The Connecticut Sun are playing their last season in Uncasville. Nobody is screaming about it.
That is the part that should bother you. A franchise that has existed since 2003, that produced Tina Charles and Jonquel Jones and Jasmine Thomas, that went to the Finals in 2019 and 2022, that built one of the most consistently competitive programs in the league, is leaving. And the loudest reaction from the national media was a shrug.
The Sun will become the Houston Comets in 2027. The Comets name comes back. The franchise moves to Texas. The players pack their apartments. The fans in Mohegan Sun Arena, who drove 45 minutes on a Tuesday to watch a regular season game against the Dream, will drive that road one last time in September. Then it is over.
They are calling it the "Sunset Season." Marketing departments are good at naming things. They are less good at explaining why the thing needs a name in the first place.
Connecticut did not lose this team because the fans stopped showing up. The Sun averaged over 6,500 fans per game last season. That is above the league average. They lost this team because the ownership group decided that Houston is a bigger market with a bigger arena and a bigger television deal. That calculation is probably correct. It is also not the point.
The point is that professional sports franchises ask communities to care. They ask fans to buy season tickets. They ask local businesses to sponsor the scoreboard. They ask the city to show up on a Wednesday night in July. And then, when a better financial opportunity appears, they leave. The community does not get a vote.
Brittney Griner signing with the Sun makes the Sunset Season both better and worse. Better because Griner is a Hall of Fame talent who gives Connecticut a real chance to compete in her farewell year. Worse because it turns the whole thing into a spectacle. Come watch the legend play her last games in a building that is about to go dark. Buy tickets to the funeral. It has energy. It also has a certain cruelty.
The players know. You can hear it in the press conferences. Aaliyah Edwards was asked about the move and said, "We are focused on this season." That is the right answer and everyone in the room knew it was incomplete. The players are focused on this season because this season is all that is left. There is no next year in Connecticut. There is no "build something over time." There is this, and then there is Houston.
I grew up in Atlanta. I watched the Dream play in three different arenas in six years. I know what it feels like when a franchise does not have a permanent home. Connecticut had a permanent home. They had Mohegan Sun Arena. They had 22 years of history. They are giving it up voluntarily.
The basketball this season will be good. Griner in the post with Aaliyah Edwards running the floor is a real combination. Kennedy Burke is a sneaky good guard. The draft added Nell Angloma and Gianna Kneepkens. This is not a tank job. This is a team trying to win a championship in its final season in a state that earned one. That story deserves more than a marketing campaign.
Here is what I want to happen. I want Connecticut to make the playoffs. I want them to host a home playoff game in Uncasville. I want 8,000 people in Mohegan Sun Arena making noise that you can hear in the parking lot. I want the Sun to go out the way they played for 22 years: tough, physical, unapologetic, and louder than the market size said they should be.
Houston will get the Comets. Houston will get the arena and the television deal and the corporate sponsorships. Houston will not get what Uncasville built. You cannot relocate culture. You cannot pack community into a moving truck. You can only start over and hope that the new place earns what the old place already had.
The Sunset Season tips off on May 8. The last game in Uncasville is in September. If you are anywhere near Connecticut this summer, go. Not because someone told you to. Because when a franchise leaves, the thing you lose is not the team. It is the proof that you were there.
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