Amid growing pressure from NBA players, sponsors and local government officials and following his one-year suspension for using racist and misogynistic language, Robert Sarver announced Wednesday his plans to sell the Phoenix Suns and the WNBA Mercury.
The 60-year-old real estate developer said in a statement that he did not want to be a “distraction” and that he “wants the best” for the organizations.
“As a man of faith, I believe in atonement and the path to forgiveness. I hoped the commissioner’s one-year suspension would give me time to focus, make amends and remove my personal controversy from the teams that so many fans love,” Sarver said. “But in our current unforgiving climate, it has been painfully clear that this is no longer possible: that all the good I have done, or could still do, is offset by the things I have said in the past. For these reasons, I am beginning the process of finding buyers for the Suns and Mercury.
Adam Silver was the “good” curator. Why waste that defending the bad guys?
NBA commissioner Adam Silver suspended Sarver for a year and fined him a maximum of $10 million last week following the conclusion of a lengthy labor conduct investigation that began following an article by ‘ESPN.com in November. Silver, however, stopped short of issuing a lifetime ban to Sarver, a punishment the commissioner had previously handed down to former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling in 2014 for his racist comments.
Prominent NBA stars including LeBron James, Chris Paul and Draymond Green, as well as National Basketball Players Association Executive Director Tamika Tremaglio, denounced Sarver’s behavior and suggested that Silver’s punishment did not go far enough, and PayPal said it would not renew its contract. as the Suns’ jersey sponsor after this season if Sarver stayed with the team, which he has owned since 2004. Suns minority owner Jahm Najafi and civil rights activists such as the Rev. Al Sharpton call for Sarver’s resignation, while Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego and the city. Council members issued a statement saying they were “appalled” by his behavior and planned to conduct their own investigation.
With the 2022-23 season opening next month and the team’s media days starting on Sunday, Sarver’s decision to pursue a sale of the Suns was met with relief around the league given his initial strong denials of ESPN.com’s allegations and his reputation for stubbornness. Although he issued an apology after Silver suspended him, Sarver disputed some of the report’s findings, and his legal representatives continued to dispute some of the allegations. There were fears that Sarver would collapse, like Sterling, creating a long power struggle for the future of the Suns and an unsustainable day-to-day existence.
“I fully support Robert Sarver’s decision to sell the Phoenix Suns and Mercury,” Silver said in a statement Wednesday. “This is the right next step for the organization and the community.”
Silver noted last week that he did not have the power as commissioner to unilaterally take the Suns from Sarver. Instead, the NBA’s Board of Governors would have had to vote against Sarver by a three-quarters majority, a difficult and time-consuming proposition that could have led to litigation from Sarver. The NBA’s decision to publicly release the investigators’ report, however, exposed Sarver to widespread criticism and outrage. In the past, the league has summarized similar investigative reports rather than releasing them in full.
“So proud to be part of a league committed to progress,” James tweeted Wednesday.
“We thank Mr. Sarver for making a quick decision that was in the best interest of our sports community,” NBPA President CJ McCollum said in a statement.
Investigators from the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz documented a long list of workplace misconduct violations in a 43-page report, including Sarver using the n-word at least five times, repeated examples of sexist behavior and multiple incidents in which Sarver exposed himself to employees.
According to witnesses, Sarver used the n-word while recruiting a free agent in 2004, during a team-building exercise in 2012 or 2013, after an October 2016 game against the Golden State Warriors and while explaining a story about what a player’s family member had said while boarding the team plane. According to two witnesses, Sarver quoted the family member as saying, “The white people at the front, [n-words] in the back.” Investigators found that Sarver, who is White, continued to use the slur for years despite repeated warnings from colleagues that doing so was inappropriate.
Sarver’s transgressions toward female employees included telling one she had to stop working on an assignment because her baby “needs its mother, not its father,” asking another if she had received ” an enhancement,” a euphemism for a breast augmentation, and telling another she’s “never seen anything this big” as he prepared to take a shower at the team facility. In another incident, he reprimanded a female employee for her performance in 2011, objected when she began to cry, and later hosted a lunch for four female employees that attendees saw as a means to toughen them up.
Investigators attributed some of Sarver’s behavior to his “sophomore and inappropriate” sense of humor and his “lack of filter,” but documented incidents that repeatedly crossed the line into harassment. While receiving a “fitness check” from a male employee, Sarver “unnecessarily dropped his underwear” while the employee was kneeling in front of him, exposing himself. Sarver also danced “pelvis to pelvis” with a male employee at a holiday party, pulled down a male employee’s pants in front of his co-workers during a 2014 charity event and asked at least one player team 2009-10 on personal hygiene habits. .
Under the terms of her suspension, Sarver was barred from attending all NBA and WNBA games and team facilities, cannot appear at public events on behalf of the Suns or the Phoenix Mercury the WNBA and may not participate in the commercial operations of their organizations. or league meetings. Sam Garvin, a former minority owner of the Suns, replaced Sarver on an interim basis.
“The racist boys club of pro sports is officially closed,” Sharpton said in a statement. “A new era is upon us where it is intolerable to see black players as property. Sarver’s decision today is the first step in a long road to justice for the Suns and Mercury – the staff, the players and the fans. It is now imperative that the NBA, the two teams, the corporate sponsors and the new owner, whoever they are, follow through on their commitment to root out racism, misogyny and hatred.”
Throughout his tenure, Sarver has been known as a thrifty, and sometimes combative, owner who struggled to put winning teams on the court after the Suns’ early “Seven Seconds or Less” success, which reached the Western Conference finals in 2005 and 2006. Phoenix missed the playoffs for 10 consecutive seasons from 2011 to 2020 as Sarver went through coaches, hired and fired executives, and was repeatedly drafted in the ‘NBA. During a particularly tumultuous stretch, Sarver fired manager Earl Watson just three games into the 2017-18 season and then fired his full-time replacement, Igor Kokoskov, after one season.
There were many misadventures along the way. In 2014, Sarver apologized to Suns fans because the San Antonio Spurs had chosen to rest several stars during a game in Phoenix. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich responded bluntly, saying Sarver should have worn a “chicken outfit” during his address. In 2017, Suns guard Eric Bledsoe famously tweeted “I don’t want to be here,” a commercial request he later claimed was a reference to his boredom at a hair salon. Then in 2019, Sarver reportedly put live goats in his CEO’s office in what was apparently a motivational tactic.
But the arrival in recent years of coach Monty Williams and Paul brought the Suns back to the playoffs and onto the national stage. Phoenix reached the Finals in 2021 for the first time since 1993 and won a franchise-record 64 games last season despite the ongoing investigation into Sarver. With a talented roster built around Paul, star guard Devin Booker, forward Mikal Bridges and center Deandre Ayton, the Suns enter next season as one of the favorites in the West.
Sarver led a group that bought the Suns for roughly $400 million in 2004, and a recent Forbes estimate pegged the franchise’s current value at more than $1.8 billion. The valuation of the Suns’ sale price could exceed $2 billion as NBA franchises have substantially increased in value in recent years and a new national media rights deal is on the horizon. After the Clippers sold for $2 billion in 2014, the Houston Rockets sold for $2.2 billion in 2017, and the Brooklyn Nets sold Barclays Center for $3.3 billion in 2019. From 2020 , smaller market franchises like the Utah Jazz ($1.6 billion). ) and Minnesota Timberwolves ($1.5 billion) produced lucrative returns for their longtime owners.
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