Why was Boston left out and what does that mean for Connecticut?
Yankees crashing. Marlins, PIrates stay hot. Is Commanders stadium deal dead?
Good morning, all and a pleasant Wednesday to everybody.
On Monday the WNBA announced it is adding three more expansion teams by 2030. Detroit, Cleveland and Philadelphia will be added to the ever-growing league. It did not go unnoticed, however, that supposed women’s basketball hotbed Boston was not awarded a franchise. Last year, TD Garden hosted a game between the Connecticut Sun and the LA Sparks and sold out the arena. On July 15 the Sun will play again at TD Garden hosting Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever.
So why was Boston left out? To begin with, no one from that city submitted a bid for a franchise to the league. That leads little ol’ skeptic me to believe something is up. Some entity from a city that has supported women’s basketball and has a local media constantly promoting what a great venue Boston would be for the WNBA does not make a bid?
Before the season started, the Connecticut Sun admitted - after the story was leaked - that it had hired a firm to explore options for the franchise’s future, including its possible sale. Owned by the Mohegan tribe, the team plays its home games at an arena on the tribe’s casino campus. Once considered among the best in a then fledging league, the arena is now long in the tooth, under 10,000 capacity and has associate practice facilities that has led to numerous players’ complaints. Throw in that players claim there is nothing to do after you leave the casino area and you have the makings of a franchise shift.
I could be wrong about all of this but here is where the skeptic in me emerges. First: isn’t it interesting no group from Boston submitted a bid for an expansion franchise? Second: since the initial story about a possible sale of the Sun two months ago, there has not been a peep.
The WNBA made a point of mentioning in its expansion announcement that it wants a presence in the northeast. There is, of course, the defending champion New York Liberty. There is no way, however, the league could support franchises in both Boston and Connecticut.
Basketball crazed fans in Connecticut love the Sun, even though they are suffering through a losing record this season. But unless the team can somehow play its home games at the larger Peoples Bank Arena in downtown Hartford - which is undergoing an extensive renovation - and build a state-of-the-art practice facility, you have to wonder about the franchise’s future in Connecticut. Boston is a larger television market and has the corporate oomph to slam dunk the Nutmeg State.
If stalwarts of the Connecticut Sun are concerned that Boston did not submit a bid for a WNBA expansion franchise, they should be. It is quite possible their franchise is waiting in the wings next door. Meanwhile, the silence about the Sun’s future in Connecticut is deafening.
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