By TERRY LYONS, Editor of Digital Sports Desk
BOSTON – There’s been quite a bit of bickering and arguing about the recent $325m bid by Steve Pagliuca (former Celtics minority owner) to bring the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun to play at TD Boston Garden in 2027. Pagliuca promised to build a $100m “State of the Art” practice facility for the WNBA team, as well.
The proposed offer was leaked to the Boston Globe and positioned as if it were a “done deal.” Wow, $325 million to relocate a team while WNBA expansion teams were going for a cool $250 million.
Boston rejoiced. The WNBA fans, some who trekked to beautiful Uncasville, Connecticut to see the Sun play at the Mohegan Sun’s wonderful arena – adjacent to a beautiful casino resort, all applauded the effort of Pagliuca. Those fans had just convened as a sellout crowd at TD Garden on July 15th for a Caitlin Clark-less Indiana Fever 85-11 win over the Sun. A year ago was much the same for a Sun vs Los Angeles Sparks game that made fans think of early Cs day Sam Jones vs. LA’s Jerry West or maybe more recent day Celtics’ Paul Pierce vs. Kobe Bryant, the late all-star of the Lakers.
Sellouts are great, especially when you only have to sell out one game of an entire season.
But, that’s not the point.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey took the leaked bait hook, line, and sinker. The Guv’nah attended the Sun vs Fever game and was championing Boston’s loyal support of women’s sports, calling for Boston to get a WNBA team, as soon as possible.
There was a catch that Healey seemed to either ignore or not be aware of: Boston hadn’t even applied to the WNBA for an expansion franchise in the past decade. The WNBA is on an expansion quest, awarding teams to the Bay Area’s Golden State (Valkyries) playing now, in 2025, the Portland Fire and Toronto (Tempo) to begin play in 2026, and future expansion to three cities with new teams in Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia. The Cleveland team will begin play in 2028, followed by Detroit in 2029, and Philadelphia in 2030.
It’s a full-scale WNBA roll-out, carefully planned with a strategy of not seeking the relocation of a franchise as part of the deal.
That means, the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun are in a bit of a bind, since their own arena is the home venue. A sale of the franchise is one thing, but relocating it goes under a whole other set of league rules, even with a $325m offer on the table.
Another suitor, Marc Lasry, sought a similar deal but to simply move down the I-91, I-95, and I-84 New England corridor to Hartford to play home games at the vaunted XL Center. The Mohegan Tribe liked Pagliuca’s green better than Lasry’s and stood aside as the false alarm announcement was leaked.
The WNBA slapped some ears of those involved: “Relocation decisions are made by the WNBA Board of Governors and not by individual teams,” the WNBA said in a statement to the Globe’s Gary Washburn. “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. No groups from Boston applied for a team at that time and those other cities remain under consideration based on the extensive work they did as part of the expansion process and currently have priority over Boston. Celtics’ prospective owner Bill Chisholm has also reached out to the league office and asked that Boston receive strong consideration for a WNBA franchise at the appropriate time.”
While Boston media and the Guv’nah hemmed and hawed about Boston being a great city for sports, about the relationship of the WNBA with the NBA, and even Governor Healey going as far as trying to broker a new deal between brand new C’s franchise owner Bill Chisolm (just closed on the $6.1 billion deal) and Pagliuca, everyone in the room seemed to miss a major elephant in that room.
The venue.
Would the WNBA want to place a franchise in a place where the arena is owned by a hockey team, via Delaware North – much like the unfortunate deal the Celtics have been operating under for decades of championships? Would the WNBA award a franchise that might be forced to play at Boston University’s Agganis Arena – light on premium hospitality, suites, parking and all the money-makers of sports property ownership? Might Boston College’s Conte Forum be an option? (See same problems).
Nope. And, pardon this slight tangent, let’s keep in mind that Boston totally punted on a 2014 bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics – a bid the USOC accepted and put forth to the IOC, only to revoke and place Los Angeles’ successful bid for the 2028 Summer Olympics in its place. A major mistake on the world sports map.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts also botched a D-League franchise. Who can forget the 2009 Springfield Armor, banished in 2014 to become the Grand Rapids Drive (and Gold). Another D-League (now G-League) team – the Maine Red Claws – crawled to Portland, Maine rather than navigate the Worcester DCU Center.
For baseball? The City of Worcester reportedly footed 55% of $159 million Polar Park as part of a $240 million redevelopment of Worcester’s Kelley Square and Canal District. (That’s $87,450,000 for those scoring at home). It’s not like Governor Healey was ready to commit cash for building a new venue for the Setting Sun, or the Celts for that matter.
If that’s not enough past history proof, how about the fact the great and powerful NFL Oz, Bob Kraft and his New England Patriots, threatened to move to Hartford before settling on building Gillette Stadium out in the middle of nowhere, Massachusetts (Foxboro). By the way, Kraft’s New England Revolution are averaging a paltry 23,978 this year, down some 5,000 fans a game in their 66,000+ stadium.
Additionally, Kraft and his mayoral candidate son, Josh, are hammering current Boston Mayor Michele Wu over squashed plans to build a 25,000 seat stadium in Everett, Mass. – not far from the Encore (Wynn) Casino campus. Wu, in turn, championed a refurbishment of rundown, rat-infested White Stadium in Boston’s Franklin Park at a reported cost of $172 million. That venue would become the home of a NWSL expansion franchise for women’s soccer as the Boston Legacy FC plans to open up shop in 2026.
With all the building, the lack of engagement by Massachusetts or Boston for a new basketball venue is notable and should not be overlooked in the WNBA discussions. Boston Garden/Shawmut Center/Fleet Center/TD Garden was built in 1993-95 and is now one of the oldest arenas in the land. It has next to no parking, and – again, is owned by the Bruins’ parent, Delaware North. Despite massive renovations in 2026-07 and again in 2021-22, the building is nowhere close to the new $1.4 billion Chase Center in San Francisco, now the model for mixed-use arenas and home of the WNBA’s Valkyries.
All that said, there’s a clear message for Boston and the Honorable WNBA fan and former Harvard point guard and enthusiastic Guv’nah; let’s not point fingers at the WNBA and NBA before looking in the very mirror of sports and aging venues and philosophies in the Commonwealth.