The past two summers, sold-out WNBA games at TD Garden were steeped in a feeling of hope for the future of women’s basketball in Boston.
That future seems further away than ever.
When the Connecticut Sun hosted the Los Angeles Sparks at the Garden’s first WNBA game in 2024, team president Jennifer Rizzotti used it as an opportunity to bill the Sun as a team for the entire region.
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“We want to make sure that people know that just like the New England Patriots — even the Celtics, even though they’re called the Boston Celtics, they’re celebrated throughout New England,” she told the Globe at the time. “We want to continue this proud tradition of champions throughout the New England states.”
This time last year, there was brief optimism that former Celticsminorityowner Steve Pagliuca might close a deal to purchase the Sun and move the team to Boston. But the WNBA quashed that plan in a hurry and later approved the sale of the franchise to Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta for a reported $300 million. He plans to relocate the team to Houston at the conclusion of the 2026 season.
On Tuesday, the Sun host the Sparks at the Garden (7 p.m., NBC Sports Boston) as part of their sunset season.
And it could be a long time before New England sees the WNBA again.
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The WNBA added two expansion teams this season — Toronto and Portland — and will grow by three more teams by 2030, expanding the league’s footprint to 18 markets.
Boston, one of the marquee sports cities in North America, is not one of them.
Cleveland rejoins the league in 2028. Detroit will begin play in 2029, followed by Philadelphia in 2030. Each franchise reportedly paid a league-record $250 million expansion fee.
The common thread among those three teams: a strong connection to NBA ownership. Celtics owner Bill Chisholm seems ready to offer a similar arrangement to bring the WNBA in Boston — when the time is right.
“I think Boston should have a team,” Chisholm said during his introductory press conference last 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 I know the NBA has a process, we’ll do what we can to expedite things, but there is a process there. But philosophically it makes so much sense.”
When the door for expansion opens back up, Chisholm seems ready to walk through it. And the WNBA seems to feel the same way.
Speaking to a group of reporters ahead of a Portland Fire-Las Vegas Aces game in June, commissioner Cathy Engelbert said she expects our region to get a team in the future.
“Great fan base,” Engelbert said. “New England is a great market for sports. So, yeah, do I foresee in the 2030s — if we were to do expansion again — them being part of the process, that region? Yes.”
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That’s a half-decade away — at least. When asked by the Globe, the league declined to comment on timing for the next round of expansion.
“The WNBA is incredibly appreciative of the passionate fans across New England who have supported the Connecticut Sun, our league, and women’s basketball for decades,” the league said in a statement. “The passion we’ve seen from fans across the region — including in recent years at TD Garden — reflects the meaningful connection this community has built with the Sun and the WNBA.”
Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever played in front of a sold-out crowd at TD Garden last year.
Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever played in front of a sold-out crowd at TD Garden last year.
That connection is coming to an end, and Boston can only sit back and watch the WNBA’s most prosperous era pass us by.
The league has exceeded its viewership from last season, and attendance in 2026 was up 16 percent at last month’s All-Star break.
Prior to this season, the league and its players union reached a landmark collective bargaining agreement that guarantees players nearly 20 percent of league and team gross revenue, and the salary cap jumped nearly fivefold to $7 million.
The average WNBA team is worth $427 million, according to Sportico’s valuations — a 59 percent jump year over year.
By the time expansion does roll around, the WNBA could look completely different. That’s why Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, who played college basketball at Harvard and professionally in Austria, has lobbied to bring a team to New England as soon as possible.
“I don’t want to wait. I don’t want Boston or New England to have to wait that long,” Healey told the Globe last summer.
With the addition of the NWSL’s Boston Legacy this season, every major North American professional sports league, men’s and women’s, includes a New England team.
But that fact will be true only for one more month.
After Tuesday’s game at TD Garden, just four home games remain in the Sun’s final regular season before this era of women’s basketball in New England comes to a close.
When the Sun sets in Connecticut, the WNBA and New England will both be missing out.