UNCASVILLE — The latest chapter of Jen Rizzotti’s basketball life will expire this fall. The Connecticut Sun, the WNBA franchise she has run as president since 2021, will finish its 24th season in September or October and, soon after, relocate to Houston under new ownership.
It’s a complicated situation for anyone involved, invested or interested to any level — emotionally, logistically, financially and otherwise. Rizzotti is considering the ramifications in measured ways, which underscores how this role has enriched her professional life. Once the fiery point guard, and for two decades a college coach of unique intensity, Rizzotti’s five years spent as a front office executive have provided a more peaceful, but no less impactful, place in the game.
She is comfortable with where she’s been and where she’s going, even if the next destination hasn’t been mapped. Maybe Rizzotti will continue as president in Houston, a distinct possibility. Maybe she winds up in a leadership position with another WNBA team. Maybe, though unlikely, she says yes to one of the many coaching opportunities — in the WNBA and the NCAA — that keep coming her way.
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In the meantime, Rizzotti just wants to be sure that the Sun make the most of 2026, a final summer spent in a market that, ironically, was once critical to the WNBA achieving the level of success by which the team’s location has been outgrown.
“I want to have the right mindset,” Rizzotti said last week, sipping coffee next to a fireplace just off the lobby of one of Mohegan Sun’s hotels. “I can feel sad that this is happening. But at the same time, I understand it’s probably what’s best for our players and the future of our basketball success, to be in a place, in a market, that is attractive to 22-year-olds.
“A range of emotions. The heart versus the head is the battle. What we all want, emotionally, for our fans and for the state and for the legacy of the team — that’s one thing. Then for our heads to know that the resources and infrastructure that Houston can provide in a way that Mohegan can’t, it makes sense.”
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A franchise’s relocation is never easy. When word spread last summer that the Sun were exploring the possibility of a sale, it was clear that the team wasn’t long for Uncasville. Soon there were offers of $325 million from potential ownership groups in Boston and Hartford. Houston, though, was long the preferred destination of the WNBA and NBA, and a sale to Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, for $300 million, was announced in March. This puts another WNBA team in another massive market, with big-spending backers and walk-up crowds, as the league looks to expand in profile with increasingly visible players, shiny facilities and high-end corporate sponsors in major metro areas.
The Mohegan Tribe has taken great care of the franchise — and, therefore, an important part of basketball in the state — since it was relocated from Orlando in 2003. Nearly a quarter century later, an initial $10 million investment will become a 3,000 percent return. The cost of doing business in the WNBA is on the rise, commensurate with the league’s growing popularity, with higher salaries set by a new collective bargaining agreement and the need for a state-of-the-art practice facility.
UNCASVILLE, CT – SEPTEMBER 10: Connecticut Sun President Jennifer Rizzotti looks on following a WNBA game between the Atlanta Dream and the Connecticut Sun on September 10, 2025, at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT. The Dream defeated the Sun 88-72. (Photo by Joseph Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Icon Sportswire/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Who could argue that the tribe, with responsibilities well beyond basketball, is making the wrong move?
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“That’s the piece I’ve tried to be focused on,” Rizzotti said. “Let’s not forget the investment the tribe has made over 23 years as we judge their decision in year 24. At a time when owning a WNBA team was 1) not popular and 2) not financially profitable, they stepped up and brought a team here and they invested in an arena, invested in a facility for them to practice in, invested in having an environment that was really attractive to players for a long time.
“Culture changed and these kids come out of college wanting different things. Standards got higher. So I don’t want it to be lost that this was a desirable place, this was an ownership group that was respected for the investments it was making before this last couple years, when we started to get criticism for not having certain things that other teams were just starting to build.”
Nothing about this move was abrupt.
“It started just as, was there an opportunity to take on an outside investor to build a practice facility?” Rizzotti said.
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Those discussions began in October 2024.
