Golden State Warriors

The Golden State Warriors are one of the NBA’s most famous franchises, but their roots go back to the other side of the country. Founded in Philadelphia in 1946 as the Philadelphia Warriors, the team was named after a Native American-themed logo from the old Philadelphia Warriors basketball club of the 1920s. They won the first-ever Basketball Association of America championship. In 1962, the franchise moved west to San Francisco, carrying the “Warriors” name with it, and by 1971 they broadened their identity to “Golden State” — representing not just one city but the entire state of California.

The Warriors’ badge today features the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco’s most iconic landmark. Opened in 1937, the bridge is both a feat of engineering and a symbol of the city itself: a bold gateway connecting San Francisco to Marin County and the wider Pacific Coast. Its art deco towers and sweeping cables made it instantly recognisable, and by placing it on their badge, the Warriors tied their identity to the place they now call home. Building the bridge was itself a triumph: its 4,200-foot main span was the longest in the world at the time, its towers rose higher than any in suspension bridge history, and its cables — spun from 80,000 miles of steel wire — were thicker than a man’s torso. It was proof that San Francisco could defy fog, tide, and earthquake risk to create one of the modern world’s engineering marvels.

That history is one of upheaval and ambition. San Francisco was a sleepy Spanish mission settlement until the Gold Rush of 1849, when thousands of prospectors, the famous “forty-niners,” flooded into the city. It exploded overnight into a bustling port of global trade, its hills filled with tents, banks, and saloons. Later came waves of Chinese, Italian, Irish, and Mexican immigrants, each adding to the city’s culture. The 1906 earthquake and fire nearly destroyed it, but San Francisco rebuilt, stronger and more modern, and by the 20th century it had become a centre of finance, shipping, and progressive politics. By the 21st, it was joined across the Bay by the tech powerhouses of Silicon Valley, making the region one of the world’s hubs of wealth and innovation.

The Warriors’ own story is just as transformative. In the early decades they had stars like Wilt Chamberlain, who scored 100 points in a single game while still with the Philadelphia Warriors. In San Francisco, they built new legacies with Rick Barry, who led them to the 1975 NBA Championship. After lean years, the team rose again in the 2010s with Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and later Kevin Durant, redefining basketball with their three-point shooting and small-ball style. Between 2015 and 2022, the Warriors won four NBA titles, cementing themselves as one of the league’s greatest dynasties.

Their home today, the Chase Center, opened in 2019, anchors San Francisco’s Mission Bay waterfront, but their badge remains the bridge. It reminds fans that the Warriors belong to the Bay Area as a whole: Oakland, where they played for nearly 50 years at Oracle Arena; San Francisco, their new home; and the entire region whose communities and cultures they represent.

The Golden State Warriors are more than a basketball team. They are the echoes of the Gold Rush, the resilience of a rebuilt city, the cables of a bridge spanning a bay, and the swish of a Curry three-pointer. Their badge, the Golden Gate Bridge, is a statement that this is the Bay’s team — strong, ambitious, and always reaching forward.