It is an adage that has stood the test of time – where there is smoke, there is fire. No pun intended.
Apparently, all of those departures over the offseason for the Connecticut Sun were linked to one primary issue regarding the organization – an upcoming sale of the franchise.
According to a report from Sportico, the Sun have hired the investment firm Allen & Company to explore a potential sale of the franchise – one that has been in Connecticut since 2003 after relocating from Orlando as the Miracle. The investment firm hired is the same firm that was tapped by the WNBA to handle its expansion efforts.
It has been suggested that the sale will also include a potential relocation of the Sun franchise as well.
In a sense, we should have seen this coming – in fact, many of us did. In today’s era of WNBA where the expectation is for owners to invest big money into team facilities, this will surely price out any owners unwilling to keep up with the Joneses – no Jonquel or Brionna.
If the Mohegan Tribe was unwilling to put up that money – and it appears it is attempting to cut back on overall operations – then it would have been unfair for Sun players to endure substandard conditions solely for the sake of fielding a team.
As valuable (and progressive) as it has been to have a Native American ownership group in the W, having a team practice at a local recreational facility prior to a playoff game is not going to cut it in today’s WNBA that is all about big money for team facilities.
Sun players deserve the top-notch investment from its team that players for the New York Liberty, Las Vegas Aces, Minnesota Lynx, Seattle Storm and Phoenix Mercury have benefitted from. If a sale is the only way to facilitate that, then so it shall be.
But as much as current and future players may benefit from a sale, it would come at the expense at the potential departure of the WNBA from a state in Connecticut that is one of the most passionate basketball locales in the country. This is especially the case for women’s basketball as evidenced by the continued success of Geno Auriemma’s UConn Huskies – the most recent of national champions.
Connecticut is also a state that is a jilted one in terms of professional sports. Many residents in the Constitution State still are smarting from when the NHL’s Hartford Whalers relocated south and became the Carolina Hurricanes.
Most of Connecticut (an Xfinity-dominant state in terms of cable) has more television access to Boston’s teams via NESN or NBC Sports Boston than to New York’s teams via YES Network, SNY or MSG. West of Hartford, one may find more hats and jerseys of Gotham’s teams but that becomes more Beantown-friendly the more east one goes in the state. The Sun have given Connecticut a professional sports identity in similar fashion to how the Whalers did – that is why this will hit extremely hard if the Sun does indeed set in the Nutmeg State.
The cold, hard reality is the WNBA is entering an era where television money (and, by proxy, television markets) will become a bigger element of the league going forward. Connecticut is currently the smallest market in the WNBA and current or future owners would benefit a lot more if the Sun were in a bigger market – such as nearby Boston.
Boston has been speculated by many a pundit as the move for the Sun that would make the most sense. It is a bigger market, a passionate hoops city and has an arena in TD Garden (which seats nearly 20,000) that is much more easily accessible than Mohegan Sun Arena (which seats 10,000) is in Uncasville.
Also, a relocation to Boston would allow the franchise (which would also likely undergo another brand name change since “Sun” is based on its Mohegan Sun ownership) to keep its New England fanbase that has been cultivated in Connecticut for the past several years. In addition, a prospective Boston ownership group would almost certainly have the money to invest in facilities and its franchise valuation would certainly increase from the reported $80 million the team is worth because, you know…Boston.
Perhaps a relocated team keeps its orange (as an homage to the Sun) and blue (as an homage to the Orlando Miracle) colors while also adding a dash of green (Boston Celtics) to its new color scheme. Hint, hint.
It has also been suggested that a prospective ownership group seeking to find its way into the WNBA’s ranks via expansion could decide to take a try at purchasing the Sun. The existence of the Connecticut Sun is the only thing keeping Boston out of the expansion chat for now. If that scenario were to happen where the Sun were to relocate to a city such as Houston, Cleveland, Charlotte, Denver or Philadelphia, then Boston vaults to the top of the expansion conversation.
As exciting as it would be for the Sun to be taken to the next level with a sale and possible relocation, it would also be a watershed moment for the WNBA. In many ways, Connecticut was the little engine (Alyssa Thomas) that could. It held its own against teams from bigger markets, cultivated a passionate fanbase in a basketball-friendly state and proved that a team did not have to reside in Boston proper or metro-Boston (see the NFL’s New England Patriots) to win in professional sports. The support of the Mohegan Tribe paid dividends as well.
Mohegan Sun Arena hosted All-Star Games. It hosted WNBA Drafts. Connecticut has been extremely integral to the history of the WNBA. In many ways, it laid the groundwork for where the W is today.
But Natasha Cloud at a recent Liberty press conference remarked that New York “saved” her after the team engineered a deal to bring her out of Connecticut and to Atlantic and Flatbush. That did not reflect well on the Sun and was a strong hint that the Mohegan Tribe’s time in the WNBA may have come to a screeching halt.
One other element of this news that is anything but lost on us is how it broke. The news broke because someone gave the scoop to Kurt Badenhausen and Eben Novy-Williams at Sportico. It is emblematic, in many ways, of the era of WNBA we are currently in with more media attention and fan interest.
The last time there was speculation about a possible sale and relocation of a team was following the 2017 season when the San Antonio Stars were sold by Spurs Sports & Entertainment to MGM Resorts International and relocated to Las Vegas to become the Aces.
Other franchises have undergone ownership transfers since then as well – including the Liberty, Atlanta Dream, Phoenix Mercury and, most recently, the Minnesota Lynx. The Aces also underwent a transfer of ownership as well from MGM Resorts to Mark Davis. None of those ownership changes resulted in franchise relocation.
For those that remember the Stars-to-Aces developments, that news was not known to the larger public until the time that the ink was dry on the deal. The t’s were crossed and the I’s were dotted by the time we knew the Stars were heading west from the Alamo City to Sin City.
With this Connecticut news, we basically know at the outset that a deal is set to take place. If that is not a symbol of how the WNBA’s media landscape has changed from 2017 to 2025, we do not know what is.
One massive con of this development is it is now going to become a potentially big distraction for the Sun’s current roster (including Tina Charles, Marina Mabrey, Aneesah Morrow, Saniya Rivers and Diamond DeShields) as well as first-year head coach Rachid Meziane. The 2025 season just became one where what happens on the court with Connecticut may be secondary to the real story – if the team has been sold and if it will depart from Uncasville.
This may be a good or bad thing considering the Sun are expected to struggle for much of 2025 after losing practically its entire 2024 team during the offseason.
But a franchise can only endure so much postseason heartbreak for so long (see 2019 against the Washington Mystics and 2022 vs. the Aces). Add in the factor of a WNBA landscape where bigger budgets and plush team facilities are queen and it creates a climate where the Sun are preparing to hit the reset button on their franchise.
Connecticut has a reputation in basketball circles of being the Doc Rivers of the WNBA – without the “anything’s possible” moment ala the 2008 version of the Celtics which had Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo as its nucleus. The Sun had good enough teams these past few years with Curt Miller and Stephanie White as head coaches. It had players such as Alyssa Thomas, DeWanna Bonner, Jonquel Jones and DiJonai Carrington call Connecticut home.
But even if the Sun were successful in winning simply one of those championships, we may not be at this point where we are talking about Connecticut departing ala the Whalers.
Instead, we are talking about a franchise that may have a tinge of “what if” attached to it (if this is indeed the end for the Sun in the Constitution State). This also must come by recognizing that the W’s story cannot be completely written without acknowledging what the Sun – and Connecticut as a whole – laid the groundwork in catapulting this league to new heights.
