Fertittas Buy Sun for Record $300M, Move to Houston
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- Fertitta family agreed to purchase the Connecticut Sun for $300 million — a record price for a WNBA franchise — with no relocation fee included, sources told ESPN.
- Connecticut Sun will play one final season in Uncasville in 2026 before relocating to Houston for the 2027 season; the sale and move still need WNBA Board of Governors approval.
- The franchise is expected to revive the Houston Comets name, honoring the original WNBA charter member that played from 1997 to 2008 and won four consecutive titles from 1997 to 2000.
- WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert flagged Houston and Tilman Fertitta as "up next" and "the one we have our eye on" at the league's June expansion announcement, telegraphing this outcome months in advance.
- The WNBA effectively blocked a prior $325 million deal last summer that would have sold the team to a Stephen Pagliuca-led group and moved it to Boston, holding that cities that cleared the expansion process (including Houston) had priority over Boston.
- The Mohegan Tribe — who owned the Sun since 2003 as the WNBA's first non-NBA owners and the first Native American tribe to own a professional sports team — also explored a $325 million Hartford relocation with a Marc Lasry-led bid before those talks fizzled.
- Despite playing in the WNBA's smallest market, the Sun made the playoffs eight straight years and reached the Finals four times, but entered a rebuild in 2025 amid difficulty attracting free agents.
Why it matters: The $300 million sale — a WNBA record — caps a multi-bidder process in which the league actively steered the franchise to Houston, blocking a higher $325 million Boston offer to protect a city that had cleared the expansion process. Connecticut loses its only major women's pro team, while the Comets name returns to a city without WNBA basketball since 2008 under an owner (Fertitta) whose NBA-market resources could reshape the franchise's free-agent ceiling.
