Wetzel: WNBA's gold rush leaves Connecticut fans in the dust

In 2002, the WNBA was struggling, hopeless for astir anyone oregon immoderate spot consenting to person it. Two franchises folded that offseason -- Miami and Portland. Nobody wanted them. Another, Utah, moved to San Antonio (and aboriginal Las Vegas).

The failing Orlando Miracle were facing disbandment, arsenic well, until an improbable ownership group, the Mohegan Tribal Nation successful Connecticut, stepped up with a unsocial plan. The people would bring the WNBA to a 9,000-seat arena attached to its casino successful the woods of New England.

Mohegan Sun would beryllium the caller location of the Connecticut Sun, a squad named aft a casino successful a gamble connected the down-on-its-luck WNBA. Maybe, everyone hoped, immoderate of the passionateness for the adjacent UConn women's squad would transportation over.

Over the adjacent two-plus decades the program worked, delivering stableness to an unstable league (four further franchises folded by 2009). Despite being successful out-of-the-way Uncasville, Connecticut, the squad consistently has drawn crowds, ranking 5th successful mean attendance arsenic precocious arsenic 2022.

Good partners. Great fans.

And now, with large wealth flooding the sport, the WNBA is paying them backmost by ... doing everything it tin to determination the Sun arsenic acold distant arsenic possible.

The Mohegan people is looking to currency successful connected its archetypal purchase. That's some the tribe's close and immoderate astute business. The squad it initially bought for $10 cardinal has attracted two, full-ask offers of $325 million, a grounds magnitude for the WNBA.

One bid, from a radical led by erstwhile Milwaukee Bucks number proprietor Marc Lasry, would support the franchise successful Connecticut, with games shifting to Hartford and its 16,000-seat downtown arena undergoing a $145 cardinal modernization.

The other, from a radical led by erstwhile Boston Celtics number proprietor Steve Pagliuca, would relocate the squad to Boston, 105 miles up the roadworthy but astatine slightest wrong the region.

A 3rd bid, with yet-to-be disclosed fiscal terms, has been made by a radical that includes the state of Connecticut itself, and would person the squad play successful some Hartford and Uncasville.

The WNBA, which indispensable o.k. a sale, has indicated that neither the Pagliuca nor the Lasry woody is acceptable, according to reporting by ESPN's Alexa Philippou.

Instead, the league has offered to bargain the franchise for $250 cardinal earlier awarding it to 1 of the cities that has already gone done the WNBA's enlargement exertion process -- apt Houston.

That would mean the Mohegan people would get substantially little instrumentality connected its concern portion the fans would get near to small-market history, the mode the NBA erstwhile had teams successful Fort Wayne and Syracuse.

"The WNBA is trying to strong-arm the [Mohegan tribe] to instrumentality a lesser offer," Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told ESPN connected Tuesday. "They are, successful effect, putting their thumb connected the standard to discourage them from doing what they want, which is presumably support the squad successful Connecticut."

Blumenthal sent a missive to the WNBA past week informing the league to enactment retired of negotiations betwixt the people and prospective buyers, threatening to motorboat an antitrust probe if the league "takes a measurement to hinder oregon constrain Connecticut's negotiations."

The WNBA did not respond to aggregate requests for comment. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday that the league volition beryllium progressive successful immoderate relocation decision.

"We went to the Mohegan Sun and said if you privation to merchantability your team, that's good if you person a purchaser to play astatine the Mohegan Sun," Silver said astatine the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit. "Once you're talking astir moving it to different city, that's a league matter. That's not an idiosyncratic squad matter. That's wherever it stands close now.

"Boston did not use ... for an enlargement squad and frankly neither did Hartford," helium said.

Silver is perfectly close astir the league needing to o.k. immoderate relocation. However, that statement is nonsensical if it is utilized to artifact the bids that support the squad successful Connecticut. Moving 43 miles from Uncasville to Hartford, the large colonisation center...