After a bid to move the Connecticut Sun to Boston fell through this summer, the WNBA franchise could be leaving New England entirely.
The Houston Rockets’ ownership group is in “substantive talks” with the Sun “over the potential purchase and relocation” of the team, ESPN’s Alexa Philippou and Ramona Shelburne reported Friday.
A formal offer has been discussed but not finalized, per the report, and “there has not been a decision on the future of the franchise.”
The Sun, who are owned by the Mohegan Tribe, have played at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., since 2003. Houston has not been home to a WNBA team since the Comets, winners of the league’s first four championships, folded in 2008.
Former Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca reached an agreement in August to buy the Sun for a reported $325 million, move the team to TD Garden in 2027 and build a $100 million practice facility in the Boston area.
The WNBA stonewalled that proposal, however, saying at the time that the league must approve all relocations and that “nine additional cities … currently have priority over Boston” because they applied for teams during the most recent expansion process and Boston did not. Approved expansion teams in Portland, Toronto, Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia are set to debut in the next five years.
“Relocation decisions are made by the WNBA Board of Governors and not by individual teams,” the league said in a statement in August.
Pagluica acknowledged in his own statement that his plan — which included endorsements from Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey and Rhode Island Gov. Daniel McKee — “cannot proceed without” WNBA approval, which it did not receive.
“We will respect, cooperate with, and abide by all league rules and decisions on these matters,” he said in August.
New Celtics majority owner Bill Chisholm, whose group beat out Pagliuca’s in the bidding war for Boston’s NBA franchise, has expressed interest in bringing a WNBA team to the city in the future.
“First of all, I think Boston should have a team,” Chisholm said in his introductory news conference in September. “This is the best sports city in the country, and this is the birthplace of basketball, so we should have a team. … It’s definitely something we’re going to look at, and the NBA has a process. We’ll do what we can to expedite things, but this is a process there. But philosophically, it makes so much sense.”
In its statement rebuffing Pagliuca’s offer, the WNBA said Chisholm’s ownership group had “reached out to the league office and asked that Boston receive strong consideration for a WNBA franchise at the appropriate time.”
The Sun played games at TD Garden in 2024 and 2025, selling out both.