MGM Resorts buys WNBA’s San Antonio Stars, moving to Vegas

Casino operator MGM Resorts has purchased the WNBA’s San Antonio Stars and is moving the team to Las Vegas.

On Tuesday, Women’s National Basketball Association president Lisa Borders announced that the Stars will play in Las Vegas as of next season, which starts in June 2018. The team will make its home game debut in the MGM-owned 12k-seat Mandalay Bay Events Center on the Las Vegas Strip.

Borders told the Associated Press that she’d initiated contact with MGM regarding a potential sale of the team after she informed the WNBA of the Stars ownership group’s interest in selling out. MGM’s chief experience and marketing officer Lilian Tomovich called the acquisition “a great alignment, frankly, with the DNA of our company.”

MGM isn’t the first casino operator to take a stake in an WNBA franchise. The tribal operators of Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun casino control the Connecticut Sun team, which plays at the tribe’s Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville.