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Tuesday’s matchup between the Sun and Sparks is slated to be the third highest-attended game of the WNBA season. But, the team deserves even more.
The Sun are one of the winningest franchises in the WNBA, but in large part due to being based in the league’s smallest market in Uncasville, Connecticut, they’ve often been overlooked.
Next week, that’s going to change — at least for one night. The Sun host the Sparks at TD Garden in Boston on Tuesday at 7pm ET, and tickets to that game have already sold out, the team announced Friday.
The game is slated to be the third-highest attended game in the WNBA this season, a particularly remarkable feat considering it doesn’t feature Caitlin Clark, the Fever rookie who has been largely credited with boosting WNBA attendance and viewership across the board. It’s the Sun’s sixth sellout of the 2024 season, and the 19,156 tickets sold mark the highest attendance to any game in franchise history.
Sun President Jen Rizzotti expressed her excitement in a statement released on Friday.
“We are thrilled with the reception from the Boston market for our game at TD Garden,” she said. “It’s truly special to make history by hosting the first ever professional women’s basketball game in this arena, known for its incredible basketball prowess and championship culture. This is a tremendous opportunity to expose the Connecticut Sun brand by playing a game more centrally located to our New England fan base.”
Though the popularity of the WNBA has boomed across the board, many teams have experienced that growth more than the Sun. Connecticut has the highest all-time winning percentage in WNBA history — having won 56.8% of their games — but the fewest number of Instagram followers on the official team account.
While Instagram followers are far from a perfect measure of popularity, it’s noteworthy that the Golden State Valkyries, the newest WNBA team that doesn’t even have a roster yet, has a larger following.
“Clearly, we are still behind in many areas,” Thomas said. “And it’s crazy to say that when we made the playoffs so many different times, and have won a lot of basketball. We just want to continue to see this grow to what it can be. And I still think we have a long way to go.”
Next, Sun players want their own practice facility
Team-specific practice facilities have become the gold standard in the WNBA. The Las Vegas Aces became the first WNBA team to construct a practice facility solely for their own usage, and the Seattle Storm and Phoenix Mercury both followed suit shortly after. Most recently, the Chicago Sky announced they would be building their own state-of-the-art facility.
There’s also a slew of teams that share practice facilities with their NBA counterparts, including the Minnesota Lynx and Indiana Fever, which helps ensure top-tier amenities.
Then, there’s the Connecticut Sun, who practice at the Tribal Practice Facility, a part of the Mohegan Community and Government Center in Uncasville, Connecticut. The team doesn’t have exclusive access to the facility, so players can’t use it year-round — and because it’s a government facility, it doesn’t have a lot of the amenities a professional basketball team’s dedicated space would have.
Photo by Pamela Costello/NBAE via Getty Images
Alyssa Thomas spoke to that in her first press conference after the Olympic break, noting that spending time around around USA players who hail from different organizations highlighted that disparity.
“That’s one thing with playing on Team USA, and being around other players that are in markets that are the staple of what you want your organization to be in,” she said. “Honestly, Connecticut’s super behind when it comes to that. I’ve been here 11 years, and yes, we’ve made changes, but a lot of things still have so much room for improvement.”
Having their own practice facility is of particular importance.
“With how basketball is shaking up and less players are going overseas, we need our own practice facility and things like that,” Thomas said. “The time is now, and people want to come and stay in the cities and train like that, and not a lot of people want to stay in Connecticut, and we don’t have the facilities that you can train all year round in, in that aspect.
The population of Uncasville, Connecticut is less than 19,000. It’s by far the smallest market of any WNBA team. As a result, despite having an incredibly passionate fanbase — attendance inevitably suffers. The Sun’s average home attendance is the fourth-lowest in the league at around 7,650 tickets, per Across the Timeline.
Playing a single regular season game at TD Garden is not going to solve all of Connecticut’s problems. But the fact that the game is already sold out is a welcome sign, and a potential indicator of things to come.
More eyes are coming, and when they do, they’ll learn the Sun currently boast the all-time triple-double leader in Alyssa Thomas, the fourth leading scorer in WNBA history in DeWanna Bonner, and two elite defenders in DiJonai Carrington and Brionna Jones. They also have the second-best record in the league at 18-6, and are in the mix to contend for a championship.
“Women’s basketball is hot right now, and so many people want to support what we’re doing,” Thomas said. “Going to Boston is a huge step to a market that is bigger.”
