{"id":476571,"date":"2025-12-28T06:50:33","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T06:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/476571\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T06:50:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T06:50:33","slug":"connecticut-sun-not-at-the-finish-line-on-franchise-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/476571\/","title":{"rendered":"Connecticut Sun not ‘at the finish line’ on franchise sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

UNCASVILLE \u2014 An investment group led by billionaire Marc Lasry, a former owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, is attempting to compete with an ownership group from Boston to buy the Connecticut Sun<\/a>, a source with knowledge of the negotiations told The Courant.<\/p>\n

The group led by Lasry would keep the team in Connecticut, with a home at PeoplesBank Arena<\/a> in Hartford. The Hartford group\u2019s bid also exceeds $300 million and includes plans to construct a new dedicated practice facility for the team. The Mohegan Tribe had a period of exclusivity to sell to the Boston group, led by Celtics minority governor Steve Pagliuca, which has since expired, so both offers remain on the table.<\/p>\n

The Boston Globe first reported<\/a> on Saturday that the Mohegan Tribe reached an agreement to sell the Sun to the Pagliuca\u2019s group, which aims to relocate the team to Boston as soon as 2027.<\/p>\n

Pagliuca\u2019s group would pay $325 million to purchase the Sun with plans to invest an additional $100 million to build the team a dedicated practice facility in Boston. The sale would be the largest in the history of women\u2019s professional sports. The Mohegan Tribe spent approximately $10 million to relocate the franchise in 2003.<\/p>\n

But Sun president Jennifer Rizzotti made clear Sunday that the team has not been officially sold.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a thorough process, and we\u2019re not quite at the finish line yet,\u201d Rizzotti said. \u201cBut thinking about where this team was and where the league was and the news that has come out across the board in terms of expansion fees and valuations, I\u2019m pretty proud as a team president to think about where our league has come and (of) a $325-plus million valuation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sun can\u2019t be relocated from Connecticut without approval from the WNBA and its Board of Governors, and the Globe reported that the league could force the Mohegan Tribe to sell to an in-state buyer. The WNBA also put out a statement Saturday which noted that Boston did not put in a bid during the league\u2019s most recent round of expansion and said nine bid cities that did not receive franchises \u201ccurrently have priority over Boston.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Connecticut Sun to remain at Mohegan Sun in 2026 as ownership evaluates strategic investment<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While the buyer is still up in the air, a sale in the near future seems inevitable. Rizzotti said the Mohegan Tribe understands that it is struggling to compete with owners that have deeper pockets, particularly as multi-million dollar practice facilities become the standard around the league. Players are also entering the WNBA with larger fanbases and personal brands than ever before, and Rizzotti recognizes the difficulty in attracting young talent to the league\u2019s smallest market.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tribe thought that Connecticut would be a great place for the WNBA, and they were right, and they invested in this team in so many different ways before it was popular,\u201d Rizzotti said. \u201cHave they gotten passed by? They know that in some ways \u2026 If you\u2019re 22 coming out of college and you\u2019re considering your brand and considering your opportunities in a major market, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a slight on playing at Mohegan or in Connecticut, but I\u2019m sure there\u2019s a preference that they want to be in a market that\u2019s bigger and where they\u2019d be able to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rizzotti has personally met with multiple prospective buyers throughout the tribe\u2019s strategic review of investment that began in the spring, and she cited the Sun\u2019s one-off games at TD Garden as a strong argument for adding a WNBA presence in Boston. The team sold out more than 19,000 seats at the Celtics\u2019 arena in each of the last two seasons, against the Los Angeles Sparks in 2024 and against the Indiana Fever in 2025. Massachusetts Governor Maura Healy told the Globe she believes the franchise would make sense in Boston as \u201cthe hub of New England and the place where basketball was invented.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Sun have a passionate existing following in Connecticut, selling out of season tickets this year for the first time in franchise history despite the departure of all five starters from the 2024 roster. The team is also averaging its highest-ever annual attendance of 8,937 fans per game in 2025 amid a 5-22 start to the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasketball is in Connecticut\u2019s blood and folks around here aren\u2019t going to let the Sun go without a fight,\u201d Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam<\/a> said Sunday. \u201cWe have won almost ten times as many basketball championships as Boston has over the past three decades, and we didn\u2019t just get into women\u2019s basketball when Caitlin Clark entered the league. We have had a dedicated women\u2019s basketball fan base for decades, and have shaped the evolution of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Longtime Sun Jenni Trerice was in her usual spot on the railing beside the tunnel ahead of Sunday\u2019s game against the Liberty, just as she is before every game at Mohegan Sun Arena. It\u2019s impossible to miss her hair, dyed bright orange in support of the team, as she greets players and collects autographs on a vintage white jersey that is now as much ink as it is fabric.<\/p>\n

