Warriors considering name change

The Golden State Warriors plan to seek input from fans about possibly changing their name after announcing this week they bought 12 acres of land in the Mission Bay district of San Francisco in hopes of building a new arena.

“We’re very curious what our fans think of that,” team president and CEO Rick Welts told ESPN.com. “I couldn’t imagine making that decision in the very near future, but we definitely want to see what our fans prefer.”

The team currently plays at Oracle Arena in Oakland.

The franchise will remain the Warriors, but is considering changing Golden State to San Francisco. The team has been the Warriors since its founding in Philadelphia in 1946. It was known as the San Francisco Warriors from 1962-71 after moving to the city and Golden State Warriors after relocating to Oakland.

The Warriors plan to move into a new arena before the 2018-19 season.

“We’re spending a lot of time with the facility itself to do everything possible to replicate what we think is a really special atmosphere for our games at Oracle,” Welts said.

“The first assignment we gave the architects was to make sure that every seat in the new building is as close or closer than the comparable seat at Oracle. We’re doing that by actually making the building smaller. We’re going from 19,000 seats to 18,000 seats.”

Oracle is the oldest arena in the NBA.

Welts also said the Warriors promised that every employee at Oracle will be able to transfer their job to the new San Francisco venue and that season-ticket holders will be guaranteed seats.