The Golden State Warriors have scheduled a news conference for 1 p.m. ET where they are expected to announce plans to move the franchise from Oakland to San Francisco later this decade.
A press release called it “a major announcement,” with San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Warriors Co-Chairs Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, and NBA commissioner David Stern in attendance.
A report in the San Francisco Chronicle has the details, with the Warriors planning to move to a waterside site in the shadow of the Bay Bridge and the owners building a new facility with no taxpayer money.
The site is Piers 30-32, where Oracle CEO Larry Ellison wanted to build a new arena when he was entertaining the possibility of buying the Warriors. It is a tough location to break ground, as the piers are said to be in bad shape and need $100 million in renovations before construction of the new facility can even begin.
The Warriors’ current lease at Oracle Arena in Oakland expires in 2017, and that is the target date for the move. Lacob and Guber have said they are trying to raise the profile of the Warriors and make the team an attractive landing spot for free agents.
When the Warriors moved west from Philadelphia in 1962, they first settled in San Francisco. Four years later, they moved into the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena – now known as Oracle Arena – but continued to call themselves the San Francisco Warriors.
In 1971, they changed their name to the Golden State Warriors. They won their lone championship since the move west in 1975 and have made the playoffs just once since 1994.