On the 539th Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams discuss some of the biggest sports business stories of the week, including the sale and relocation of the WNBA‘s Connecticut Sun.
The team is being sold for $300 million to Tilman Fertitta, the owner of the Houston Rockets, who will relocate it to the Texas city and revive the Houston Comets brand. The move has sparked controversy from Connecticut fans and politicians, who believe the league should have chosen one of two other bidders interested in keeping the team local. They are Steve Pagliuca in Boston or Marc Lasry in Hartford. The hosts talk through the various reasons why the NBA and WNBA would have chosen Fertitta over the others, both of whom have existing ties to the NBA.
Next they talk about a rare occurrence in Seattle, where NFL and NBA teams are both for sale at the same time. Combined they might cost about $17 billion, give or take a few billion. The hosts talk about the ownership rules in both leagues, where they overlap and where they diverge.
As part of that discussion, they talk through some big questions: Is the NFL too big the sell? Is the NBA getting close? How many people in the world could realistically buy a team in both? And if Elon Musk wanted to, would he get approved by the leagues?
They close by talking about the recent sale of some Indian Premier League cricket teams, and the upcoming NCAA Final Four.
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