For a second consecutive year, the Golden State Warriors are the most valuable franchise in the NBA, per CNBC’s recently released team valuations for 2026.
At $10.8 billion, the Warriors are one of three franchises — along with the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers — valued at $10 billion or more. Golden State was worth $9.4 billion at this time last year, according to CNBC’s 2025 estimation.
Much of that valuation is a product of Chase Center, Golden State’s arena, which opened in 2019, as CNBC senior sports reporter Mike Ozanian explains.
“The Warriors generate by far the most revenue in the NBA,” Ozanian said. “They own their own state-of-the-art arena, which allows them to be tops in the NBA in ticket revenue, sponsorship revenue, advertising revenue and also luxury seating/premium seating revenue — all the benefits of owning and operating a great arena.”
In addition to the Warriors, Chase Center hosts home games for the WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries, several men’s and women’s college basketball games each year, and other sporting events such as the 2025 Laver Cup in tennis — in addition to plenty of concerts year-round.
Of course, the success of the Warriors themselves probably helps, too, having won four NBA championships since 2015.
Joe Lacob, Golden State’s primary owner, led an investment group that bought the team for $450 million back in 2010. To save you the math, the current $10.8 billion valuation means the Warriors are worth 24 times as much as they were 16 years ago — not a bad investment, to say the least.
Of course, that appraisal only really matters if Lacob were to sell the team, but he hasn’t offered any indication of that being a possibility anytime soon. Still, it’s an impressive figure illustrating Golden State’s success on and off the court.
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