“I don’t think people realize there wasn’t really an intention to sell the team from the start,” Rizzotti said. “It was, ‘We know we have to invest,’ and it’s not necessarily a responsible investment for this corporation that is supporting thousands of tribal members. So, ‘How do we make it work so we can keep our W team?’ Then as time went by and expansion started to happen, and valuations started to rise, there were more people interested in outright buying the team than there were just investing. The options changed. I think they considered everything for a while. When the bids started to come in, I started to process that this was going to happen.”
Basketball has been a vehicle for Rizzotti to see the country and many parts of the world without spending too much time anchored outside of Connecticut. She grew up in New Fairfield and starred at UConn, helping the Huskies to their first national championship with Rebecca Lobo and others in 1995 and was The Associated Press national player of the year as a senior in 1996. She played in the ABL and WNBA in 1996-2003, winning two WNBA championships as a reserve guard with, coincidentally, the Houston Comets.
Rizzotti was hired as coach at the University of Hartford at just 25 years old, still an active WNBA player, and led to Hawks to six NCAA Tournament appearances over 17 years. She resigned to become coach at George Washington in 2016 and was fired after a down season, coming out of COVID disruptions, in 2001. Weeks later, she was hired by the Sun.
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“I love my coaching career, but when people ask me if I miss it, it’s very easy for me to say no,” Rizzotti said. “I don’t miss it because I love what I’m doing. Although it has stressful moments, and times where I’m really busy, I never feel the stress that I felt [as a coach]. I never go home and have a sleepless night because I feel like I coached poorly or we lost a game we shouldn’t have or a kid tears her ACL or a kid tells me she’s transferring. The stress of all of that is nothing like what I do here. I’m busy and I have a ton of responsibility — I have more responsibility now than I ever had coaching — but I never feel [overly] stressed.”
“I can’t tell you how many people, after I took this job, just looked at me and said, ‘You look so happy,’” Rizzotti said. “Honestly, the stress the day of the game, before it started, was what really started to wear on me. I couldn’t even enjoy a day. I was so miserable the whole day before the game. I loved coaching the game. Once the game started, I was fine. But leading up to the game, I was just miserable the whole day. Then you coach it and, when you win, it’s the best feeling in the world and you can’t wait for the next game. And when you lose, you think you’re never going to win a game again. The roller coaster in coaching is really hard.”
Rizzotti, 51, had a lot to learn on the fly as an executive, entrusted without experience by the Sun like she was by then-athletic Pat Meiser and UHart back in 1999. There, she won early and often, and mention of her name was often followed by, “Next coach at UConn.” Back then, it wasn’t clear how long Geno Auriemma planned to coach.
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Connecticut Sun president and former UConn women’s basketball player Jennifer Rizzotti coaching the USA National Women’s 3×3 team.
USA Basketball/Contributed photo
“There was a time, if he had retired when I was at Hartford, I would have probably jumped at the chance,” Rizzotti said. “I had dinner with him once, and this was probably 15 years ago, and we were just talking about it. I don’t know if I asked him how long he wanted to coach but he was just like, ‘I don’t know, but I know it’s going to be like Forrest Gump, where I wake up one day and I just want to stop running.’ That was a time where, if he woke up one day and I said, ‘I’m done,’ I would have been like, ‘I can do this, I’m the guy, I’m probably one of the few people who can do this.’ But now? It’s a totally different scenario.”
With the Sun, Rizzotti learned all about, and then impacted, the business side of basketball, with a hand in ticket sales, marketing, roster-building and more. A great deal of her success with Connecticut had a lot to do with her success in Connecticut. Rizzotti is revered in this state, of course. A photo of her famous fastbreak basket against Tennessee in the 1995 national title game became a Sports Illustrated cover and who knows how many girls and boys between, say, New Fairfield and Storrs took their first dribbles with her moves in mind.
