The team will compete in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as a member of the Western Conference; it is scheduled to begin play in 2025.
[3] The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), which started in 1997, previously had a team in northern California in the Sacramento Monarchs, which played from 1997 until folding in 2009, despite winning a league championship in 2005.
[4] On September 26, 2023, The Athletic reported that the owners of the NBA's Golden State Warriors, Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, were finalizing an agreement to start a WNBA expansion team in San Francisco.
[5] Lacob had previously helped found the American Basketball League (ABL), which played before the WNBA, and owned one of their teams, the San Jose Lasers.
[9] On January 30, 2024, Jess Smith, an executive with Angel City FC of the NWSL, was hired as the team's president.