Requiem for the Connecticut Sun era of WNBA basketball — Kyla Oldacre talks Texas

Happy Final Four and WNBA expansion draft and USA Basketball camp and Senior All Star Game and WNBA free agency eve and Naismith Hall of Fame induction week, [deep breath], presented by The BIG EAST Conference. We’re here for all of it.

I’m coming to you live from an airplane steadily progressing from Philadelphia, America’s greatest city, to Phoenix, a rare west-of-the-Mississippi Final Four, and something you’ll be hearing about soon from our own Michelle Smith.

But my mind is on the news which finally broke this week that the Connecticut Sun are going to become the Houston Comets in 2027, making this the final season for the franchise played at Mohegan Sun Arena.

Jackie Powell and I discussed the many layers of this on this week’s Women’s Basketball podcast, but I think for me the biggest element of how much sense this move makes is what it tells us about the median state of a WNBA team operation right now.

The news led me to flash back to the final days of Lisa Borders’ tenure as WNBA president in 2018. Back then, the ideal model, as she saw it, was an arena, 8,000-10,000 people, with a non-NBA ownership. She detailed this to me in her exit interview. What she was describing was the Connecticut Sun.

Here we are, eight years later, and that model is far short of the ambitions of the league now. The expansion teams in 2028, 2029 and 2030 all follow the lead of the Golden State Valkyries, with NBA team ownership and teams playing in NBA arenas. The most successful teams in terms of combining on-court and off-court advances in that time have been, I would argue, the Minnesota Lynx and the New York Liberty. (The Lynx, in many ways, pioneered it.) But we’re seeing many others follow suit among the current teams and no new teams, from the trio announced this year to Houston, that fall short of that standard.

And there’s no real way for the Sun to catch up. Maybe the owners could have participated in the arms race of practice facilities and ended the tragedy of Alyssa Thomas repeatedly running over children at birthday parties, something nobody wants, least of all Alyssa Thomas.

Even so, there was no way to turn Mohegan Sun Arena into a Barclays Center or a Target Center or, frankly, a Toyota Center. There was no way to make Uncasville into a major market the size of Houston. If the WNBA is capable of thriving in markets that support NBA or MLB or NFL teams, and clearly it is, then the Sun were going to be sold and move. This was an eventuality no different than when the Syracuse Nationals became the Philadelphia 76ers.

This doesn’t make it any easier for Sun fans, who don’t even have the warmed-over comfort of seeing the team move somewhat close, to Boston, or to hope for an expansion slot that won’t open again, if current league plans hold, for the remainder of the decade.

I am the son of a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. I know the stories of having a team ripped away and I am sad for the numerous Sun fans I’ve come to know well as I have covered the league. I think the Mohegan Tribe served as an excellent steward of the franchise, and I’m sad for all involved that their attempts to win a WNBA title came so close, but short of the mark.

But I also remember looking around during the 2024 WNBA playoffs and seeing empty seats, even as the Sun hosted Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever in a year Clark was selling out arenas everywhere else. The same was true against the Lynx in the semifinals. Stephanie White left town on the heels of that season, Alyssa Thomas soon after. There was a growing sense that there were greener pastures. Now, even the franchise itself has made the same decision. There’s more money to be made, but it requires a footprint bigger than Mohegan can provide.

That’s a far cry from the ideal Lisa Borders cited, though she did so the same year she and Adam Silver came over to us at Westchester County Center and tried to convince us the Liberty home court was just like Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium. (NOPE!) A lot has changed. I’ll miss you, Sun fans and Bobby’s Burger Palace and Blaze, though I fully expect Mohegan to remain a women’s basketball hub (and so does the BIG EAST!).

Progress is often painful. But it was time.

This week in women’s basketball

MPR did a fantastic job telling the Peps Neuman story.

So did Eden Laase.

The book-length version is worth your time, too. 🙂

A Vic Schaefer capstone weekend is a very real possibility!

Mirin Fader on Flau’jae is must-read.

So is this Rachel Bachman piece on Claudia Goldin, critical part of the WNBPA’s strategy.

A Lauren Betts capstone weekend is also in play here!

Five at The IX: Kyla Oldacre, Texas

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Mondays: Soccer
By: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer
Tuesdays: Tennis
By: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer
Wednesdays: Basketball
By: Howard Megdal, @HowardMegdal, The IX Sports
Thursdays: Golf
By: Marin Dremock, @MDremock, The IX Sports
Fridays: Hockey
By: @TheIceGarden, The Ice Garden
Saturdays: Gymnastics
By: Jessica Taylor Price, @jesstaylorprice, Freelance Writer