Further proof that the women's basketball market is booming, this Tuesday, the Connecticut Sun will meet the Los Angeles Sparks at… TD Garden. The Boston Celtics' home will even be sold out since the match is sold out: all 19,156 tickets were taken.
“The fact that we can sell our seats makes the proposition much more profitable”, explains Jennifer Rizzotti, president of the Sun. “I don’t think three years ago when I started, I could have imagined that we would sell out TD Garden. I’m glad we waited because it’s the right time. If we had tried it in a season where women’s basketball wasn’t on everyone’s lips or in the forefront, we wouldn’t have done it again. So I think our patience paid off in this case.” »
This is the first time the Sun will play at TD Garden, and it's the third-largest attendance of the season and the largest attendance in franchise history. But Boston's choice wasn't random. The Sun usually play in Uncasville, about an hour and a half from Boston, and Connecticut is part of the New England region that stretches from Maine to Rhode Island, through Massachusetts and Connecticut.
“There is a demand for access to women's basketball in every New England state”Rizzotti acknowledges. “So while we're proud to be the Connecticut Sun, we don't want to be exclusive to Connecticut. We want to make sure that just like the New England Patriots, and even the Celtics, even though they're called the Boston Celtics, they're celebrated throughout New England, we want to continue that proud tradition of champions throughout all of the New England states.”
A question of timing
It must be said that this season, thee Sun plays in front of only 7,649 spectators on average in one of the smallest arenas in the league with its 8,000 seats. A big leap forward for Alyssa Thomas and her gang. And like other franchises, the arena is starting to get a little too small with this recent craze for the WNBA. However, the 2022 finalists still find their place there.
“We have a big venue in Connecticut, which we don't have to spend a lot on.”she confides. “Like the Mohegan Sun owns the venue, we don't pay any rental fees. So, to host a home game, we have significantly lower costs than the Barclays Center (home of the New York Liberty) or the Crypto.com Arena (home of the Los Angeles Sparks). So our margin is much higher when we host our home games.”
At the Sun, we still imagine ourselves playing a match in Boston. “We wanted to make sure it was a success, but for now the plan is to have another game there if everyone on that side is happy with the end result.”concludes Rizzotti. I hope that the fact of filling the room in itself is the first sign that it will be a great success.”
