As sports fans across Connecticut continue to process the news that the Connecticut Sun is leaving the state, U.S. Sen Richard Blumenthal is looking to investigate the sale further.
On Monday, the senator said he requested that the U.S. Department of Justice formally launch an antitrust investigation into the WNBA’s role in the Connecticut Sun sale.
“My concern is that the WNBA muscled everyone out and dictated that it go to Houston,” Blumenthal told reporters at a morning press conference in Hartford. “That is a violation of fair competition.”
The team was sold to Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta for a record $300 million. The Sun will move to Houston in 2027, and will be renamed the Houston Comets, reestablishing the city’s WNBA franchise nearly two decades after it disbanded in 2008.
That sale amount was still lower than what other public bidders in New England offered for the team. In Boston, Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca offered to buy the team for $325 million last August. A counteroffer made last year by an investment group led by former Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry would have moved the team to Hartford for a similar amount.
The Connecticut deal also had state support, with Gov. Ned Lamont floating a proposal to use pension funds to purchase a minority stake in the team to strengthen the Lasry offer.
But the WNBA ultimately dismissed those offers, arguing that team sales needed to be coordinated by the league and that only Houston had gone through the process to buy the Sun.
To Blumenthal, that argument was a way for the WNBA to ensure the team went to the league’s preferred buyer for less than what other buyers offered. He said the league “rigged the process.”
He also argued that the sale potentially violated the Sherman Act, a federal antitrust law that aims to protect against price fixing, bid rigging and other unreasonably unfair practices by monopolies.
“I am concerned about any bidder, the ones who have become public, or others that may have been private and may have expressed interest to Mohegan,” Blumenthal said. “What the WNBA did was, in effect, a move to squelch and block any kind of competition.”
The WNBA and Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Blumenthal’s inquiry.
Legislation would change how team relocation sales work
The senator also discussed his cosponsorship of the Home Team Act of 2026, a congressional proposal that would keep similar sports deals from happening so easily.
The bill, which was introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, and Rep. Greg Casar, D-TX, in March, requires the owners of major sports teams to give local communities a one-year notice and a chance to buy the team before a relocation can occur.
Blumenthal said that the proposal, a longshot in the current Congress “would at least bar the WNBA and other similar leagues from dictating results” in future sports team relocations.
The senator’s efforts to get a formal investigation and more information about the deal likely faces an uphill climb at DOJ. The previous head of the DOJ’s antitrust division, Gail Slater, resigned in February amid tensions with other officials in the Trump administration.
Still, even if an investigation is unlikely, Blumenthal said that action is needed to hold the WNBA accountable for how the Connecticut Sun sale was handled.
“There’s more than ample support here from fans and also from the local economy, which will suffer as a result of losing the Connecticut Sun,” he said. “The WNBA must be held accountable.”
