Connecticut Sun sold to Rockets owner, bringing WNBA back to Houston
· Yahoo Sports
The Houston Comets were the WNBA’s first dynasty, winning four consecutive championships from 1997 to 2000. Then, in 2008, the team disbanded.
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But the Comets are reportedly close to being revived.
According to reports from ESPN and Houston’s Paper City Magazine Friday, March 27, the Connecticut Sun are being sold to the Fertitta family and the name is expected to be changed back to the Comets. Tilman Fertitta, a Texas-based billionaire who is also the current U.S. Ambassador to Italy, owns the NBA’s Houston Rockets.
The sale price for the Sun is $300 million, according to ESPN, which would be a record-setting figure for a WNBA team. Multiple reports state the team will play its final season in Connecticut this year at the Mohegan Sun Arena then relocate to Houston for the 2027 season and play at the Toyota Center, which is also home to Fertitta’s Rockets.
Two people familiar with the sale of the Sun told USA TODAY Sports that an official announcement is expected to come Monday, March 30.
Under Naismith Hall of Fame coach Van Chancellor, the Comets won the first four WNBA championships, powered by three Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame players: Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes and Tina Thompson. The Comets defeated the New York Liberty for three of those titles and bested the Phoenix Mercury for the 1998 crown.
No WNBA team has won four consecutive championships since, and the Comets are still tied with the Minnesota Lynx and Seattle Storm for the most titles in league history. Now, with on the heels of a groundbreaking and lucrative collective bargaining agreement between the WNBA and its players, Houston will have the chance to add to its collection of championships.
The Comets were originally owned by Leslie Alexander then sold to Hilton Koch in 2007. Koch tried to sell the team again in 2008 with an asking price of $10 million but found no buyers. The WNBA took over management of the team and then dissolved it, sending its players elsewhere in a dispersal draft.
Fertitta first publicly expressed an interest in bringing the WNBA back to Houston in 2024 and submitted a bid for an expansion franchise but was not chosen. At the announcement awarding expansion teams to Cleveland, Philadelphia and Detroit in June 2025, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert expressed optimism at the possibility of the league returning to Houston.
“There are a variety of cities that obviously bid, and one of those I wanted to shout out – because they have such a strong history in this league and their great ownership group – is Houston,” Engelbert said. “So I would say that’s the one, obviously, we have our eye on. Tilman been a great supporter of the WNBA, and we’ll stay tuned on that.”
The Sun were originally the Orlando Miracle, playing in Florida from 1999 to 2002 before relocating to Uncasville, Connecticut in 2003. The Mohegan Tribe first began exploring a sale of the Sun in early 2025 and were close to the finish line on selling the team on two separate occasions – the first to Boston Celtics’ minority owner Steve Pagliuca and the second to former Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry.
But neither sale was approved by the WNBA. Pagliuca wanted to move the team to Boston, while Lasry had designs of the team playing in Hartford, Connecticut.
The Sun have played in the WNBA Finals three times but have never won a championship.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: WNBA returns to Houston as Connecticut Sun are sold to Rockets owner