The Connecticut Sun brought the Los Angeles Sparks to TD Garden on Tuesday, turning a regular-season stop into a reminder that Boston’s WNBA future is still unresolved. The game came during the Sun’s sunset season, with the franchise set for a move to Houston after the 2026 season.
The timing matters because interest in a Boston team has been building around recent WNBA games in the city, and Tuesday’s matchup arrived with the league already mapping its next wave of growth. Toronto and Portland have joined this season, Cleveland will return in 2028, Detroit will begin in 2029 and Philadelphia in 2030.
Jennifer Rizzotti has long framed the Sun as more than a Connecticut team. At a TD Garden game in 2024, she said the club wanted people to understand it was for the entire New England region, comparing that reach to the New England Patriots and the Celtics, both teams followed well beyond Boston itself. That regional pitch helped feed the hope that sold-out WNBA games at TD Garden over the past two summers could lead to something more permanent.
For a moment last year, that hope looked closer. Former Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca briefly tried to purchase the Sun and move the franchise to Boston, before the league quashed the plan and later approved the sale to Tilman Fertitta for a reported $300 million. Fertitta now plans to relocate the team to Houston at the conclusion of the 2026 season, closing the door on the one transaction that might have made Boston’s path immediate.
The harder truth for Boston is that the city is not in the league’s current expansion group, even with its size and sports profile. Cathy Engelbert said in June that she expects New England to get a team in the future, and Bill Chisholm said in September that Boston should have a WNBA team. But the league has already locked in 18 markets through its current expansion plans, with three more teams by 2030, and it declined to comment on when the next round will open. That leaves Boston waiting for the 2030s, when the league has indicated the region could be part of the process again.
The Sun’s stop in Boston showed there is demand here. It did not show that the league is ready to act on it. For now, the city has a visit from the Sun, not a franchise of its own.
