Sun wins division and draws crowds

UNCASVILLE, CONN. – The Mohegan Indian Tribe is winning big with its bet on
a professional women’s basketball team, both at the gate and on the
scoreboard.

The Mohegan-owned Connecticut Sun, the first team in the Women’s National
Basketball Association to be owned outside of the parallel NBA, finished
its regular season Sept. 19 in first place for the Eastern Conference. It
will be a top seed in the playoffs, with its opening Sept. 25 away match
against the Washington, D.C. Mystics. The next two games in the round are
scheduled for Sept. 27 and Sept. 29 at the Mohegan Sun Arena.

Although the Sun finished with the same 18 – 16 win-loss record as
runner-up New York Liberty, it came out ahead with a 14 – 6 record in the
Eastern Conference.

The surprising success of the team is drawing a sharp growth in its fan
base and a steady improvement in its balance sheet. Since the end of the
August break for the Olympics, team General Manager Chris Sienko told
Indian Country Today, an average of 8,000 have attended home games in the
Mohegan Sun arena, which seats 9,300. The team began its run last year
hoping for a break-even average of 6,000.

Although the team will probably still show a loss in its year-end financial
statement, to be released in December, “It’s heading in the right
direction,” said Sienko. The financials, he said, were running ahead of
expectations, and the team was delivering handsomely on intangible benefits
for the tribe, such as drawing new visitors to the Mohegan Sun arena.

The success has apparently impressed the parent WNBA, which changed its
policy two years ago to broaden team ownership and to some observers seemed
a bit nervous about the early struggles of the Connecticut Sun last year.
The league earlier this year named the Sun as the host of the 2005 WNBA
All-Star game, to be held next July in the Mohegan Sun Arena and televised
on ABC. (Because of the Olympic break, the All-Star game this summer was
replaced by an early August match at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall
between WNBA players and the U.S. Olympic team.) Sienko said the award of
the All-Star game was “absolutely” a vote of confidence in the Sun.

“This is the premier showcase for the league,” said Sienko. “It will show
off what we’ve done to other individual owners.”

The Sun has now made the playoffs in both its years at Uncasville. In its
previous four years as the Orlando Miracle, it made post-season play only
once.

The final season game confirmed what many saw at the Olympics, that the
women’s league is the place to look for outstanding sportsmanship. Although
the Sun beat the Indiana Fever 80 – 60, Indiana star Tamika Catchings
played her heart out. In spite of a toe injury, no chance of making the
playoffs and an Olympic gold medal to rest on, she scored 30 points. Said
the thoroughly impressed Connecticut Sun coach Michael Thibault, “That was
a class act out there.”