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Finals Game 1 is Saturday, Oct. 17, at 12:30 PM PT at Chase Center.
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Goapele, Rita Moreno and Larry June set for Valkyries' Finals Game 1; Alanis Morissette sings before Game 2

Ryan MoalemiBy Ryan Moalemi
Chase Center arena in San Francisco, seen from Thrive City in May 2025
Chase Center in San Francisco, photographed from Thrive City in May 2025. Photo: 9yz / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Oakland singer Goapele sings the national anthem before Game 1 of the WNBA Finals today at Chase Center, Rita Moreno bangs the pregame drum, and San Francisco rapper Larry June performs at halftime. For Game 2 on Monday, Alanis Morissette sings the anthem, Too $hort takes the drum and Vallejo rapper LaRussell plays halftime, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Mercury News reported Friday night.

All six have Bay Area ties, and the drum job comes with history: the Valkyries have handed the mallet to guests like Angela Davis, Megan Rapinoe and Eileen Gu to start the "G! S! V!" chant before home games.

The lineup

Pregame and halftime lineup for Games 1 and 2 at Chase Center.
Game 1: Sat. Oct. 17Game 2: Mon. Oct. 19
Tipoff12:30 p.m. PT5 p.m. PT
TVNBC, PeacockUSA Network, CNBC, Peacock
National anthemGoapeleAlanis Morissette
Pregame GSV DrumRita MorenoToo $hort
HalftimeLarry JuneLaRussell

Both games are at Chase Center in San Francisco against the No. 4 Atlanta Dream. The WNBA's Finals preview lists CNBC for Game 2 alongside USA Network and Peacock; the Valkyries' schedule lists USA and Peacock.

Who's performing

Goapele is a Grammy-nominated R&B singer from Oakland. She already has a role with the team: the Valkyries named her to the Valkyries Collective, the group of Bay Area ambassadors the franchise announced before its first season.

Rita Moreno is an EGOT winner, meaning she has won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. The Chronicle describes her as a longtime Berkeley resident.

Larry June is a San Francisco rapper.

Alanis Morissette has lived in the Bay Area for several years, according to the Chronicle. Her 1995 album "Jagged Little Pill" made her a star.

Too $hort is the Oakland rap pioneer. He has done this gig on the other side: the Las Vegas Aces booked him for halftime of Game 2 of the 2023 Finals in Las Vegas. Now he drums for the team that swept the Aces out of the 2026 semifinals.

LaRussell is a rapper from Vallejo.

Why the drum matters at Chase Center

The pregame drum is the Valkyries' signature home-game ritual. A guest swings a mallet at a bass drum, and the crowd answers each hit with a letter: "G! S! V!" The New York Times described Angela Davis doing it in 2025. Megan Rapinoe took a turn in the team's first season, and Olympic skier Eileen Gu banged it at the 2026 home opener, according to the team's own announcement. Giving the first two Finals drum slots to Moreno and Too $hort keeps the ritual in local hands.

The crowd they'll play to

The Valkyries have sold out every home game they have played, NBC Bay Area reported. Full Court Buckets' playoff attendance data shows the same thing in numbers: all four Valkyries home playoff games this year drew a reported 18,064, the largest reported crowds of the 2026 playoffs so far.

Two more sellouts at that figure would put 36,128 in the books before the series leaves San Francisco. The record for a full Finals series is 92,599, set over five games in 2024. Our WNBA Finals attendance tracker updates after each game; under its default assumptions, this series would need at least six games to pass that mark.

Tickets have not been cheap. Bay City News reported Friday that the lowest Game 1 price on Ticketmaster's resale market was over $250, and KQED listed Game 1 seats from $223 to more than $1,300. All fans at Game 1 get a violet "This is Ballhalla" T-shirt, the team says.

The series

This is the Valkyries' first Finals, in their second season, and the team says no other franchise has reached the Finals that fast. Golden State went 32-12, beat Dallas 2-1 in the first round and swept the defending champion Aces.

Atlanta comes in on a franchise-best 10-game winning streak. The Dream swept Washington and New York, and they went 30-14 in the regular season. Atlanta was also the league's previous expansion team before Golden State, and it went 4-30 in its 2008 debut, according to the Valkyries' preview. The Dream have reached the Finals three times before (2010, 2011 and 2013) and were swept each time, per WNBA.com.

Golden State won all three regular-season meetings, but the last one was July 4, before Atlanta added DeWanna Bonner. Dream guard Allisha Gray missed the last two semifinal games with a left-hand injury and was listed day-to-day this week.

After Monday, the series moves to State Farm Arena in Atlanta for Game 3 (Wed. Oct. 21, 5 p.m. PT) and Game 4 (Sat. Oct. 24, 10 a.m. PT). Games 5 and 7, if needed, return to Chase Center. The Valkyries are hosting $25 watch parties inside Chase Center for the road games.

The lineup also circulated on TikTok Friday, including in a video from NBC Bay Area reporter Alyssa Goard (@alyssamgoard).

Attendance figures come from Full Court Buckets' own compiled data.

Sources

Performer lineup

Team and league

Local and national reporting

FCB data

How this story was made: drafted with AI tools from the sources linked above, then reviewed and edited by Ryan Moalemi. How we make Full Court Buckets

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