Ten years ago, the Bay Area was home to two NFL teams, two MLB teams, and three other major men’s pro sports teams before the Raiders and A’s abandoned the region.

The departures delivered crushing blows to Oakland sports fans, but the Bay Area is rapidly adding pro franchises thanks to a women’s sports boom that shows no signs of slowing down.

With the Professional Women’s Hockey League announcing Tuesday that it will introduce a team in San Jose for the 2026-27 season, the Bay Area joins New York and Seattle as the third U.S. market with WNBA, NWSL, and PWHL teams. 

The PWHL San Jose team will play most of its games at SAP Center, where the San Jose Sharks’ attendance spiked from 14,216 per game in 2024-25 to 16,173 in 2025-26. The PWHL launched in 2024 with six teams, all owned and operated by the Mark Walter Group, and will have 12 active franchises by the time the 2026-27 season begins.

The WNBA, NWSL, and PWHL generate the highest attendance of any U.S. women’s sports leagues, but many smaller leagues are also establishing roots in the Bay Area.

League One Volleyball’s San Francisco franchise — which has more than 50 owners and investors, including Steve Kerr, Brandi Chastain, and Abby Wambach — will play its first match in 2027. 

A rival operation, Major League Volleyball, is also launching a “NorCal” team next year that will cover a territory “spanning from San Jose up through San Francisco and Sacramento,” according to a league statement. The MLV team ownership group includes three-time Olympic gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings and Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadivé.

The Golden State Storm, a women’s tackle football team that drew more than 2,000 fans to its inaugural home game at Laney College in March, wrapped its first season in the Women’s National Football Conference with a 3-3 record. 

The Women’s Professional Baseball League debuts in August with every game taking place at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois, but one of the four teams is called “San Francisco,” and founder Justine Siegal hopes to expand the league across the country. The model is similar to that of men’s Major League Cricket, which features the San Francisco Unicorns and played its first season at two U.S. locations before expanding beyond small venues in Texas and North Carolina. 

The Bay Area still boasts men’s franchises in all four major leagues — the NFL’s 49ers, the NBA’s Warriors, MLB’s Giants, and MLS’ Earthquakes — but if each of the new women’s sports franchises successfully launches within a year, there could soon be more local pro women’s teams than men’s teams playing in top leagues. 

There are other pro baseball teams based in the Bay Area, including the Oakland Ballers of the Pioneer League and the minor-league San Jose Giants, plus pro soccer clubs such as the Oakland Roots and Oakland Soul. None of these, however, play in top domestic leagues.

After women’s sports franchises the San Jose Lasers (1996 to 1998), San Jose CyberRays (2000 to 2003), and FC Gold Pride (2008 to 2010) all launched and folded, the Bay Area went more than a decade without a pro women’s team playing in a league with a media rights deal. 

Now, the Valkyries are the first women’s franchise in the world with a $1 billion valuation (opens in new tab), Bay FC is worth more than $200 million (opens in new tab), and nearly every emerging league, including the PWHL, considers the market a critical place to build a committed fan base.