Gov. Ned Lamont is hoping to woo NBA Commissioner Adam Silver as Connecticut continues to make its case to keep its only major league team.
The WNBA has still not yet approved a sale for the Connecticut Sun. The Mohegan Tribe repeated its statement that it’s pursuing investment opportunities and that it can’t comment on potential sales.
“We are excited with the growth of the WNBA and women’s basketball and are committed to outcomes that are the best for the CT Sun, the Mohegan Tribe, and the WNBA,” tribal leadership said in the statement.
Groups in Boston and Connecticut have made offers to buy the team.
The Boston-based group reportedly offered a record $325 million to buy the team, while Lamont has said the Connecticut group’s offer is in that range.
Today, he said he’s hoping to win over Silver.
“Connecticut’s right there as the birthplace of women’s basketball, I think we’re near the top of the list,” he said at the capitol.
The NBA owns the WNBA, but the women’s league has its own board of governors.
The WNBA didn’t respond to a request for comment on Thursday, but it has maintained that board will make the final decision on any sale or relocation.
When asked about a possible sale, he also pointed to its expansion process.
“As part of our most recent expansion process, in which three new franchises were awarded to Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia on June 30, 2025, nine additional cities also applied for WNBA teams and remain under active consideration,” the league said.
Neither Hartford nor Boston was on that list.
Rob Holub, a professor with the University of New Haven, said leagues don’t typically combine sales and relocations with their expansion process.
“Not saying that it can’t work, but the playbook as been written over the last 30 years on how to expand and how to grow sports on the minor league level and it’s seeming like we just want to go off script on this one,” he said.
Still, Holub said it wouldn’t be surprising if the WNBA preferred a move to another city outside of Connecticut.
Other major leagues have typically respected an ownership group’s decision to move a team within its market.
Hartford and Uncasville are both part of the Hartford-New Haven television market.
Holub said the WNBA relies more on ticket revenues than TV rights deals, so the league would likely prioritize cities with larger populations.
That differs from leagues like the NBA and NFL, which command massive deals for the right to broadcast their games.
He also said Silver would likely support whatever is best financially for the WNBA, especially since many of the teams are owned by NBA teams or play in the same arenas.
Leagues do charge fees when issuing approvals for expansions or relocations, but Holub doubts a higher expansion fee would be enough to win over support from reluctant owners.
He said leagues focus more on the long-term wishes of owners over the promise of one-time revenues. Some may prefer to work with the groups that bid for expansion.
“You don’t want to take the other nine ownership groups and say, hey, everything you said and everything you’ve worked for over the last year or last two years because we’re going to go to prom with the most people person right now,” Holub said.