Ex-NBA Owner Eyeing Bid to Keep Sun in Connecticut As Boston Group Seeks to Move Team

The sun may not be setting on WNBA basketball in the state of Connecticut just yet.

It was reported Saturday that PagsGroup, a family investment group founded by Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca, is set to buy the Sun from the Mohegan Tribe for what would be a league record $325 million. The valuation would be an impressive jump for the league, well above the $250 million that the league will collect for the upcoming expansion franchises in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia.

Pagliuca’s reported plans include relocating the franchise to the Boston area—with the team presumably playing at TD Garden—and to build a $100 million dedicated practice facility, news that has shaken the basketball community in Connecticut. The league has confirmed that any relocation would require approval by the league’s Board of Governors, and that Boston was not among the 12 cities to apply for new franchises. The nine that were not awarded teams “remain under consideration based on the extensive work they did as part of the expansion process and currently have priority over Boston,” the WNBA statement says.

Interested parties in Connecticut may not be going down without a fight, either. The Hartford Courant reports that a group led by former Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry is attempting to make a competing offer to buy the Sun, with plans to keep the franchise in the state with Hartford’s PeoplesBank Arena serving as its home. The bid is also over $300 million and would involve a dedicated practice facility, per the report.

Hartford mayor Arunan Arulampalam expressed support for the team to remain in the Nutmeg State and potentially move to its capital in a statement Sunday, per the Courant, citing Connecticut’s impressive history of basketball success at the college level. He even took a dig at Boston’s recent interest in the WNBA, with a nod to the sold-out Sun vs. Fever game in Boston last month.

“Basketball is in Connecticut’s blood and folks around here aren’t going to let the Sun go without a fight,” he said. “We have won almost ten times as many basketball championships as Boston has over the past three decades, and we didn’t just get into women’s basketball when Caitlin Clark entered the league. We have had a dedicated women’s basketball fan base for decades, and have shaped the evolution of the game.”

In his own statement Sunday through PagsGroup, Pagliuca stated that the goal of his bid is to keep “New England’s WNBA team in New England,” and to enable “the Sun to play in larger capacity venues” in the region. He cites the support of Massachusetts and Rhode Island’s governors, but as is to be expected, not Connecticut’s.

There are plenty of valid reasons for the WNBA to embrace the idea of one of its most small-market teams to basketball-crazed Boston, but the league was very fast to push back on the concept, and Pagliuca may have a very notable competitor for the franchise yet.

More WNBA on Sports Illustrated