Robert Sarver is expected to sell the Phoenix Suns for $3billion ahead of start of new season

The Phoenix Suns are expected to sell for an estimated $3billion after current team owner Robert Sarver was slapped with a $10million fine and one-year ban from the NBA following allegations of racial and sexist slurs as well as bullying to employees. 

The franchise’s valuation, reported by ESPN on Wednesday, would be the second-highest team ownership sale in sports history. At the moment, the Denver Broncos’ $4.65billion sale in June to the Walton-Penner family is the North American record, surpassing the $2.4billion benchmark set by Steve Cohen in 2020 when he bought the New York Mets. 

Sarver, 60, announced his decision to sell the team and the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA this week after several sponsors, including Verizon Wireless and PayPal, were intending to cut sponsorship deals with both franchises. He initially bought the team in 2004 for $400million.

In total, the Suns have 30 sponsors on a one-year contract until the end of the new season. Put altogether, these sponsors generated $11million in revenue last season for the Arizona franchise. 

PayPal is the leading profit-making sponsor, as the online payment company made $3million in revenue for Phoenix last season, but its CEO Dan Schulman released a statement saying the company would not seek to renew its partnership with the Suns ‘should Robert Sarver remain involved with the Suns organization, after serving his suspension.’ 

Phoenix Suns and Mercury owner Robert Sarver has announced that he has started the process to sell both franchises and is reportedly considered to sell both teams for $3billion 

A factor that influenced Sarver’s decision to put the Suns on the market was the franchise’s frosty relationships with its sponsors, including PayPal and Verizon. Both companies have threatened to distance themselves from the NBA team should the current owner remain involved with the organization, after serving his one-year league suspension

The Suns office reportedly prepared for the worst outcome for Sarver, according to ESPN. Many, if not all, sponsors sought ‘additional attention and talking points’ with Phoenix after the NBA’s final report on the allegations made against the Suns owner was made public, as well as Silver’s punishment. 

Other than PayPal, these sponsors included Rocket Mortgage, Kia, Opendoor, CarMax, Kroger, Beam Suntory, Arizona Public Service, Footprint and Verizon. 

Schulman, who is also part of Verizon’s board of directors, had also sent signs to the Suns front office that the carrier was considering pulling the plug with the basketball franchise. 

‘The walls were closing in on [Sarver],’ an NBA insider source told ESPN. ‘A group of sponsors were all moving towards this common position.’  

Suns minority owner Jahm Najafi was one of the leading voices in the front office who had publicly advised Sarver to resign as owner. 

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver had also privately advised Sarver to sell despite being of the opinion that the league’s 10-month investigation into the Suns owner’s inappropriate conduct was ‘dramatically different’ from the one tied to former LA Clippers owner, Donald Sterling. 

In 2014, Sterling was handed a lifetime ban from the NBA after telling his mistress, V. Stiviano, in a recording obtained by TMZ that she is ‘not to bring them to my games,’ referring to black people.  

Sarver was not deserving of the same punishment, Silver concluded and the NBA commissioner offered the Suns owner a path back to the league in 365-days time. The Arizona businessman was not caught on tape and there was no indisputable evidence to find him guilty by default, unlike Sterling. 

Sarver’s case has drawn comparison’s to that of former Clippers owner Donald Sterling (left), who was banned for life and fined $2.5m for racist comments against black people in 2014

Sarver, whose net worth is estimated at $800million, bought the Suns in 2004 for $800million

The 60-year-old, whose net worth is estimated at $800million, and members of the front-office were, however, accused of racist and misogynistic behavior, including allegedly requiring a coach to fire a minority agent and allegedly announcing his preference for extra large condoms at a staff meeting. 

Investigators from Wachtell Lipton were then hired by the league to look further into the ESPN report and confirmed the veracity of the claims by conducting more than 320 interviews, all mentioned in detail in a 43-page report that the league has shared with the public on September 13. 

However, several players, including Lebron James, of the Los Angeles Lakers, and Chris Paul, the Suns’ point guard, didn’t think Silver’s punishment was hard enough on Sarver. 

Meanwhile, Golden State Warriors star Green called for NBA owners to vote to determine whether Sarver should be removed as Phoenix Suns majority owner as he labeled his punishment ‘bulls***’. 

National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) executive director Tamika Tremaglio echoed a majority of NBA players’ sentiments on the situation, and said in an ESPN interview that they were ‘absolutely calling for’ a lifetime ban. 

The NBA rules state that in order for an owner to be removed, it needs three-quarters of its board of governors to agree to start the process. In September, commissioner Silver made it clear that he cannot act alone on ‘the right to take away his team,’ referring to Sarver, in a press conference. 

The NBA had the option of giving Sarver a longer ban than the one-year suspension. The $10m fine was the maximum allowable, as was the case with Sterling’s $2.5m fine eight years ago; NBA rules on maximum fines were changed in 2019.

Lakers star LeBron James insisted there is no place for ‘that kind of behavior’ in the league

Paul hit out at the sanctions, believing that Sarver should have faced a harsher punishment

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver privately advised Sarver to sell, ESPN reported, but did not think the Suns owner deserved as much of a heavy punishment as Sterling

But Silver revealed that Sarver was likely spared even stronger sanctioning by the NBA for his racist, misogynistic and hostile words and actions because of one key conclusion by investigators.

Lawyers put in charge of Sarver’s case by the league determined the NBA owner’s use of slurs ‘was not motivated by racial animus.’

Had that not been the case, Silver indicated, Sarver’s punishment – a one-year suspension and $10m fine – would have been far more severe.

The Suns owner, however, still complained about the severity of his punishment to Silver, and compared it to the sanctions handed to Dallas Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban in 2018 after two legal firms – Lowenstein Sandler and Krutoy Law – reported ‘toxic’ corporate culture.

Silver, in response, made it clear that Cuban had not been personally accused of direct misconduct himself, and that allegations were aimed towards the Texas-based organization as a whole. 

Sarver said he had hoped to ‘make amends and remove my personal controversy from the teams that I and so many fans love’ (pictured the Suns in action against the Dallas Mavericks)

All things considered, it had become inevitable for Sarver to sell, and it took all sort and types of influences for him to put the franchise from the market, from a business and sporting perspective. 

‘As a man of faith, I believe in atonement and the path to forgiveness,’ Sarver said in his statement announcing his decision to sell the Phoenix Suns on September 21. ‘I expected that the commissioner’s one-year suspension would provide the time for me to focus, make amends and remove my personal controversy from the teams that I and so many fans love. 

‘But in our current unforgiving climate, it has become painfully clear that that is no longer possible – that whatever good I have done, or could still do, is outweighed by things I have said in the past.’ 

Among rumors of a new team owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Oracle founder Larry Ellison. Laurene Powell Jobs, the wife of the late Steve Jobs, is also believed to be in the running. She currently has a 20 percent minority stake in the Washington Wizards.  

Bob Iger, who has close ties with the NBA from his time at Disney (a league sponsor and organizer for the 2020 NBA bubble), is also considering buying the Arizona-based franchise.