by Donald Eng CTNewsJunkie
HARTFORD, CT — Could Connecticut end up like Green Bay, Wisconsin? It might under the proposed Home Team Act, which would require owners of professional sports teams to give local communities the chance to buy teams before relocating them.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, in a media briefing outside the PeoplesBank Arena Monday, said he was cosponsoring the proposal following the announcement that the CT Sun Women’s National Basketball Association team would be moving to Houston following the 2027 season.
“Much as happened with the Green Bay Packers, it would require one year’s notice, giving local communities a chance to put together an offer,” he said. “It wouldn’t require that offer to be accepted, but it would at least bar the WNBA and other similar leagues from dictating the results and allow the highest bidder to be accepted.”
Blumenthal contends that the WNBA tampered with the sale of the CT Sun, blocking a local offer for the team that was $25 million more than the Houston bid.
“They not only pressured, in effect, they blocked the sale to the Connecticut group which bid higher, $325 million as opposed to $300 million,” Blumenthal said. “I would say that they stood in the way of that higher offer being accepted.”
In response, Blumenthal has requested the Department of Justice investigate the sale, citing potential violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, an 1890 antitrust law that requires free competition in commerce and bans attempts to monopolize a market.
CTNewsJunkie reached out to the WNBA and the Mohegan Tribe for comment.
Blumenthal referred to Connecticut as the basketball capitol of the world, and said there was more than enough fan support to keep the team in the state.
League attendance has risen quickly in the past few years. The Sun averaged just over 6,200 fans per game at the Mohegan Sun Arena in 2023. That number had risen to 8,653 in 2025, 10th best in the 13-team league between the Chicago Sky (9,073) and the Dallas Wings (7,273). While below the league average of 11,148, the team is handicapped by its 9,300-seat home arena, far smaller than the NBA arenas most of the other teams play in.
The Connecticut proposal had included playing at least some home games at the PeoplesBank Arena in downtown Hartford. The newly renovated arena also hosts some UConn men’s and women’s basketball games each year and has a listed capacity of over 15,000.
Houston’s previous WNBA team, the Comets, entered the league in 1997 as one of the original eight franchises and won four championships before being disbanded in 2008 after attendance had fallen to around 6,000.