Trerice has only been a Sun season ticket holder since 2024, but she began attending games regularly at 15 years old when the franchise relocated from Orlando to Uncasville in 2003. She underwent heart surgeries as a teenager, and watching her favorite players overcome injuries of their own on the court helped her through the difficulties of managing her disability. Trerice lives more than an hour from the arena in Terryville, but she rarely misses a game or fan event and has developed bonds with generations of Connecticut stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly if they weren\u2019t here, I probably wouldn\u2019t be here,\u201d Trerice said Sunday before the Sun\u2019s game against the New York Liberty<\/a>. \u201cThey got me through everything \u2026 This is what I do in the summer. This is really all I do. I put the little bit of money I have towards this \u2026 It keeps my blood pumping coming here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trerice wasn\u2019t surprised when she saw the reports Saturday. But if Sun do leave Connecticut, Trerice said she\u2019ll likely never attend another game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019d betray me. That would be a traitor to us,\u201d Trerice said. \u201cTaking them out of here doesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coventry resident Christine Pattee held season tickets back in the late 1990s when the American Basketball League<\/a> (ABL) fielded a team in Hartford, the New England Blizzard<\/a>, and she has been attending Sun games since the team\u2019s first year in Uncasville. The 83-year-old superfan played basketball during the days when women were only allowed to compete on half courts, and she said she is thrilled to see the dramatic growth of the sport reflected in Connecticut\u2019s record valuation.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy feeling is, the tribe was supportive when nobody else was, so if they\u2019re getting a financial return after 20 years, then good for them,\u201d Pattee said at Sunday\u2019s game. \u201cThe tribe put money into a basketball team when nobody cared, so if they make a 300% profit or whatever it is on this, good on them. A pair of season tickets were cheap, cheap, cheap back in the day. Now I think my one seat is about $1,300, and I was willing to pay that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Dom Amore: An old, familiar ending, it was inevitable WNBA, CT Sun would be leaving<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

UConn legend Tina Charles was drafted by the Sun in 2013 and has spent five of her 14 WNBA seasons in Connecticut, but the veteran superstar said her first reaction to the franchise\u2019s potential relocation was excitement. Charles has never played a full season for a team that has its own dedicated practice facility, and she said she wants the next generation to experience a higher standard of investment as the norm.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf (relocation) it does go through, \u2026 I\u2019m just thankful it\u2019ll still be in the New England area,\u201d Charles said. \u201cHopefully the fans here are able to make games when their schedule allows if it is (Boston). But I\u2019m just looking forward to the players moving on who will be there to be able to have the resources, to walk into a facility that really reflects what we deserve and what we should have, what our male counterparts have. So kudos to the person who wants to invest and wants to grow the game and keep it in New England.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UNCASVILLE \u2014 An investment group led by billionaire Marc Lasry, a former owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":476572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[3125,2738,2472,7000,46190,7001,215869,728,116389,74269,71615,116390,62,47045,9767,9766,67,132,68,232,3357],"class_list":{"0":"post-476571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-boston-celtics","9":"tag-connecticut","10":"tag-connecticut-sun","11":"tag-ct-news","12":"tag-hartford","13":"tag-hartford-courant","14":"tag-jennifer-rizzotti","15":"tag-local-news","16":"tag-marc-lasry","17":"tag-mohegan-sun-arena","18":"tag-mohegan-tribe","19":"tag-peoplesbank-arena","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-td-garden","22":"tag-uconn-huskies","23":"tag-uconn-womens-basketball","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-wnba","28":"tag-womens-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115795867965515148","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}