A sellout crowd of 9,170 filled the Mohegan Sun Arena for game 3 of the WNBA championship series in 2019.
We tend to think that professional sports teams are ours, colleagues in our communities. Their players become our friends and neighbors. Teams embed themselves into the fabric of our lives as they strive to become the best organization they can be by winning games, divisions and hopefully championships.
But in the end, professional sports franchises are assets for the uber rich to do with as they please.
In 1997, the Hartford Whalers hockey team left Connecticut because their owner, Peter Karamanos, wanted to make more money that he felt he could in the Nutmeg State. So, he broke the promise he had made when purchasing the team (keep them in state for at least 4 seasons) and moved them to North Carolina.
In 1995, the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams moved to St. Louis for a better playing facility and opportunity to make more money. Twenty years later in 2015, they moved back to Los Angeles for the same reason.
Cities build new facilities to poach teams from other cities, a civic arms race that leaves the city and states left behind with empty, older facilities and debt.
In 1998 with the sting of the Whalers’ departure still fresh, the New England Patriots and owner Robert Kraft signed a deal with Connecticut Gov. John Rowland and the state of Connecticut to build a new publicly-funded stadium and bring the Patriots to Hartford. In the end, it was leverage to get the state of Massachusetts to help Kraft finance a new stadium in Foxboro.
The state once had a women’s pro hockey team, the Connecticut Whale, that played in Danbury, North Branford and Stamford before finding a home in Simsbury in 2023.
But a group of investors led by Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter bought the entire Premier Hockey Federation and shut down every team to form a new women’s hockey league – the Professional Women’s Hockey League. The Walter Cup is awarded to the league champion at the end of the season.
So, Saturday’s report in the Boston Globe that the Mohegan Tribe has agreed to sell the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun to a group of investors led by Boston Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca for $325 million is disappointing for Connecticut Sun fans and sports fans in the state.
But it isn’t particularly surprising.
When word came out on the eve of Connecticut’s 23rd season in Uncasville that the Mohegan Tribe had hired an investment bank to explore the sale of the franchise, it was a sign.
The tribe, the first non-NBA owner of a WNBA team, purchased the Orlando Miracle in 2003 for $10 million and moved it to Uncasville, renaming them as the Sun.
However, with the recent surge in popularity of the league, in part due to Indiana’s Caitlyn Clark, there is a demand for teams in the league. According to published reports, the Golden State Warriors paid $50 million for an expansion franchise in 2023, a group in Toronto paid $115 million and a group in Portland will pay $125 million for the right to join the league.
In late June, the WNBA announced three more expansion teams. Ownership groups in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia will pay a reported expansion fee of $250 million each to join the league.
Golden State began play in the WNBA this year. Toronto and Portland will begin operation in 2026 with Cleveland (2028), Detroit (2029) and Philadelphia (2030) set to join before the end of the decade.
Blaze, the Sun’s mascot ,races around the court with a Sun flag.
Saturday’s report in the Globe said that Pagliuca’s group would reportedly pay $325 million, a record for a women’s professional franchise. And they would contribute another $100 million toward a dedicated practice facility in Boston.
For the tribe, that’s quite a return on a $10 million investment made nearly a quarter century ago.
Around the league, there has been an arms race in terms of practice facilities. The Sun practice in the Mohegan Sun Arena or the Tribal Practice Facility, part of the Mohegan Community and Government Center.
Las Vegas was the first WNBA team to open a dedicated practice facility for their team with a $40 million, 64,000 square foot facility in 2023. Phoenix opened a $100 million, 58,000-square foot facility in 2023, Chicago plans to build a $38 million, 40,000-square foot facility to open in 2026 and New York has announced plans to construct a $80 million, 75,000 square facility in Brooklyn.
But the Sun don’t have exclusive use of the practice facility. That became apparent during the 2024 WNBA playoffs when the team had to share the facilities with a birthday party.
There have been no public announcements at this time on plans to upgrade practice facilities by the tribe.
A potential sale must be approved by the WNBA and its board of governors.
According to the Globe’s Gary Washburn, the WNBA said in a statement that “relocation decisions are made by the WNBA Board of Governors and not by individual teams.”
According to Washburn’s statement from the WNBA, other cities that participated in the expansion process have priority over Boston at this time.
“As part of our most recent expansion process, in which three new franchises were awarded to Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia on June 30, 2025, nine additional cities also applied for WNBA teams and remain under active consideration,” the WNBA statement said. “No groups from Boston applied for a team at that time and those other cities remain under consideration based on the extensive work they did as part of the expansion process and currently have priority over Boston.”
Proposed sales of teams have been blocked but it isn’t common. In 2013, the NBA blocked the sale of the Sacramento franchise that wanted to move the team to Seattle.
But the reality is that the Mohegan tribe wants to sell the team. A group from Boston wants it. It might take a while but it’s probably going to happen.
Fans of the Sun are disappointed. Watching the best players in the world from the cozy Mohegan Sun Arena might be a thing of the past.
Looking back, the tribe shouldn’t have fallen so far behind their WNBA competitors with facilities and other perks.
But in the end, these are business decisions made by people, groups and corporations with more money than most of us will ever see.
Legendary WNBA star Diana Taurasi of Phoenix, who won three NCAA championships with UConn, always received a rousing cheer during pre-game introductions at the Mohegan Sun Arena.
For nearly 25 years, the Sun and the WNBA brought thousands and thousands of fans to their casino complex in Uncasville. The Sun played in four WNBA finals and the league hosted the WNBA All-Star game in Uncasville four times from 2005 through 2015 along with an exhibition in 2010 between Team USA and a group of WNBA All-Stars.
Wasn’t that part of the business model for the Sun? Get people to Uncasville and into the building?
It’s why the Mohegan Tribe once owned an Arena Football League team (Mohegan Wolves) and an professional indoor lacrosse team (New England Black Wolves) for six seasons. It’s why the Mohegan Sun has hosted the CIAC boys and girls basketball championship games since 2009.
The Sun have been an outstanding member of the Connecticut community, a champion of the Mohegan Tribe and equal rights for all. I love the latest Sun uniforms that highlight the Mohegan Tribe and native American imagery with Keesusk, the Mohegan word for sun.
What about that Connecticut sports fan?
We’ve had the opportunity to taste major league athletic competition with the Whalers and the Sun. Even before the Sun, we had the New England Blizzard in Hartford as part of the American Basketball League, which had WNBA-level talent.
We still have the Travelers Championship, the only PGA Tour event in New England. It’s a PGA Tour signature event with no cut, ensuring that the top golfers that attend will play all four rounds at the TPC-River Highlands. We will probably have the Sun for another season (2026).
We have the Hartford Yard Goats, the Double A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies, at Dunkin’ Park, a stadium that continue to win awards for an outstanding venue to watch professional basketball. There is the Hartford Athletic, a USL Championship level pro soccer team. It’s the next level down from Major League Soccer.
There is UConn and the men’s basketball and women’s basketball teams that contend annually for national championships and the rest of the Huskies programs that are top level Division I teams.
Enjoy it while you can. Be proud and root for your favorite teams and players. But don’t take it for granted. You never know when it will disappear.
