After announcing the 2026 WNBA schedule last week under the assumption that everything in the offseason happens under the correct timing, the Golden State Valkyries released ticket price information this week. The team uses variable pricing, meaning that each game is assigned to a category that determines its price contribution to the overall season ticket cost based on the anticipated demand for the game. Those differences are also used to price single-game ticket sales later. As expected after a debut season that saw the team sell every last available ticket, prices across the board have increased, but how many games are in each category has changed this year.
Home Preseason Game
Season tickets include 23 home games, but the schedule announcement only included the 22 regular season games. No date was included in this release, but it was revealed that the planned opponent is Seattle. Unlike last year’s game, which was the first home game of any kind for the Valkyries, this game is priced at the lowest level possible.
Categories
As was the case last year, all games are divided into four categories with A being the highest price and D being the lowest price. The incoming busy free agency period may make it a little bit more difficult to determine which opponents are truly going to be the most anticipated matchups once rosters are finalized, but dates and times are also a factor in the decision.
| Category | 2025 | 2026 |
| A | 3 | 1 |
| B | 5 | 5 |
| C | 10 | 9 |
| D | 5 | 8 |
The big change this year that resulted in there not being as much of increase in total price compared to the increases in each category is the decrease at the highest category. Golden State will host Indiana once instead of twice this year and that is the only game in the top category. Last year’s regular season opener was also in that category, but has been moved to B this year along with the only two Saturday games and a Friday night visit from Portland on the final weekend as well as a late season Monday visit from Dallas.
The one category that saw an increase in games was D and those include the preseason game as well as weekday games from the first half of the season, ending with a Friday game that marks the second half of the home calendar. Category C includes the Sunday games and more games from the second half of the season while including expected high-demand visits from Dallas and Minnesota in June.
Pricing
Pricing increases affected all seats for all types of games, but the exact amounts and percentage will vary based on location since all prices are rounded to dollars. The sellouts from last season means that the relative increase at the lowest level is the largest at around 50%. Categories A and C saw increases of around 20-25% and Category B is increasing in the 15-20% range.
Category A is still far pricier than the rest of the games, but is more in the 2.75 times category D this year compared to around 3.5 last year. Category B games were about double the price of category D games last year, but are more in the 57.5% range higher this time. There was a clear difference between the bottom two categories last year, but that has shrunk from 40-45% to more in the 12.5% range higher this year.
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