that started here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her advocacy for women's rights matches the values we hold dear in the WNBA, as women continue to define and redefine the boundaries of possibility.

Now we are here to celebrate another example of how resilient women chart a path for the next generation of leaders, mothers and athletes, and I see our youth athletes out there, the next generation of leaders, mothers and athletes. Thank you for coming today.

Since joining the WNBA as commissioner in 2019, I have often been asked, when will the WNBA expand, and for the most part, my response has always been, when the time is right. We had a lot of work to do.

Well, the right time, the right moment is today, and I'm very pleased to announce that the WNBA is coming to the Bay Area.

Over the last 18 months, we've held bid meetings with a handful of potential markets optimistic for this moment. We've used three consistent pillars when evaluating the data for an expansion team, a team in a city that provides a platform for deep and innovative fan engagement, has a clear path for stakeholder and franchise success, and adds value to the current WNBA content, media and entertainment footprint, and the San Francisco Bay Area has proven to meet the mark and well exceed the mark in each of those three areas.

The Bay Area is firmly aligned with our already strong fan base of diverse and engaged basketball fans. This is a hub for women's sports with six Division I women's basketball teams in the Bay Area, three which are represented today, thank you, and strong existing viewership for the women's NCAA as well as the WNBA, even without a team.

You all know, it's a global hub of technology and commerce and innovation with 37 of the Fortune 500 companies based here, 102 of the Russell 1000 having their headquarters here in the Bay Area.

Then to the players in the game, it has never been better in competitive play at the highest level, but we all know the WNBA represents more than just basketball. WNBA players give it their all on the court, but they also serve as ambassadors of empowerment, community service, and determination in the markets in which they live and work. We can't wait to see how the impact here in the Bay Area grows, right here with this additional team.

This is a thrilling time for the WNBA, as the longest tenured women's professional sports league in the United States. We just concluded a successful 27th regular season. We saw record-breaking viewership, attendance, digital engagement, and we are heading into the WNBA Finals on Saturday, where the reigning champion Las Vegas Aces will take on the New York Liberty, who are making their first appearance in the Finals in over 20 years. This is just to be an outstanding Finals.

Now the Bay Area will get to witness that firsthand because of the unwavering commitment and dedication of two special people to my right, Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, and the whole staff here at the Golden State Warriors, Brandon, the core values of teamwork, integrity and excellence make them an ideal fit for the WNBA.

Today, we embark on a journey that will leave an indelible mark on the world of women's professional basketball. We invite everyone to join us, and I want to take the opportunity to say how much we look forward to working together and to say, Joe and Peter, if you could come up, I'd like to present you with an official WNBA basketball and make an official welcome to the WNBA.

(Applause.)

THE MODERATOR: This is an exciting day for the Bay Area. I can say as an Oakland native, a Bay Area native, I'm so thrilled to be here to witness this in person firsthand as the Bay Area gets a WNBA team finally. We've been seeing the Tweets for the last couple of days, when is the WNBA going to expand and the bread crumbs have been dropping, and now we finally have the answer.

I would like to start a little Q & A with our panel.

Joe, I want to start with you. When we were drinking our coffee and smoothies in the back and you were telling me about the San Jose Lasers and the time that you spent as part of that ownership group, you said that this is the time, the time is finally here, and the time is finally right. Why is it right for you to bring a WNBA team along with Cathy to the Bay?

JOE LACOB: First of all, I want to congratulate all the women in the Bay Area who are excited to see this and all basketball fans, all the young girls who have wanted to have a team in the Bay Area to root for. My wife, Nicole, who is a big women's basketball fan, believe it or not -- I didn't know. And my daughters, who once before I actually tried to do something to bring women's basketball to the Bay Area, and we can talk about that.

But why is right now the best time? Because the league is ready, as Cathy talked about it it's gone through some tough times, obviously.

We all did in the pandemic the last few years, but I think the league is ready for this expansion. Women's basketball in general is taking off. Women's sports in general is taking off in a bigger way.

I just think for the Warriors, as well, it's the right time. We had an arena to build. That took seven years and a lot of capital to do it and a lot of hard work. We had the pandemic, and everyone around -- all the employees of our organization kept saying, when are we getting an WNBA team because this is the right place to do it. It was the right place, and it's now the right time.

