The WNBA would rather not see the uncasville franchise head to Boston.
There was a report that the Women’s National Basketball Association’s Connecticut Sun franchise was being sold to one of the owners of the National Basketball Association’s Boston Celtics franchise, Steve Pagliuca, for $325 million and that business would be moved to Boston. Hold on, not so fast as there are now reports that no deal has been executed. Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont is trying to keep the team in Uncasville at the Mohegan Sun casino. Lamont might have a buyer who would keep the team playing at the casino’s arena. Uncasville is 45 miles from Hartford, 49 miles from New Haven and 60 miles from Providence, Rhode Island. Uncasville has the casino but no major companies or TV market as it really is too far from three of New England’s biggest cities.
There is no deal but WNBA officials slammed the concept of an individual team ownership attempting to sell the business without its approval. The league released an extraordinary statement which seemed to border on temper tantrum. “Relocation decisions are made by the WNBA Board of Governors and not by individual teams. As part of our most recent expansion process, in which three new franchises were awarded to Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia on June 30th, 2025, nine additional cities also applied for WNBA teams and remain under active consideration. 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. Celtics’ prospective owner Bill Chisholm has also reached out to the league office and asked that Boston receive strong consideration for a WNBA franchise at the appropriate time.” But business is business. It seems the Suns’ business owners want out of the WNBA. There will be more to come.
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