Lily Maxwell
With a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in place for the 2026 season and beyond, the WNBA can now move on to other items of business.
Among those other items is announcing what has been strongly rumored for some time: the Connecticut Sun are on their way to Houston, courtesy of Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta.
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Per Chris Baldwin of PaperCity:
The Fertitta family has reached a deal to purchase the Connecticut Sun and bring the WNBA back to Houston, with an official announcement expected sometime next week, sources tell PaperCity. The agreement is “unofficially done” a source tells PaperCity. The team is expected to be renamed the Houston Comets after the Bayou City’s previous beloved WNBA team.
The Fertittas, owners of the Rockets, are purchasing the Connecticut Sun and the existing WNBA franchise will be moving to H-Town, with its first season in the Bayou City expected to be 2027.
The Comets will practice in the Rockets’ new training center and play at Toyota Center.
In December, Michael Shapiro (Chron.com) reported that the latest bid from Fertitta’s group was above $250 million, which exceeds the recent WNBA expansion franchise prices and should satisfy the sale goals of Sun ownership.
In addition to owning the Rockets, Fertitta is currently the U.S. Ambassador to Italy. But the billionaire’s ties to Houston go back many years, including the previous iteration of the Comets — and it seems that made an impact.
From 1997 through 2008, the Comets were Houston’s original WNBA franchise. Led by iconic names such as Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes, and Tina Thompson, the Comets won the league’s first four titles in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000. But fan interest gradually waned as the team lost relevance in the years that followed, and that eventually led to the club being dissolved by the end of the 2000s.
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In recent years, however, interest in women’s basketball has picked up throughout the United States — with younger stars such as Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese driving a new wave of fandom. That resurgent fan interest has led to improved economics for the sport and the league, and in turn, that has prompted increased interest in WNBA franchises. Three expansion agreements were reached in 2025.
Besides to having Toyota Center as a ready-made arena and a state-of-the-art practice complex, the Rockets also jointly own their own regional sports television channel in Space City Home Network, which would be a natural fit to broadcast WNBA games during the NBA offseason. Thus, perhaps in contrast to some other cities, Houston has ready-made infrastructure to immediately support a new team.
The Sun currently play in the WNBA’s smallest media market, and they finished 2025 with the league’s third-worst record (11-33). Thus, speculation has swirled for some time that a move could prove necessary.
The 2026 WNBA draft is on April 13, and the Sun will pick at No. 12, No. 15, and No. 18 overall. They will then begin training camp and preseason play for their final Connecticut season later in the month (schedule).
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More: Rockets ownership in ‘substantive talks’ to bring WNBA team to Houston
This article originally appeared on Rockets Wire: Report: Official WNBA-to-Houston announcement expected next week
