{"id":44206,"date":"2025-08-04T09:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T09:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/44206\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T09:00:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T09:00:12","slug":"pagliucas-325m-bid-to-buy-and-move-connecticut-sun-not-yet-approved-by-wnba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/44206\/","title":{"rendered":"Pagliuca’s $325M bid to buy and move Connecticut Sun not yet approved by WNBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boston Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca said the potential deal to buy the Connecticut Sun<\/a> for a record amount and move the team still needs approval from the WNBA Board of Governors.<\/p>\n

Pagliuca released a statement through his group on social media on Sunday confirming an offer had been made to buy the team and move it out of Mohegan Sun Arena, but said there were still approvals that had not been obtained from the WNBA.<\/p>\n

A person with knowledge of the sale had said Saturday that Pagliuca has reached a deal to buy the Connecticut Sun for a record $325 million and move the team to Boston. The franchise wouldn\u2019t play in its new home until the 2027 season. Pagliuca also would contribute $100 million for a new practice facility in Boston for the team, the person said.<\/p>\n

The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity on Saturday because the deal hasn\u2019t been publicly announced.<\/p>\n

\u201cCentral to our proposal is enabling the Sun to play in larger capacity arenas in New England,\u201d Pagliuca wrote. \u201cWe believe our record-setting offer and deep commitment to growing the WNBA in the region that is home to the most passionate basketball fans in the nation will significantly benefit the league, the team, and all its fans.”<\/p>\n

The sale is pending approval of the league and its Board of Governors.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur offer is subject to obtaining the required league approvals, as is the case for all such transactions,\u201d\u00a0Pagliuca wrote on social media. \u201cThis approval has not been obtained thus far, and we cannot proceed without it. We will respect, cooperate with, and abide by all league rules and decisions on these matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

The league put out a statement Saturday, saying that moving a team was at the discretion of the WNBA and not individual franchises.<\/p>\n

\u201cRelocation decisions are made by the WNBA Board of Governors and not by individual teams,\u201d the league said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The Sun have played one regular season game at TD Garden each of the last two years,\u00a0including one against\u00a0Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever in July.<\/p>\n

The league has\u00a0announced five expansion teams\u00a0that will begin play over the next five seasons with Portland (2026), Toronto (2026), Cleveland (2028), Detroit (2029) and Philadelphia (2030) joining the WNBA. Each paid a then-record $250 million expansion fee.<\/p>\n

Nine other cities bid for expansion teams, including Houston, which the league singled out as getting a team in the future when it announced Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia in June. Boston did not.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo groups from Boston applied for a team at that time and those other cities remain under consideration based on the extensive work they did as part of the expansion process and currently have priority over Boston. Celtics\u2019 prospective ownership team has also reached out to the league office and asked that Boston receive strong consideration for a WNBA franchise at the appropriate time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Boston Globe first reported the sale.<\/p>\n

The Sun are owned by the Mohegan Tribe, which runs the casino where the team has played since 2003. The Tribe bought the franchise for $10 million and relocated it from Orlando that year. The Connecticut franchise was the first in the league to be run by a non-NBA owner and also became the first to turn a profit.<\/p>\n

The team\u00a0announced in May\u00a0that it was searching for a potential buyer for the franchise and had hired investment bank Allen & Company to conduct the probe.<\/p>\n

The WNBA has experienced rapid growth the last few seasons and ownership groups have been investing more into their teams, including player experiences. That has come in the way of practice facilities. The Sun are one of the few teams in the league that haven\u2019t announced any plans for a new training facility.<\/p>\n

Connecticut practices either at the arena in the casino or a local community center.<\/p>\n

Despite the lack of facilities, the Sun have been one of the most successful teams in the league, making the postseason in 16 seasons, including a run of six straight semifinal appearances. But the team was hit hard this offseason with the entire starting five from last season leaving either via free agency or trade.<\/p>\n

Connecticut is currently in last place in the WNBA at 5-22. The team sent out a letter to season ticket holders last week saying they\u2019d still be playing at the casino next year.<\/p>\n

The last team to be sold in the WNBA was in 2021 when real estate investor Larry Gottesdiener led a group that bought the Atlanta Dream for under $10 million. A year earlier, Mark Davis paid roughly $2 million for the Las Vegas Aces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boston Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca said the potential deal to buy the Connecticut Sun for a record…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-44206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44206","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=44206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}