TD Garden has witnessed plenty of historic basketball games. But Tuesday night was unlike anything the Garden’s ever seen.
Instead of the green and white parquet, blue and orange were the home colors on the floor as the Connecticut played host to the Los Angeles Sparks in the first-ever WNBA game in the arena.
The matchup had been in the works for months, but it came at a critical time. The Sun, who won 69 to 61, are striving to solidify themselves as a team for not just Connecticut, but the whole New England region. And the league, which has experienced unprecedented growth in popularity this season — one of its most exciting ever — wants to expand its horizons.
Sun president Jen Rizzotti, fresh off coaching the U.S. women’s 3×3 team to a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics, told GBH News that the current 12 markets for the league aren’t a lot.
“We’re basically saying that you have to travel to one of 12 cities to see a WNBA game,” she said. “I feel like exposing the Connecticut Sun as part of a New England team strategy, it felt natural to us to put a game in Boston and in a bigger arena and allow for more people to be exposed to the WNBA, to the Connecticut Sun and to women’s professional basketball.”
Rizzotti admitted that the team initially didn’t think they could pull in a full crowd, saying that they were maybe hoping to fill the Garden’s lower bowl. But the gamble paid off with a sold-out crowd of 19,156 — the most tickets ever sold for Sun game.
The team had planned a weekend full of events in Boston leading up to the game. That culminated with a block party on Canal Street a few hours ahead of tipoff on Tuesday that showcased just how excited fans were to have a WNBA game at the Garden.
As a DJ blasted hits from down the street and fans put up shots on hoops attached to the ends of a bus, Sun supporters like Ali Haney-Batstone, who is from Nashua, New Hampshire, could feel the energy.
“So, this is a great moment for the WNBA, I’m definitely hoping that eventually they’ll get a WNBA team in Boston,” Haney-Batstone said.
That wish for a Boston team may be at odds with the Sun’s desire to represent New England in the way the Celtics or Patriots do, but Tuesday was as good a chance as any to help foster a fan base outside of Connecticut. And it’s likely to continue. Rizzotti noted that there was no reason for the team to not come back to Boston if they deemed the experience a success.
“The league is growing, there’s plans for us to have more than the 40 games we have this year, so if we can expand into different markets that are close enough for our home fans to be able to attend, I think it’s just kind of good branding for us,” she said.
If drama equals success in a basketball, then Tuesday was about as good of a night as the Sun could have asked for. The shorthanded Sparks made the game interesting down the stretch and Connecticut needed some solid defense and hard-earned rebounds to pull away at the end.
The close game helped make for a playoff-like atmosphere in the Garden with “Beat L.A.” chants breaking out like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were on the court. To make things juicier, Sparks head coach Curt Miller, who previously coached the Sun, got tossed out after he tore into a referee with just over a minute left in the fourth.
The game felt like an instant Boston basketball classic. Afterwards, DiJonai Carrington, who led Connecticut in scoring with 19 points, was critical of the league for not televising the game nationally, but she said she hopes this isn’t the last time there’s a women’s game in the city.
“It felt great, it felt like what every night should feel like,” she said.
For Sun forward Alyssa Thomas, who finished with a near triple-double of nine points, 16 rebounds and eight assists, the atmosphere the crowd created was crucial.
“Women’s basketball, I keep saying this, is trending in this direction,” Thomas said. “We’ve been in Connecticut a long time, so to play in front of a fan base like this, I mean, I think it gave us another level of energy tonight.”
