I would of course love to see this happen, but if it ever does it likely won’t be in the near future.
Travis Scott was struck by basketball motivation in the middle of the night — crack of the morning? — and let the world know what was on his mind.
“It’s 3:30 a.m. and I feel like Houston can bring back the Houston Comets. I’m gonna go for it!!!!,” the rapper who grew up in Missouri City posted to Twitter on Friday.
Scott, who was sitting courtside to watch Iowa’s Caitlin Clark break Pete Maravich’s NCAA scoring record last month, is far from the first Houston sports fan to have such an idea. Tampa Bay Bucs receiver Mike Evans, who was a child in Galveston when the Comets won the WNBA’s first four championships from 1997-2000, made a similar social media post in 2022, writing, “Bring the Houston Comets back. I love the WNBA.”
If only it were all so simple.
A WNBA expansion team hasn’t begun play since the Atlanta Dream joined the league in 2008, just six months before the Comets were disbanded in December 2008.
However, a surge in popularity has led the WNBA to expand again, officially awarding the Golden State Warriors a team that will begin play in San Francisco’s Chase Center in 2025. The expectation is that the league will add another franchise to give it an even 14 teams. However, Houston has never been mentioned as a candidate by league executives.
See here for the last time this came up. Multiple other cities have been cited as the next expansion possibility; I have no idea why Houston is overlooked. For that matter, I have no idea why the WNBA is being so conservative about expansion, at this moment when women’s basketball is as popular as it’s ever been. Sure seems like now is the time to capitalize on that and make a real investment in the league. And when you do, remember that the history of the WNBA can’t be told without the city of Houston.
I think HTX has a better chance of seeing hockey return than they do women’s basketball if for no other reason than that it’s played in a room full of ice October through April, and who doesn’t like an ice-filled room in Houston ? Amirite or amirite ?
Taxpayer funded HCHSA and NRG Park appear to be uninterested in women’s sports (The only women’s team in town has a team salary cap of 600k).
Funding seems to be dominated by plutocrat owned teams that are male.
They may be saving up money to help Fertitta bring the Putin affirming/LGBT hating NHL to town.
These agencies have diverted ~$2 billion from taxpayers in the last 20 years. Money that could have gone to real priorities like roads, water, and public safety.
By the way, locals pay those taxes too. When a homeless family cobbles enough money to get a cheap hotel room, they pay a surtax primarily for the benefit of Crane, Fertitta, and McNair.
I’ve never seen a single positive thing result from any of that spending. Houston has hosted dozens of events that have claimed that they’d make money for the city. And the city is broke. Apparentlt, those past events didn’t make money. The future ones won’t make money either.
The whole HCHSA/NRG Park system is discriminatory AF, insulting to multiple minority groups, diverts funds from critical needs, provides dubious returns, and creates surtaxes paid disproportionately by the poor.
The whole “Houston Sports” system is rotten.
I would be OK with any more public $ going into sports franchises only if the public gets all the benefits of a shareholder. If you pony up 50% of the cost to build a stadium, you should have a 50% stake in the profits.
@Bill… The CoH should sell the White Elephant Astrodome and use the money to pay the HFD litigants. Let’s work to get that on the ballot.
The City doesn’t own the Dome, the county does
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