Former Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver ‘gives $20,000 bonuses to team employees’

Controversial former Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver is “giving a $20,000 individual bonus to many team employees” and made a “$5 million donation to the team’s charity.”

Sarver sold his majority stake in both the Suns and the city’s WNBA team, the Phoenix Mercury, to United Wholesale Mortgage executive and former Michigan State guard Mat Ishbia earlier this month.

Ishbia agreed on December 20 to the deal, which put the total value of the Suns and Mercury at $4 billion. Sarver bought a 37% stake in the Suns franchise in 2004, as he and a group paid a record $401 million for the Arizona team.

According ESPNqualifying employees were those who started working for the team ‘on or before February 15, 2022’.

Former Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver reportedly handed out $20,000 individual bonuses

The Phoenix Suns and their WNBA counterpart, the Mercury, sold for a total of $4 billion this month.

The sources cited by the newspaper indicate that between ‘250 and 300’ employees will benefit from the elegant gesture.

Sarver was suspended for a year and fined $10 million by the NBA in September after a 10-month investigation showed the Suns owner had used racist language, made rude and sexually suggestive comments to fans employees and had bullying tendencies.

In the weeks that followed, Sarver announced his decision to sell the team after various sponsors, including Verizon Wireless and PayPal, indicated their intention to close endorsement deals.

However, the 61-year-old and members of the front office were charged with racist and misogynistic behavior, including allegedly demanding a trainer fire a minority constable and allegedly announcing his preference for extra-large condoms. at a staff meeting.

In addition to saying the N word ‘at least five times’, Sarver was also accused of using language and conduct demeaning to female employees, including the time he asked a pregnant worker if she would not be able to perform her duties after becoming a mother. An executive from the team told the unidentified woman to start looking for a new job and was eventually demoted.

Mat Ishbia was introduced to the media as the new owner of the majority stake on February 8.

Ishbia is a former Michigan State basketball player and CEO of a mortgage company.

“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 Suns on Sept. 21.

“I was hoping that the commissioner’s one-year suspension would give me time to focus, make amends and remove my personal controversy from the teams I and so many fans love.”

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