We're very happy to be able to do that. Extremely excited.

I will say for me personally, this is a tremendous circle because as you pointed out, in the '90s, some of you aren't even that old, I know, in the audience, and don't even know about this, but there was a league called the ABL, the American Basketball League, which I was a founding partner of, owned a big chunk of it and owned the San Jose Lasers, and players like from Stanford Jennifer Azzi played on that team, and it was doing really well, and then the WNBA came in and kind of superceded us I guess you could say, and we lost that league. We lost the time.

But here we are many years later; the Bay Area is getting that team again. We're getting a team in the Bay Area, and for me personally, this is a very, very exciting moment to fulfill a dream that I've always had for women's basketball.

I will say what I said at a press conference - Brandon doesn't know I'm going to say this - but first press conference of the Warriors, I said, we will win a championship in the first five years, and I am telling you right now, we will win a WNBA championship in the first five years of this franchise.

(Applause.)

THE MODERATOR: I love the ambition. I know that -- I think it's Holly Rowe who continues to -- when we talked about this, she said, if they build it, they will come, and the WNBA has built it over the last couple of years with fans showing up in droves, Cathy, but in the Bay Area specifically, what is it about this city, about this ownership group that made you think that this was the right partnership, not just for any expansion but for this expansion team?

CATHY ENGELBERT: This is a great question, Malika, because it is really important that you're bringing in long-term committed owners committed to the success not just of the team and winning championships but to the league overall, and I think if you look at the San Francisco Bay Area, you look at the demographics and psychographics and you look at our current fan base here but also nationally and hopefully we're building a global platform, as well, really important.

Technology is driving our economy, and the tech center of your country doesn't have a WNBA team, that doesn't seem right to me. That was why I thought that this market would be so great. The data proves it out, but also this ownership team, these operators, all of the leverage off the huge success of the Golden State Warriors, and really just looking at the college and the popularity of the NCAA women's game when 10 million people watched that NCAA Final Four March Madness game for the women last year, and just capitalizing off of that success as well as generational players that are going to come into our league from the NCAA over the next couple years including some here from the Bay Area.

Just such a great time to do it.

Then the arena, the Chase Center, state-of-the-art, such a great -- I've been here a few times, even before I became the commissioner of the WNBA as this was being built, and then obviously I was here in 2020 right before the pandemic hit for a game, and just admired what this ownership team has done and what this leadership has done and really just the importance of this area to women's sports and women's basketball.

No better place to do it than here.

THE MODERATOR: Brandon, Cathy touched on it, just the infrastructure that the Warriors have built here in San Francisco for the NBA team, but when you look at the exciting possibilities for operating a WNBA franchise, Joe was saying that you all have been bugging him for a while, when are we going to get one. What excites you about those opportunities specifically?

BRANDON SCHNEIDER: Well, first it starts with the two guys we're hearing from, Joe already and Peter in a second. Look at Joe, first thing, five years. We did it once, now we've got to do it again.

So it starts with the leadership from Joe and Peter, the vision, always giving us all the resources that we need to be successful on and off the court.

Now, when I talk about the "we," they're all sitting here. All of our team members are here because as we've said, we're so excited for this day to be part of the WNBA and all the work that they do to make us successful on and off the court. I see Mike Dunleavy sitting in the front row on the basketball side. So it's that.

We're looking forward to taking what we've learned operating the Warriors over the last several years and applying that to our W team.

Then we've talked about the Bay Area. The Bay Area is a sports town, right, and I can't tell you the amount of people - Joe, you already said it - that have asked me, our employees asking me, when are we getting a team, fans, corporate partners, the media, and you ask me, when are we getting a W team.

So we're really excited that that day is today.

Then the other thing we're excited about is just the trajectory of the league under Cathy's leadership. You look at attendance, viewership, merchandise sales, I could go on and on, all higher than they've ever been, all increasing.

We're excited to be a part of that. We feel like we're the right team doing this in the right place at the right time.

THE MODERATOR: You mentioned the arena that we're sitting in. I remember when it opened four years ago. My family has been going to Golden State Warriors games for as long as I can remember. There was a period of wondering, okay, everything is moving, what's it going to be like now, Mayor London, now that things are in San Francisco, but it's hard not to fall in love with this state-of-the-art arena, particularly with all the vendors and the investments in the Bay Area that have been made here.

