With the rise in popularity surrounding women’s basketball, the Houston Rockets owner, Tilman Fertitta, wants to bring a WNBA team back to the Bayou City. He expressed his interest in an interview with the Houston Chronicle.
“I feel like WNBA expansion is going to always work better and has a better chance of success in a city like Houston, where the Rockets are one of the strong teams from a financial standpoint,” Fertitta said in an interview with the Houston Chronicle. “I think that I would probably be the natural owner.”
Last fall, the WNBA announced its first expansion team since the Atlanta Dream in 2008 will be awarded to the Bay Area for the 2025 season, with Golden State Warriors majority owner Joe Lacob taking ownership. Just before the draft, the WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert revealed the league’s plan to expand even more by growing the W from 12 to 16 teams by 2028.
In addition to adding the Bay Area as the 13th league franchise, Engelbert expressed her desire to include another team by the 2026 season. According to the Athletic, the cities she mentioned include Philadelphia, Toronto, Portland, Denver, Nashville, South Florida, and Charlotte.
“We’re talking to a lot of different cities,” Engelbert said in the Athletic. “I think I’ve thrown out names before. It’s complex because you need an arena and a practice facility and player housing and all the things, you need committed long-term ownership groups. The nice thing is we’re getting a lot of calls.”
Unfortunately, despite the historical impact on the WNBA, Houston did not make the list of expansion cities. However, Fertitta told The Chronicle that he plans to register his interest with the WNBA soon, but the league has not confirmed whether this has happened yet.
When discussing women’s basketball, it’s impossible to ignore Houston, the city with a track record of having one of the best, if not the best, professional women’s basketball teams ever.
Once home of the most successful franchise in WNBA history, the Houston Comets, H-Town established the league’s first dynasty by winning four consecutive championships from the inaugural 1997 season to the year 2000.
The Comets remain the only team to have achieved a four-peat in WNBA and any American professional sports team history. The league has seen only two other franchises, the Minnesota Lynx and Seattle Storm, win as many championships in its 27-year history.
During their prime years, the Comets were a juggernaut of a team thanks to the outstanding performance of their iconic lineup, which included Sheryl Swoopes, Tina Thompson, the late Kim Perott, and Cynthia Cooper, the first-ever WNBA MVP.
Thompson, the first college draft pick in WNBA history, still holds the record as the second-highest scorer of all time, behind Phoenix’s Diana Taurasi. All three players, Cooper, Thompson, and Swoopes, have been inducted into the Hall of Fame for their impressive career achievements. Cooper was also recently added to the Houston Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024.
Cooper retired in 2001, but even after her departure, the team continued to dominate the league. In fact, in its first ten seasons, the Comets made it to the playoffs nine times and only had two losing seasons. As of today, the Comets’ winning percentage is still unmatched by any other defunct or active WNBA franchise. In the year 2000, the team achieved a remarkable feat, becoming one of only two franchises in the league’s history to go undefeated throughout the playoffs. The other team to accomplish this was the Seattle Storm, who did it in both their 2010 and 2020 seasons. This impressive performance by the Comets solidified their place in WNBA history as one of the most successful and dominant teams of all time.
The Comets boasted an impressive league-high average of 11,442 fans per game during that time, constantly selling out the Compaq Center. It’s always tough when something great comes to an end, and unfortunately, the Comet’s reign of dominance was no exception. As a result, the fan support gradually declined, which must have been difficult for those who had been deeply invested, starting with the front office.
In 2007, the ownership of the Rockets and Comets teams changed hands as former owner Leslie Alexander sold the teams to Hilton Koch, a Houston-based furniture tycoon, for a reported $10 million. Following the acquisition, the Comets team, which had already moved once from the Compaq Center to the Toyota Center in downtown Houston, relocated again to the Reliant Arena, now known as NRG. Unfortunately, the team’s fortunes took a downturn as it struggled to attract fans, drawing an average of fewer than 7,000 attendees in its final year. The Comets won their last game on September 18, 2008, defeating the Sacramento Monarchs 90-81 on the campus of Texas State. By December 2008, Koch attempted to sell the squad but failed to find a buyer. As a result, the WNBA took over the team, and the rest was history. The Comets became extinct.
In the past, it was not uncommon for WNBA teams to fold due to the poor economics of women’s sports. Fans were disinterested and the sport struggled to attract viewership and attendance. However, times have changed. Thanks to the rise of players like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, women’s basketball is experiencing a resurgence. Fans are more engaged than ever before. The Women’s College Basketball Championship game recently set a new record with 18.9 million viewers. The WNBA draft also saw a record-breaking 2.446 million viewers, marking a 307% increase in viewership compared to last year. Furthermore, for the 2024 WNBA season, the Dallas Wings, Atlanta Dream, and Las Vegas Aces have already sold out all of their season tickets.
Since the Comets, Houston has been without a WNBA franchise, making the Comets’ legacy all the more special. It has been 16 years since Houston was last home to a WNBA team, and basketball enthusiasts in the city are eagerly awaiting the return of the league to their beloved city.
Fertitta aims to revive Houston’s iconic women’s basketball team, and he has found an ally in rapper Travis Scott, who has also expressed his interest in bringing the Comets back to H-Town. Last month, Scott, a Missouri City native, took it to X, formerly known as Twitter, to express his thoughts. “It’s 3:30 a.m. and I feel like Houston can bring back the Houston Comets. I’m gonna go for it!!!!,” wrote Scott.
