The WNBA and NBA board of governors unanimously approved the sale and relocation of the Connecticut Sun on Wednesday, clearing the way for the franchise to leave the Mohegan Tribe and move to Houston under Rockets owner Tilman J. Fertitta.
The Sun said in March that it had reached an agreement with Fertitta, and the deal is expected to close soon. The team will finish the remainder of the 2026 season in Connecticut before relocating ahead of the 2027 campaign, with two games at PeoplesBank Arena in Hartford and one game at TD Garden in Boston among its final scheduled home dates.
For Sun president Jen Rizzotti, the immediate priority is keeping the team focused on basketball rather than the business of leaving. “I think, first and foremost, I want our staff and players to just be able to focus on this season and being present for the 2026 last season in Connecticut,” she said. “I think our fans deserve that.”
Rizzotti said the organization wants to treat the farewell season like a celebration, not a distraction. “And I think as a front office staff, our job is to continue to put on a great show and put a great product on the floor but also make sure that we're inviting people into this arena for the last time, and they're going to create some experiences that will last forever,” she said. She added that discussions with Houston had so far been limited. “It's just been kind of basic introduction and a little bit of questioning and diligence as it relates to the business operations of the team,” Rizzotti said.
The Sun have been owned by the Mohegan Tribe since 2003, when the tribe bought and relocated the then-Orlando Miracle to Uncasville. That made the tribe the league’s first non-NBA owners and the first Native American tribe to own a professional sports team. The sale could not move forward without league approval, and that approval now puts one of the WNBA’s longest-standing ownership stories on a path to end in another city.
Fertitta, who has owned the Houston Rockets since 2017, is the latest NBA owner to acquire a WNBA team. Sources told in March that the sale was set to close at $300 million, a figure that would be a record for a WNBA team and did not include a relocation fee. The league’s three upcoming expansion teams in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia also have NBA ownership, underscoring where the money and infrastructure are flowing as the league prepares for its next stage.
Rizzotti said Houston’s resources could help the franchise when the move becomes official. “Obviously, there's a lot of positive repercussions of being associated with a team that has the kind of resources and infrastructure that Houston has, and I think that's a positive for our players and our basketball staff as they move into the future, especially with this new CBA,” she said. She also said the team had already looped Houston in to some extent, but only informally until the approval came through. “We wanted to wait and they wanted to wait until it was official for that relationship to be more formal,” she said.
The franchise’s next chapter now looks clear: one last season in Connecticut, a formal handoff after that, and Houston waiting for 2027. For fans in Uncasville and Hartford, the final year is now more than a sendoff. It is the last chance to see the Sun where they have been since 2003.
