The Connecticut Sun drew sold-out crowds for games at TD Garden each of the past two seasons, sparking hopes the city would get a WNBA franchise.
The Connecticut Sun drew sold-out crowds for games at TD Garden each of the past two seasons, sparking hopes the city would get a WNBA franchise.Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
The Connecticut Sun’s ownership saga appears it will end with the WNBA team playing in Houston beginning in the 2027 season.
According to multiple reports, the Fertitta family, owners of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, have reached an agreement to buy the franchise for $300 million and relocate it to Texas for the 2027 season. The Sun, which moved to Connecticut from Orlando in 2003, will played one final year at Mohegan Sun Arena before the move.
With the league’s negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement finally complete, the 2026 WNBA season is scheduled to begin in May.
No official announcement has been made, but the expectation is the franchise will be rechristened the Houston Comets, picking up the name of the city’s former WNBA franchise.
The original Comets won the first four WNBA championships from 1997-2000, but were disbanded amid financial problems in 2008. That left the nation’s fifth-largest metropolitan area without a team, something that the WNBA made no secret it sought to remedy in recent years.
Though the Fertittas and Houston were passed over in the league’s recent rounds of expansion, including last summer, WNBA commissioner Cathy Englebert explicitly noted their efforts.
“They have such a strong history in this league and their great ownership group,” she said. “The Houston Comets were just amazing, won the first four inaugural championships in the WNBA, so I would say that’s the one obviously we have our eye on. Tilman has been a great supporter of the WNBA and we’ll stay tuned on that.”
Two months after those comments, a group led by former Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca reached a reported $325 million deal to buy the Sun from the Mohegan tribe, with the intention to move it to TD Garden. The WNBA balked at the attempt, noting Boston was behind those cities who had gone through the expansion application process.
“A prospective Celtics owner has also reached out to the league office and asked that Boston receive strong consideration for a WNBA franchise at the appropriate time,” the league said in a statement.
Ultimately, the league was unmoved both by Pagliuca’s offer and those seeking to keep the team in Connecticut.