The Brooklyn Nets are in their offseason right now after ending the 2024-25 NBA season with a disappointing 26-56 record that ultimately netted them with the eighth overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. While Brooklyn is looking to make some decisions ahead of the Draft in June, the owners of the Nets are making progress in one of the other teams they manage.
According to The Athletic’s Ben Pickman on Thursday, the WNBA’s New York Liberty, owned by Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, “have raised capital from a group of investors at a record valuation for a professional women’s sports franchise of $450 million.” Pickman goes on to note that the Liberty’s $450 million valuation is believed to be a record for any franchise across professional women’s sports.
Sportico posted in June 2024 the first-ever valuations for all of the teams in the WNBA and at the time, the Las Vegas Aces had the highest valuation in the league at $140 million. Assuming that these figures haven’t changed much since the last time these valuations were conducted, that means that the Liberty not only have the highest valuation in the WNBA, but they are about $300 million clear of the second-highest team in valuation.
The Tsais purchased the Liberty in January 2019 and since then, they have slowly built the team into the powerhouse that it is right now while being led by Breanna Stewart and Sabine Ionescu. New York won the first title in franchise history last season and with the team gearing up to defend its title, it looks like the Tsais have big plans for the organization heading into the future.