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Alexa Filippo
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Alexa Filippo
espn
- Covers women’s college basketball and the WNBA
- Previously covered UConn and the WNBA Connecticut Sun for the Hartford Courant
- Stanford graduate and Baltimore native with further experience at the Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times and Cincinnati Enquirer
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ramona shelburne
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ramona shelburne
ESPN senior writer
- ESPN.com senior writer
- Spent seven years at the Los Angeles Daily News
Houston Rockets Concrete negotiations are ongoing with ownership connecticut sun on the potential purchase and relocation of a WNBA franchise, sources told ESPN this week.
A source close to the situation said the discussions have been “positive” and that Rockets ownership has improved its offer to something the Suns may consider acceptable.
The source said while a formal proposal has been discussed, the parties have not signed an exclusivity agreement and no decision has been made on the future of the franchise.
The WNBA had previously expressed strong interest in returning to Houston. In announcing the league’s three-team expansion in June, Commissioner Cathy Engelbert specifically highlighted Houston and Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta as “the next one” and “who we have our eye on.”
The Suns have been owned by the Mohegan Tribe since 2003, when they purchased and moved the franchise from Orlando, Florida to Uncasville, Connecticut. The sale of Rockets ownership would be the latest example of the WNBA moving toward building more teams with NBA owners.
The Sun began a process a year ago to explore investment options, initially seeking to assess opportunities for a limited partnership sale that would help build the infrastructure.
Earlier this year, Houston was one of the groups that expressed interest in buying the Suns outright, eventually raising their offer to $250 million, the amount that Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia paid in expansion fees earlier this year.
In early July, Suns ownership struck a deal to sell the team to a group led by East Forth for a record $325 million celtics Minority owner Steve Pagliuca would have moved the franchise to Boston. The WNBA effectively blocked the deal from moving forward, stating that “relocation decisions are made by the WNBA Board of Governors, not by individual teams” and that cities that have already gone through the expansion process have priority over Boston.
The WNBA then made an offer to purchase the Suns for $250 million, which would allow them to sell in the market of their choice. There was speculation at the time that the league was considering moving the Suns to Houston after Houston was unable to find an expansion team in June.
Suns ownership recently explored a potential opportunity where affiliate funds from the state of Connecticut could be used to purchase a minority stake in the franchise. But sources told ESPN that talks have slowed.
The hope is that a resolution on the future of the franchise can be determined before free agency, where all but two league veterans are no longer under contract. However, the exact timing of free agency is uncertain, as the league and the players union continue to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, with the deadline for a deal currently set for January 9.
The Houston Comets were an iconic original franchise that won the league’s first four championships (1997–2000) and were home to some of women’s basketball’s biggest stars such as Sheryl Swoopes, Cynthia Cooper, and Tina Thompson before the franchise disbanded after the 2008 season.