As a key leader in this community, what does the WNBA represent to you, and why is this the perfect partnership between the WNBA and the Bay Area?

LONDON BREED: Well, first of all, I don't know if anyone in this room is more excited than I am that we are finally getting a WNBA team to play in San Francisco, to practice in Oakland, what it means for the Bay Area, and the visionary leadership that it took to get us here with these folks who are on stage.

What happened in Mission Bay, the neighborhood we are in, it used to be railroad tracks. There was a golf shooting range and an Esprit outlet. This neighborhood was nothing.

The fact that we were able to get University of California San Francisco's premier institutions and to build new housing and neighborhoods and what the Warriors brought to this particular area has been really amazing because it centers around working and supporting the community and bringing people in.

So that visionary leadership was not just about the team, it was about the community. It was about the fans. It was about the people. It has really brought a lot of joy and a lot of life to a neighborhood once neglected, and of course what it will do for our restaurants, our businesses, and what it will do for San Francisco and our economy in light of coming out of a global pandemic and the challenges that exist.

This is just one step further to making sure that the public understands and realizes the value of what San Francisco does in terms of being this place that is not only an amazing beautiful city but also a beacon of hope for even the next generation with this big step forward to support women from around the world, and it is so great to see the young women here today because they are the future and they are going to take this to the next level.

Right now, we're putting it out there, and we're excited, and we are so glad that you are here.

THE MODERATOR: I couldn't have said it better.

Peter, we heard from Joe on why this was a dream for him of wanting to be able to see a WNBA team under this umbrella in San Francisco. Why was it one for you?

PETER GUBER: Well, I saw this enterprise in a slightly different way. I saw this whole enterprise, the arena, the park, the plaza, the restaurants, as both a beacon and a lightning rod. The reason I say that is because it was a gathering place for a diverse community to gather in peace, enjoy it, and consider changing the nature of saying, I'm going down to see a WNBA game or an NBA game or the Bruce Springsteen concert; what's happening at Chase, because all the time there will be these major events and major things going on.

If you look at women's basketball, it plays in the season, but we didn't have a lot of -- as much activity.

When I look at this, I look at this as a bouquet. We're putting each different flower into it, and hopefully we'll have a terrific garden at the end, mixing my metaphors.

THE MODERATOR: A terrific garden with a championship in the first five years, right?

PETER GUBER: Absolutely.

THE MODERATOR: Brandon, you mentioned the practicing in Oakland, playing in San Francisco piece, which is why I continue to say the Bay Area's team, because it spans so much of the Bay Area. Can you dive a little bit more into what exactly that's going to look like and why that was important to you?

BRANDON SCHNEIDER: Yeah, look, we're the Bay's team. We are so fortunate to have W Nation around the world, by the way, supporting us, but specifically here in the Bay Area and we know our W team is going to enjoy that same support throughout the Bay. So that was important.

Look, the facility in Oakland, our WNBA players need to have the best facility, just like our NBA players have. We're really fortunate to have the facility in Oakland. That's where I went to work for my first 17 years working for the Warriors. That's where Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, all the guys practiced every day up until four years ago, so we will have one of the best practice facilities in the WNBA.

In addition to practicing at the facility in Oakland, our business and basketball front office will be housed there, will go to work there every day.

Then the last thing I'll say is community impact is so important to who we are as the Warriors, so the president of the board of our Warriors Community Foundation, Nicole Lacob, is actually sitting here in the front row. Our foundation is focused on educational equity in San Francisco and in Oakland, and over the last several years we've given over $30 million in grants to educational nonprofits, and about half that money, $15 million, has gone to organizations, nonprofits that are based in Oakland, so having a WNBA team practice there, headquartered there, being there every day will only serve to amplify the work that we're doing in the community, which is really important and really special to us.

THE MODERATOR: Let's end here before we open it up to questions from my colleagues that are sitting in the first two rows here. Cathy, you mentioned the Aces and the Liberty, the final clash of super teams that we've all been waiting for, the uptick in WNBA viewership, in fandom that we've seen. I think of Anthony Davis, he said a couple of days ago he was at a bunch of WNBA games, Sparks games this summer and he was asked why, and he said his daughter came to him one day and didn't realize that basketball was for girls, too, and he said wait a second, no, no, no, one of the best leagues in the world is made up of women and we need to go and see this.

