{"id":361335,"date":"2025-12-22T08:44:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T08:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/361335\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T08:44:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T08:44:22","slug":"rockets-tilman-fertitta-in-talks-to-buy-wnbas-connecticut-sun-move-team-to-houston-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/361335\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockets, Tilman Fertitta in talks to buy WNBA’s Connecticut Sun, move team to Houston, report says"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Houston was left out of the\u00a0WNBA’s latest round of expansion in June<\/a>, league commissioner Cathy Engelbert praised Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta as “a great supporter of the WNBA” and said the league will “stay tuned” on possibly bring a franchise back<\/a> to the city that birthed the Houston Comets, the WNBA’s first great franchise<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Now, ESPN reports<\/a> that Fertitta is having “substantive talks” about buying the Connecticut Sun and moving the team\u00a0to Houston.<\/p>\n

HOUSTON COMETS HISTORY: Cynthia Cooper was WNBA’s first superstar and it happened almost by accident<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sun has been a franchise in flux with the Boston Globe reporting in August that the owners of the Boston Celtics planned to buy the team for $325 million and move it to Boston. The Hartford Courant also reported that Marc\u00a0Lasry, who formerly owned the Milwaukee Bucks, was interested in making a bid for the team and would move it to Hartford. However, the WNBA will not allow teams to relocate without input from the league, which effectively blocked those potential deals.<\/p>\n

Enter Houston.<\/p>\n

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ESPN cites a source that says Rockets ownership has increased its offer to buy the team, but the negotiations are still open to other bidders.<\/p>\n

The Connecticut Sun, which has been owned by the Mohegan tribe since 2003 when it purchased the Orlando Miracle for $10 million and moved the franchise, had been one of the WNBA’s most successful teams, making a run of eight straight postseason appearances before losing its entire starting lineup and finishing 11-33 this season.<\/p>\n

HOUSTON COMETS HISTORY: You think Caitlin Clark is amazing? You should have seen Houston Comets’ Sheryl Swoopes.<\/a><\/p>\n

Fertitta and the Rockets were in the running for an expansion team, but the league opted to go with Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia instead, with all three ownership groups paying a $250 million expansion fee.<\/p>\n

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The Comets were one of the original WNBA franchises and won the league’s first four titles led by Naismith Basketball Hall of Famers Cynthia Cooper<\/a>, Sheryl Swoopes<\/a> and Tina Thompson<\/a>. However, then-Rockets owner Les Alexander sold the team to Hilton Koch for $10 million<\/a> in 2007. Two years later, Koch put the team up for sale for $10 million but couldn’t find a buyer. The team was disbanded in 2009.<\/p>\n

Talks to buy a WNBA team comes at an interesting time for the league. While the WNBA has never been more popular, it is locked in a battle with the players as both sides try to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. On Thursday, the players association, which is led by former Houston high school star Nneka Ogwumike<\/a>, announced that its members have voted to authorize a strike “when necessary” if a deal can’t be reached. After some extensions, the current collective bargaining agreement ends Jan. 9.<\/p>\n

This article originally published at Rockets, Tilman Fertitta in talks to buy WNBA’s Connecticut Sun, move team to Houston, report says<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Houston was left out of the\u00a0WNBA’s latest round of expansion in June, league commissioner Cathy Engelbert praised…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[1222,49,48,3458,50878,75787,1443,46470,8223,8216,4653,81025,82,155521,81764,154349,630,82271],"class_list":["post-361335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-boston-celtics","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-connecticut-sun","tag-cynthia-cooper","tag-expansion-team","tag-houston","tag-houston-comets","tag-houston-rockets","tag-milwaukee-bucks","tag-nneka-ogwumike","tag-sheryl-swoopes","tag-sports","tag-the-comets","tag-tilman-fertitta","tag-tina-thompson","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}