WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert killed the Connecticut Sun and along with it any credibility she had left. Destroying the franchise means erasing its history and the contributions of all who made it. Everyone who ever played in a Sun uniform deserves to have their history preserved. So does the Mohegan Tribe, which twenty-three years ago rescued a WNBA franchise from folding—giving it a new home. On the cusp of its thirtieth season, the league deserves better than the slash-and-burn errors of the past that had the WNBA on the brink of extinction as little as ten years ago. The WNBA Board of Governors should not approve any deal that strips an entire region of a team. Removing a successful team with a strong fan base should be forbidden.So while people in this part of the country reckon with having a good thing destroyed as callously as the White House’s East Wing was torn down, The Hard Screen examined the whole shameful debacle in the four-part series Stripping New England of Its Only WNBA Team Doesn’t Grow the League—from the after hours announcement and burned bridges in Boston to possible motives and the red flags surrounding Tilman Fertitta, the franchise’s new owner. This is the first installment.
By Tamryn Spruill
In August 2025, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert wouldn’t let the Mohegan Tribe accept a $325 million offer from Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca to take ownership of the Connecticut Sun and relocate the team to Boston, where Sun sold out the storied TD Garden two years in a row. Pagliuca even sweetened the deal with a promised investment of an additional $100 million to build a new practice facility for the franchise. In 2027, New England won’t have a professional basketball team for the first time since 2003. Boston has never had one. She wanted the team in the hands of Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, who paid $300 million.
Engelbert is an elite business mind. So what’s really behind her decision to rid a six-state region of its only WNBA team? Why Fertitta and Houston? Why did she dribble the news into the weekend using the strategy of a previous owner of the Houston Comets, who was casually known as “the chainsaw guy”?
Timing is everything, and releasing news after 5 p.m. on a Friday when outlets are operating on weekend skeleton crews means one wants information buried. The tactic is terrible for optics—giving as it does the impression that someone wishes to conceal information.
Hilton Koch, former owner of the Comets, set the standard in 2008 for after hours news burial. Koch had only bought the franchise the year before from Leslie Alexander, who was offloading both his NBA and WNBA franchises. Koch, a local furniture store owner with zero sports management experience (but having national recognition as a television pitchman) quickly found himself in over his head.
While the world was watching the ceremony to open the Beijing Olympics on August 8, 2008, with the WNBA’s best players including some from Houston, in China to compete, Koch posted an open letter to fans on the team’s website explaining that he’d relinquished control of the team to the league. In subsequent interviews, Koch claimed that he tried to avoid giving up the franchise but was left with no choice after his requests for assistance from the league and then President Donna Orender were largely met with silence.
News of the Sun sale hit at dinnertime on Friday, March 27, 2026, amid swirling headlines about CBA provisions and free agency, and a night of NCAA Women’s Tournament Sweet Sixteen matchups ahead.
Engelbert, thus, knew her decision wouldn’t be a popular one and she did nothing to lessen the blow—treating Boston fans, who sold out TD Garden two years in a row, and elected officials in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island with callous disregard.
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NEXT UP: Part II. Keesuk Pride: The Tribe That Saved a WNBA Franchise