How do you see this team adding on to the development that we have already seen and pushing the envelope and the game forward?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Yeah, Malika, that's a huge reason why I'm sitting here today with this ownership group, with this staff, with all of you is because this gives, again, a huge platform for the next generation of players. Will add 12 roster spots to a league that needs to grow, that is growing in viewership, as you mention, and everything else, but this gives us, again, a big media market, a big place where I think our players are going to want to live and work, also, and it's just a huge -- these players are such role models for the next generation of athletes, and we know that young girls drop out of organized youth sports at alarming rates when they get to 12 or 13 compared to their male counterparts, so this gives them role models like Anthony Davis' daughter -- and sons. I always say when you come to our games, we have one of the most diverse fan bases in sports, and it's young boys and girls.

A lot of people I know who have sons say the first basketball I want them to see is a WNBA game.

Again, the game has never been better. Our players, the triple-doubles, the double-doubles that the players are showing up every night, this so-called super team matchup between the Aces and New York is going to be great. Best-of-five series starts Sunday at noon your time on ABC.

Just the ability to then give hope to other players that we're going to have a team here in the Bay Area, such a great demographic for our fan base and to grow that fan base, not only here as Brandon said, globally. One of our big things is I've admired what the NBA has done and their global platform, and we need to do the same thing, and this will help that, as well.

THE MODERATOR: I'm glad you said that. I expect to see this arena full when this opens up because there is no better fan base than the fan base that is in the Bay. With that, I'm going to do my best Raymond Ritter impression and say that there are mics available for members of the media. Please state your name and affiliation before directing your question.

Q. Joe, can you reflect back on that full circle moment a little bit and maybe give a little bit more detail about why this is such a different market, time -- why it's such a different time in terms of the development, the business, the sponsorships, all of that?

JOE LACOB: Well, we bought this team, Peter and I and our group, in 2010. You may remember we had a little bit of a rebuild to do, really on the basketball side but also on the business side, as well. Obviously today, here we are 13 years later. This is year 14; I can't believe that much time has gone by.

But we've built a great organization. We have almost 600 employees in total now. I mean, we do a lot of things here, run restaurants here. It's just been a lot of work to get to that point, and building this arena was seven years. The pandemic took several years out of it.

I think it's finally the moment when we feel as an organization that we can do our best job to have a WNBA team in this building and in this market, and I also think that women's basketball, women's sports in general is really starting to take a big upswing, as Malika spoke about. Sponsors are all -- I can tell you right now, we're talking with them. Brandon is better to comment on it. They're all interested in being involved. That's different than it was even five or ten years ago, never mind 15 years ago or 20 years ago.

I think it's a very different time. The league is really poised to take off in a big way. We believe that. We want to be a part of that.

We think this is the time to jump in and to obviously use the great base that they have built in terms of a league. We've got two great teams playing in the championship this year, which I think is great, but we can now come in here, we're ready, they're ready, and this Bay Area is ready.

Q. And also the difference from when you started the ABL.

JOE LACOB: That is a long time ago. That was either 1995 or 1996, which I shudder to think of how long ago that is. When I talk to my own daughters, who I did it for back then, I mention it to them, and they're like, they don't really remember it. They were just young girls, which was sad to me.

I've talked to a lot of young people, it's like, who are the San Jose Lasers? They know Stanford women's basketball because we have the greatest women's basketball coach in the world sitting here today. Tara is incredible and I've been to so many of those games and had season tickets there for so many years.

But from a professional standpoint, the Lasers were a long time ago. We did sell out. We did very well when we did it, but we couldn't compete with the WNBA getting into it, and the NBA is a great league to -- you want to have a league like this behind you. It's very hard to start a new league, and the ABL was a new league.

I didn't realize how hard -- I had done a lot of startups, but I didn't realize in sports how hard that would be to do at the time.

I'm a lot wiser now, a lot more experienced. We are a little more experienced, and we're certainly well-capitalized and have good facilities. We're looking forward to it.

