Orlando team moves to casino

HARTFORD, Conn. -- After a losing streak in Florida, the WNBA is gambling on Connecticut.\nThe Mohegan Sun casino will acquire a WNBA franchise, the former Orlando Miracle, a gaming industry source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press on Monday.\nThe league and the casino called a news conference for Tuesday in Uncasville. Casino spokesman Saverio Mancini and the WNBA would not comment on specifics.\nNykesha Sales, a former University of Connecticut star and the Miracle's first franchise draft pick, is to attend the announcement along with WNBA commissioner Val Ackerman and Connecticut Lt. Gov. M. Jodi Rell.\nThe team would play in the casino's 10,000-seat arena. The league has said it will allow a casino to own a team as long as there is no sports betting at the facility. There is no sports book at the Mohegan Sun. The NBA has played exhibition games at the arena.\nThe league changed its business model in October, ending central ownership of teams and cutting ties that bound teams to NBA franchises. Orlando and the league's Miami franchise folded and the Utah franchise moved to San Antonio.\nThe league has been interested in placing a team in Connecticut because of the state's strong interest in women's basketball.\nUConn's women's teams have won three national championships in seven years -- the men have won a fourth -- and their games are sellouts at the 10,000-seat Gampel Pavilion on campus and the 16,000-seat Hartford Civic Center.\n"I'm not surprised that eventually the league would end up in some cities where there wasn't necessarily an NBA presence but a women's basketball presence," UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. "Certainly there's no place in America that has a bigger presence or better appreciation for women's basketball than this place does. It's only natural."\nThe Hartford-based New England Blizzard set attendance records in the now-defunct American Basketball League. That team, launched in 1996, tapped into the interest arising from UConn's 1995 national title and drafted three former Huskies -- Jennifer Rizzotti, Kara Wolters and Carla Berube.\nOf the 10 largest crowds in the league's 2 1/2-year run, seven were logged at the Hartford Civic Center, including a record crowd of 15,418 on Jan. 23, 1997. The league folded just under a year later.