“I don’t regret the decision to go to GW,” she said. “But I will say that, when I got back here, it’s one of those things where you take for granted how people feel about you and how you’re supported in the state — until you don’t have it. When I came back to take this role, how much of an impact I could make just because of my reputation in the state was so much greater than what I was able to do at GW, where I was just another women’s basketball coach in the pipeline of their history. That was, oh, wow, I didn’t realize how good I had it. … It’s been much more intellectually stimulating in a way that coaching wasn’t doing it for me anymore. It opened my eyes and opened, even, my resume, where now there’s nothing that feels daunting to me. I feel like this was a pretty significant transition and I did it well. So now it’s, OK, whatever comes next, whether that’s Houston or something else, I feel very equipped for the next chapter.”
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Rizzotti said the Sun has tripled revenue since her arrival and become one of the few profitable WNBA franchises. The team reached the WNBA Finals in 2022 and the roster has since been overhauled in a way that Rizzotti and general manager Morgan Tuck believe will set up the team — likely to reinstate the Comets nickname in Houston — for success well into the future. There are eight first-round draft picks on the roster. Salary cap space has been created, allowing flexibility to sustain and build upon the foundation.
UNCASVILLE, CT – SEPTEMBER 10: Connecticut Sun President Jen Rizzotti and Connecticut Sun center Tina Charles (31) interact following a WNBA game between the Atlanta Dream and the Connecticut Sun on September 10, 2025, at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT. The Dream defeated the Sun 88-72. (Photo by Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Icon Sportswire/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
A countdown is about to start, really. The Sun open the season May 8 against the Liberty in New York and play their home opener against Seattle two days later at Mohegan Sun Arena. Summer will come and go quickly.
“There have been some broad conversations about what happens next,” Rizzotti said. “[The new ownership representatives] have been very honest about, anybody who wants to continue to be part of the franchise will be welcomed down in Houston. Once the deal is closed they’ll get more specific about what that looks like. I’m keeping the option open. I don’t want to take anything off the table, as far as potentially continuing on with the team or looking at something else. I’m super focused on ‘26 and making this a really good season. I feel like I have flexibility on the back end to make that decision when I need to.”
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Rizzotti, who lives in Marlborough, will have options. Her husband, Bill Sullivan, is a longtime basketball coach who has worked on her staffs at Hartford and George Washington. Most recently, he was an assistant at Quinnipiac but he’s in search of a job with coach Tricia Fabbri having retired. The youngest of their two sons is about to graduate high school and both will be students at UConn next year. Rizzotti does have more flexibility in considering her next basketball move.
Either way, change is coming. An era is just about over and a piece of our state’s basketball identity is set for removal, with trucks carrying equipment and tradition to another time zone, with a team pried from the clutches of one fan base and dropped into a new community to develop another. The 22-plus home dates set aside for Sun games are now freed up for, say, concerts at Mohegan Sun Arena. Rizzotti has no 2027 season to prepare for — until she does. With Houston. Or another team. And if the right opportunity isn’t offered, she could always take time off.
Has she completely ruled out a return to coaching?
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Connecticut Sun president and former UConn women’s basketball player Jennifer Rizzotti coaching the USA National Women’s 3×3 team.
USA Basketball/Contributed photo
“I wouldn’t say 100 percent,” Rizzotti said. “I don’t know that I want that back in my life. As jobs have come up, I’ve been approached and I’ve turned them down. I know that I probably need to decide sooner than later if I want to go back to that, but if I’m going to keep getting roles [similar] to what I’m doing, impacting the sport at a higher level, I’d like that.
“I don’t know what will happen. I’ve been pretty open about wanting to see this through. I’ve told my team that, whoever stays, I’m going to be by their side this season. I don’t see any need to be exploring other opportunities that will force me to leave the Connecticut Sun prior to October. People have asked what I’m doing next and I’ve been clear about that. But I do anticipate, in addition to Houston, that there might be interest from other teams or other jobs that could pop up that might intrigue me. If nothing great comes up, would I be open to taking time off and could I, financially, do it? Sure. But I’m not going to pass up a great opportunity, similar to this.”