The Connecticut Sun have reached an agreement to sell the team to Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta for $300 million and will move to Houston in 2027, according to a person familiar with the deal.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press on Friday because the deal hasn’t been announced publicly.
The WNBA Board of Governors still needs to approve the sale and the move. The team will play in Connecticut for the upcoming season before moving to Houston and becoming the Comets again.
This will end a 23-year run by the team in New England after the team moved to Connecticut from Orlando in 2003.
Houston was one of the groups that expressed interest in buying the team last year, eventually raising its bid to $250 million — the amount that Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia paid for expansion fees. Now with the $300 million sale price that's the highest a team has been sold for in WNBA history.
The Sun had an offer for $325 million from a group led by Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca that would have moved the franchise to Boston. The WNBA basically blocked that deal from happening by saying that “relocation decisions are made by the WNBA Board of Governors and not by individual teams.”
The league also went on to say that other teams had gone through the expansion process and had priority over Boston.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said during a news conference to announce the three new expansion teams that Houston was up next.
Ever since Mark Davis bought the Las Vegas Aces in 2021, the league has added new owners that have some sort of NBA tie. Golden State, which came into the league last season, is owned by the Warriors. Portland and Toronto are coming into the WNBA this season and the ownership groups are connected to NBA teams.
The next three expansion teams — Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia — are all owned by NBA groups in those cities.
The WNBA just agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement last week where teams need to have top notch facilities similar to those of NBA franchises.
With the news of the deal on Friday, it allows the franchise to have clarity for potential free agents who could sign with the Sun next month.
The Houston Comets were one of the original franchises in the league that won the first four WNBA championships from 1997-2000. The franchise disbanded after the 2008 season.
The last WNBA team to move cities was the Las Vegas Aces, who relocated from San Antonio in 2017.
AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball
FILE - The WNBA logo is seen near a hoop before an WNBA basketball game at Mohegan Sun Arena, May 14, 2019, in Uncasville, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)
Savannah Guthrie, who will return on April 6 as co-host of NBC’s “Today” show after a nearly two-month absence sparked by the disappearance of her 84-year-old mother, said in an interview that aired on Friday that “joy will be my protest.”
Guthrie, speaking with colleague Hoda Kotb, said that while it’s hard to imagine returning to a place of joy and lightness, she wants to try, even as she acknowledged she’s not sure she can do it or if she’ll belong anymore.
“I can’t come back and try to be something that I’m not. But I can’t not come back, because it’s my family,” Guthrie said. “I think it’s part of my purpose right now. I want to smile and when I do, it will be real and my joy will be my protest. My joy will be my answer. And being there is joyful and when it’s not, I’ll say so.”
Nancy Guthrie was reported missing from her Arizona home on Feb. 1. Authorities believe she was kidnapped, abducted or otherwise taken against her will. The FBI released surveillance videos of a masked man who was outside Guthrie’s front door in Tucson on the night she vanished. Authorities have not released new evidence publicly in weeks.
The Guthrie family has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to the recovery of their mother.
Savannah Guthrie, who's co-hosted NBC’s morning show since 2012, pulled out of covering the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, which began just days after her mother's disappearance.
Abductions are rare. The vast majority of people who are reported missing are believed to be runaways — not kidnapped or abducted. Throughout all of 2024, the latest year that the National Crime Information Center published data, over 530,000 missing person records were entered. Roughly 95% of the hundreds of thousands of cases filed in 2024 were believed to be runaways and only 1% were listed as abducted.
Savannah Guthrie, acknowledging her mother is among the many missing, donated to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The organization on Thursday highlighted the cases of three children who disappeared in Arizona — Jimmy Hendrickson in 1991, Karen Grajeda in 1996 and Jesse Florez in 2001.
“We encourage everyone to stay alert,” the center said in a statement. “It’s up to the public to keep their eyes open. You never know when the next lead will be the one that brings someone home.”
The Pima County Sheriff's Office said Friday that tips are still coming in on Nancy Guthrie but at a declining rate. The FBI says it's no longer revealing the number of tips it receives daily in the investigation. Portions of Kotb's interview with Savannah Guthrie were released over multiple days this week. In the videos, Guthrie said she and her siblings knew their mother didn't wander off, given her medical condition, and that doors were propped open at her house. Authorities also discovered blood and a missing camera near the doorstep.
Some media outlets reported receiving ransom notes tied to the case. Guthrie and her siblings responded to two that they believed were real and offered to pay money. Guthrie said her celebrity status might be the reason her mother was taken, but that possibility was “too much to bear.”
She again appealed for information, saying the family can't be in peace or move forward with healing without knowing what happened to their mother.
“How can someone vanish without a trace?” Guthrie asked. “How? Someone knows something. Even if that something is someone’s been acting strange for the last seven or eight weeks. Even if it’s just that. Somebody knows. And maybe somebody’s afraid and I understand that, but our hearts are in agony."
FILE - An ever-growing collection of yellow flowers and notes sit at the home of Nancy Guthrie, the missing mother of "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie, on March 6, 2026, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rebecca Noble, File)
FILE - A banner with notes from hundreds of well-wishers for Nancy Guthrie, the missing mother of "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie, is displayed outside of KVOA Newsroom on March 6, 2026, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rebecca Noble, File)
FILE - Savannah Guthrie visits the Today show at Rockefeller Plaza in New York on Thursday, March 5, 2026. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)