Q. Joe or Peter, have you guys come up with a team name yet, and if not, how is that process going to go?

JOE LACOB: Since we don't have one, we're looking at each other like what do we say. We don't have one yet, but we will shortly, and I'm getting a lot of suggestions. I'm sure Peter is, too. Even driving up here today, last night at dinner.

The name game is ongoing, so we're going to try to come up with something that makes sense, and hopefully it'll be a good name and reflect what we have going on here in San Francisco and in the whole Bay Area and in women's sports.

PETER GUBER: Not unimportant, though. Titles are really important in any entertainment product, so you want to get that right, Joe.

JOE LACOB: We'll do that, right, Brandon?

BRANDON SCHNEIDER: That's right, and we'll win a championship in the first five years. (Laughter.)

Q. For somebody who's been covering this league for 28 years without a team in my market, it's a good day to be here. Cathy, you have 13 teams in this league now. That is an odd number, so I'm going to ask you a couple league questions. Is there a 14th team coming? I also want to understand what you guys have in mind for allocation of players.

CATHY ENGELBERT: Yeah, so 13 is a lucky number, by the way, so our goal is this is a team to start up in 2025. Our goal is to have a 14th team by 2025, as well. As you know, I've been traveling, different cities, and we're in discussions and continued discussions, productive conversations with several other cities.

Your second question? Oh, player allocation.

Obviously whenever you bring new teams in, you'll have an expansion draft, so we have a competition committee meeting. When we get done with our Finals over the next couple weeks, in November a competition committee meeting, a Board of Governors meeting, and we'll be discussing all of that at that time.

We haven't done an expansion draft since 2008. The league has changed, times have changed, but we'll be discussing that with this ownership group as well as with our competition committee.

Q. As a quick follow-up, draft only or will there be direct signings?

CATHY ENGELBERT: You mean free agent signings? We will plot that all out because the expansion draft, by the way, wouldn't be until late next year, late 2024 probably after we do our draft lottery. We have a draft lottery and then an expansion draft and then the draft following the NCAA season.

Q. Two questions for the commissioner. Piggy-backing off of the last question, in the preliminary conversations about expansion draft and player allocations, given just the sheer talent in the league right now, across all current 12 teams, it's the highest that it's ever been, both individually and from a team perspective and league-wide competition. Do you view the process of an expansion team being different from those in past years with the WNBA based on the fact that there's just so many very, very good players across so many different teams?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Right. Again, as far as player allocation, expansion draft, we'll have more to say on that. But I think we're adding 12 roster spots here in the Bay Area, for the Bay Area team. If another team comes in, that will be 24. That's a lot of roster spots, but we know WNBA is one of the hardest leagues to make a team. A lot of our draft picks do not make a team, even first round draft picks in some instances, so this is partially to give new opportunities to that next generation coming out of the NCAA system and then maybe some players that didn't make teams this year.

Again, we'll have more after we get through a diligence process with these owners, if we bring in another ownership group, as well as with the competition committee and our Board of Governors.

These are very important decisions to make since we haven't done it in over 15 years. More to come on that.

JOE LACOB: We'd like the best players from those other teams, if that's possible.

CATHY ENGELBERT: The nice thing about the comment was the depth of the talent in this league has never been better, and the depth of the talent and breadth of the talent coming out of the NCAA system has never been better, so this is a very good problem to have, by the way. It's a really good sign and signal of the growth of the sport, both here in the U.S. and globally.

We also have 23 players from outside the United States of our 144, so we're growing our global ranks, as well.

Q. When you talk about the value of women's sports going up, expansion fees are a big part of that. Locally here, a women's soccer team paid $53 million to get into the NWSL. Can you confirm to what extent you guys have paid to get into this league?

JOE LACOB: That's really for Cathy to address, to be honest, but I'll just say it was a lot. (Laughter.)

CATHY ENGELBERT: I'll say, obviously from a league perspective, we've seen the valuations of our franchise going up. This is a record-breaking expansion fee, but there's so many other investments in starting up a team, in arena, in the locker rooms, in the practice facility, in player housing, player experience.

We have a very vibrant free agency system here in the WNBA, so this ownership group knows they're going to have to invest significant amounts in the first couple years of startup in order to win that championship in the first five years, but significant, significant investment. We're really proud to have them as partners stepping up.

