The franchise will relocate to Houston.
The future of Connecticut’s only big league franchise, the Women’s National Basketball Association’s Connecticut Sun seems to have been settled. The franchise reportedly is moving to Houston in 2027 which means the team will be in a lame duck situation in 2026. The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority reached a deal to sell the business to a group led by Tilman Fertitta for a reported $300 million. Fertitta owns the National Basketball Association Houston Rockets franchise. The Connecticut Sun franchise entered the WNBA in 2003 when the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority purchased the Orlando team for $10 million and moved the business to Uncasville.
The Connecticut Sun franchise has played its games at an arena on the Mohegan Sun casino grounds which seats around 9,300 people. The arena books high end concerts and people such as Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, Taylor Swift, Jennifer Lopez, Jay Z, Keith Urban, Bon Jovi and Kenny Chesney have performed at the venue. The arena has also hosted championship boxing bouts as well as wrestling and MMA matches. But the venue is in Uncasville, which is a town of around 18,000 people. Uncasville has no big population markets nearby. Hartford is 45 miles northwest. Providence, Rhode Island is 60 miles east. Uncasville is about 130 miles northeast of New York and Boston is about 110 miles to the northeast. The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority tried to sell the business to a Boston Celtics partner, Bill Chisholm, the league blocked the sale and a move to Boston because Chisholm jumped the line and Houston investors were interested in a WNBA franchise. The WNBA added three teams in 2025, Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia as 2028, 2029 and 2030 expansion franchises. Boston investors never approached the league about purchasing an expansion franchise. Houston had a WNBA team between 1997 and 2008.
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