“The people at Mohegan Sun, they stepped up when they were needed and brought a team to Connecticut,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma told ESPN. “…We’re a proven [place] where people would support women’s basketball. Now [with them] moving, I think it leaves a void.”

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The Mohegan Sun Tribe entered into the WNBA at a time when the NBA stepped out. It became the first Native American tribe to own a professional sports team when it purchased the Orlando Miracle franchise for $5 million in 2003 and brought it to UConn’s backyard to play at their casino in Uncasville, Connecticut.

The move marked a historic first for the six-year-old league. That previous October, the WNBA’s Board of Governors changed its bylaws so that teams did not have to be located in NBA cities, play in NBA arenas and be owned by the league in conjunction with the NBA. The decision was sparked by declining attendance and falling TV ratings. Teams in Miami and Portland folded that same offseason.

As attendance booms and TV ratings explode nearly 25 years later, the Sun franchise’s sale for a reported $300 million is another screaming example that NBAers want back into the lucrative fold. All three incoming expansion teams that will join the W beginning in 2027 are connected to the NBA. So, too, are the Golden State Valkyries and Toronto Tempo. Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, Seattle, Dallas and the incoming Portland Fire, which also took its folded name, are not associated by ownership with NBA teams.

The writing was scribbled on the Mohegan Sun’s yellowed walls long before news became public of a potential sale. Their arena holds 10,000, more than a couple of unfortunate WNBA stragglers, but nowhere close to the 15,000-plus atmosphere for which the league yearns. Though they maintained healthy attendance, the Sun never won a WNBA championship despite a run of success in the early 2010s that was hampered by health.

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That player core departed for greener pastures, trading New England summers for sweltering hot desert heat kept at bay by sparkling, state-of-the-art practice facilities. Transportation was always a headache with the closest airport nearly an hour away. Players voiced displeasure at the overall location, desiring a city instead of an arena dropped inside a casino in the countryside.

The new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) passed by both the players union and WNBA Board of Governors this week wrote it all in permanent marker. The Sun can’t meet the new facilities, staff and financial standards set forth in it, a key bargaining chip pushed by the players themselves. The jump in salary cap alone, from $1.5M to $7M, is difficult to meet.

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The unfortunate reality is the league outgrew the market and what it could offer, even if that contribution was a healthy women’s basketball base fed by the Huskies’ success. A team will be ripped from its home again, leaving behind fans who will hand down this hurt for generations. The women’s game is old enough to be shared that way now.

The Comets are finally back. And the Sun will become a vintage symbol of loss.