Q. You don't want to say the specific number at this point?

CATHY ENGELBERT: No, it's significant and record-breaking. (Laughter.)

Q. Cathy, the city of Oakland has taken a beating with its sports teams in recent years, losing the Raiders, potentially losing the A's, even missing the Warriors coming across the Bay. How much does it mean to you, and I'm not going to guess that you've followed any of the A's drama, but does it mean something to you to have this franchise connected to both sides of the Bay, and maybe some of you Warriors executives could also speak on just having a presence in Oakland and what that might mean to uplift the city?

CATHY ENGELBERT: Absolutely. We've had players come from the Bay Area and Oakland specifically. We have people who work for us who live there. So it was a very significant part of making sure from a community perspective this was the Bay Area, not one part of the Bay Area, and then having the practice facility in Oakland, having the offices in Oakland, yes, it was all an important part of how we thought about, again, the demographics and the psychographics of this region, I'll call it, so I think -- I'll let the Warriors comment on their perspective on that, but yes, that was certainly something that was attractive.

BRANDON SCHNEIDER: I'll just echo. I agree with how you framed it. Having the presence in Oakland, the physical presence, which we've maintained the entire time, but having now a team that's headquartered there, practicing there, I think is really important. We said, we're the Bay's team with the Golden State Warriors. I think our W team will definitely be the Bay's team. So having that physical presence I think just underscores that point.

Q. Joe, just wondering to clarify on the team name, as you guys look to represent the entire Bay Area, practice in Oakland, play here, would you guys begin with Golden State?

JOE LACOB: Again, I wish I had an answer for you, but if I speculate, I'd probably be wrong. We don't know yet, but we will soon. We're going to look at everything.

I think you can probably assume it's going to be reflective of the entirety of the Bay Area in some way.

Q. Commissioner, I think the headline in a lot of other markets from this press conference will be, oh, she did, she said 14. So now let's let that rumor mill start to begin. In terms of that, without asking you to speculate, I wouldn't do that, but just up north in Sacramento, several years ago their NBA owner promised to bring the Monarchs back to the WNBA. That has yet to happen. However, there has been a significant revival in their professional basketball community with the success of the Kings. They have a beautiful new building. As much as you can speak to it, is the City of Sacramento on the league's radar?

CATHY ENGELBERT: So I would say we have -- the nice thing about growing a women's sports property is we have a lot of cities interested. Sacramento is definitely one of them. I've made no secret, I've been to Portland, I've been to Denver, I've been to Toronto. We had a sold-out preseason game in Toronto this year. Philadelphia, there's many -- Charlotte. There's many cities who have reached out to us with different ownership groups, and we continue to have productive conversation with all of those cities, but yes, Sacramento is one of those on the list.

LONDON BREED: I want to just add, can't we just enjoy the moment and make sure San Francisco is in the title of any of your stories? You can add Oakland, but San Francisco first.

(Applause.)

Q. Joe, another name question. I know nothing has been decided, but will the team be called something other than the Warriors, or will the Warriors be in consideration, as well?

JOE LACOB: Nag has been ruled out, and nothing has been chosen, so I don't know how to address it any more yet. I just don't know the answer. It's certainly a consideration to use that, but there may be reasons not to use it.

We will have information for you, I promise. You'll all get to know. We will not keep it a secret when we decide, and that will be pretty soon.

Q. I did want to ask, it is a great day, obviously, for the Bay Area. Could Mayor Thao not make it from Oakland?

JOE LACOB: Does anybody know the answer to that?

BRANDON SCHNEIDER: Mayor Thao was invited to join us today but had other obligations so couldn't make it.

THE MODERATOR: I've been trying to marinate on names to think about what I can throw into the hat. You said it has to incorporate all the Bay Area, like the Bay Area Hyphy, is that something that we can put into consideration?

JOE LACOB: Let me add that to the list.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you so much to everyone who tuned in to watch our press conference on NBC Sports Bay Area as well as on the WNBA app.

This is such an exciting day for the Bay Area, and I know San Francisco should go first in the headlines, but I want Oakland loud and proud in there, as well. I hope everyone will join us in Thrive City for the basketball clinics with Sheryl Swoopes and Seimone Augustus. Thank you so much for coming out. We appreciate it.