The Connecticut Sun are leaving New England — and they’re taking a record-breaking price tag with them. Tilman Fertitta, the billionaire owner of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, has agreed to purchase the WNBA franchise for a staggering $300 million, the highest price ever paid for a women’s basketball team.
The deal, first reported by NBC Sports, would relocate the Sun to Houston by 2027, planting a WNBA franchise back in a city that hasn’t had one since the beloved Houston Comets folded in 2008. This isn’t just a business transaction — it’s a seismic shift for the league, the city of Houston, and for the legacy of women’s basketball in America.
The Comets Are Coming Back
That name isn’t going away quietly. Sources indicated the relocated franchise is expected to resurrect the Houston Comets identity — a name that carries enormous weight in WNBA history. The original Comets were the league’s first dynasty, winning four consecutive championships from 1997 to 2000, led by icons like Cynthia Cooper and Sheryl Swoopes. Their folding in 2008 left a wound in the city that never quite healed. Bringing the name back isn’t nostalgia for its own sake — it’s a direct acknowledgment that Houston was robbed of something real.
It’s worth noting just how deliberate this all looks in hindsight. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert had already tipped her hand. During the league’s three-team expansion announcement, she specifically called out Houston and Fertitta as “up next” and “the one we have our eye on.” That’s not typical commissioner-speak. That’s a roadmap — and it played out almost exactly as scripted, ESPN noted.
The Offer That Got Blocked
But it’s not that simple. There was another bid on the table — and it was actually higher. A Boston-based group led by Steve Pagliuca reportedly offered $325 million, a full $25 million more than Fertitta’s winning bid. So why didn’t they get the team?
The WNBA stepped in and shut it down. The league held firm that “relocation decisions are made by the WNBA Board of Governors and not by individual teams,” and made clear that cities which had already gone through the formal expansion process — like Houston — carry priority over markets that haven’t, like Boston. In other words: the league wasn’t going to let the Sun’s ownership unilaterally decide where the franchise lands, regardless of the dollar figure attached. A higher offer didn’t matter if the destination wasn’t approved. Boston, for all its basketball pedigree, simply wasn’t next in line.
That’s a remarkable assertion of institutional control — and a signal that the WNBA is managing its own growth very deliberately right now.
The End of an Era in Connecticut
For Connecticut, this stings. The Mohegan Tribe has owned the Sun since 2003, when they relocated the franchise from Orlando to Uncasville — a tenure spanning more than two decades. They built something genuinely special in a small market, cultivating one of the WNBA’s most loyal fan bases and fielding consistently competitive rosters. Losing the team won’t just feel like a business decision to the people of Connecticut. It’ll feel personal.
Still, the $300 million price tag tells a story all its own. A few years ago, the idea of a WNBA franchise fetching nine figures would have seemed absurd to some corners of the sports world. Now it’s a record-setter — and almost certainly a floor, not a ceiling, for what comes next.
The Houston Comets, if that name does return, won’t just be a franchise revival. They’ll be proof of something the league has been trying to say for a long time: women’s basketball isn’t just growing — it’s arrived.
