Has the WNBA outgrown the Uncasville market?
The future of Connecticut’s only big league franchise, the Women’s National Basketball Association’s Connecticut Sun is in question. The ownership of the franchise, the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, according to Sportico, has hired the investment bank Allen and Company to explore the potential sale of the team. The Connecticut Sun franchise entered the WNBA in 2003 when the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority purchased the team for $10 million. Sportico has placed an $80 million value on the franchise. The cost of purchasing a WNBA team has skyrocketed in the past few years.
The Connecticut Sun franchise plays its games at an arena on the Mohegan Sun 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, Connecticut 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. There is no corporate support or real TV market for the franchise. Just because there is a report that the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority has hired an investment bank to possibly investigate a sale doesn’t mean that the team will be sold or possibly relocated. But if the franchise does get onto the market, there would be potential buyers from around the United States, including St Louis, Kansas City, Austin, Jacksonville, Nashville, Philadelphia, Detroit, Houston, Miami, Denver, Charlotte and Milwaukee. But the Sun franchise is not for sale yet.
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Connecticut Sun
