Municipalities normally do not buy into pro sports franchises.
The saga of the sale of the Women’s National Basketball Association’s Connecticut Sun franchise has taken yet another turn. The state of Connecticut wants to buy a minority share of the business. Whether people who live in Connecticut want to buy into a professional sports business is unknown but Connecticut elected officials think by buying into the business, the business will remain in Connecticut. The WNBA’s franchise owner in Uncasville put its property up for sale and apparently had a deal in place to sell the property to Boston interests who want to put the team in the Massachusetts capital in 2027. But the WNBA team owners, who seem to have been investing in a floundering proposition until about 18 months ago, decided to flex their collective muscle and said Boston was not on an approved list of franchise cities nor is Hartford, Connecticut. The state is trying to figure out a way that the WNBA Connecticut Sun franchise remains in the state with Hartford being a viable alternative.
Hartford is 43 miles to the north and west of Uncasville where the Sun’s business is located. Connecticut would also build a practice facility for the team. The league had a temper tantrum over the proposed sale. “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. The saga continues.
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