Women’s professional basketball may finally be coming to Boston, and it’s about time.
Steve Pagliuca, a Celtics minority owner, has purchased the Connecticut Sun for $325 million, the highest ever price paid for a women’s professional sports franchise.
Pagliuca may be familiar to Celtics fans and those who have read my previous columns. I, among many other Celtics fans, believed he would be the best fit to purchase the Celtics before it was sold to William Chisholm on March 20 for $6.1 billion.
With all of the money that Pagliuca saved from being denied Celtics ownership, he was able to buy the Sun for what I think will have a better return on investment than if he bought the Celtics. The Sun currently plays at Mohegan Sun Arena in the Uncasville area of Montville, Connecticut. The arena seats 10,000 fans, whereas TD Garden seats almost 20,000.
Moving to Boston will allow the Sun to attract more fans, tap into the city market and continue the trend of bringing professional women’s sports teams to the Bay State. With all of these positives, the WNBA is certainly going to approve of this purchase, right?
In a statement given to The Boston Globe’s Gary Washburn, the WNBA explained that “relocation decisions are made by the WNBA Board of Governors and not by individual teams.”
Before the league announced that Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia would be the next cities to join Toronto and Portland, Oregon as the next WNBA locations, the league had not yet received a bid from any group in Boston. Nine other cities had applied for consideration as possible expansion locations, and Boston was not on that list.
This means that Boston may have to wait outside the doors until 2033 at the earliest while it watches other cities shuffle in before it.
Sure, it makes sense for the WNBA to play it fair and force Boston to wait its turn to expand, but Pagliuca’s purchase shouldn’t surprise the league. Fans have long waited for a WNBA team to come to Beantown.
Boston recently hosted the Sun and Indiana Fever July 15 in front of a sold-out crowd at TD Garden. The players loved it, the 19,156 fans loved it and Jen Rizzotti, president of the Sun, loved it.
“The energy and enthusiasm from the New England market last season was phenomenal, and we’re proud to continue building that momentum and connecting with our New England fan base,” Rizzotti said in a press release. “Women’s basketball belongs on the biggest stages, and we will continue to reinforce and showcase that mission.”
Boston is arguably one of the hottest cities in sports right now. The Celtics, along with the Philadelphia 76ers, have sold out every home game since the 2021-22 NBA season. Teams like Golden State, Miami and Dallas have sold out every home game for 10-plus consecutive seasons, and two of those cities have current WNBA teams.
The Golden State Valkyries are the latest WNBA expansion team, and this current season is their debut. Already, it’s proving to be a success. The franchise is currently averaging a league-leading 18,064 fans per game and selling out Chase Center each night. It makes sense to expand to where the fans are going to show up and ship the Sun up to Boston.
But the league wouldn’t be expanding to Boston; they’d be relocating the Sun from Connecticut. Pagliuca is taking care of the finances and even putting another $100 million toward a designated practice facility for the team.
“Hopefully, maybe they can advocate for us to, you know, maybe even relocate,” said Sun rookie guard Saniya Rivers before her game at TD Garden. “I love Connecticut, it’s fine, but I think the marketing here itself is just going to be better for a women’s basketball program. I think we can make a lot of noise here starting tonight, so I’m just excited to be a part of it.”
For a league that is currently trying to expand, growing significantly in viewership and attendance and increasing tension with its own players, the WNBA should sigh in relief and embrace the opportunity to grow its market.
WNBA, give Pagliuca a pat on the back if you run into him.
