The Golden State Warriors have established themselves as one of the most successful teams of all time already. They have 6 championships in their history, with the last three coming under the current ownership. Owner Joe Lacob has been dedicating a lot of time to helping the Warriors become bigger than ever, and that includes fully funding the construction of the Chase Center a couple of seasons ago.
Most cities usually pay for the construction of a stadium or contribute to it, but the Chase Center was built completely using private capital from the owners, not taking money from the state for it. They could have relocated the team away from San Francisco to get a city to pay for it, but wanted to be loyal to the Bay Area fans.
Lacob opened up on the challenges they have faced in building that stadium and creating a perennially competitive team in the Golden State:
"Every single night, I get chills when I walk into the arena. I literally get chills."@DaltonJ_Johnson asks Joe Lacob if his vision for Chase Center is coming to fruition. pic.twitter.com/6vzOk5xMW5
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) May 31, 2022
“Personally, I’m just as proud of Chase Center — personally, now — as I am with this team,” Lacob said. “I can’t even tell you how hard this was to get done. It took seven years, and in this city, it’s probably harder than any other city to do it. And as you know, it’s all been ballyhooed, it was all private money. Which, to be honest with you, I’m proud of. We didn’t have to take money away from police and firefighters and so many social services. I think we’re all proud of that.” (h/t NBC Sports)
The Chase Center is a state-of-the-art basketball arena that the Warriors started playing in for the 2019-20 season, the year they went 15-50. COVID restricted access to the arena for fans, but seats are regularly sold out nowadays as the home fans get to enjoy yet another NBA Finals run with home court.
Home court used to be the iconic Oracle Arena, but this will be the Warriors first NBA Finals run with the Chase Center as their home.
