Photo Credit: AP Photo/Al Goldis

Who Is The Phoenix Suns’ New Owner, Mat Ishbia?

After Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver was suspended for a year, with a $10 million fine, due to a racism, sexism, and sexual harassment scandal, the NBA world decided in unison, that the punishment wasn’t enough.

With a lot of pressure from thin the NBA, its front office and its players, Sarver decided that it was in everyone’s best interest to sell the Suns and Mercury franchises.

After the first reports of Sarver selling the team, the top of the list of potential buyers included some well known names, that were headlined by Qatar, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and even former President Barack Obama, who was rumored to be involved in one of the groups considering a bid to buy the Suns.

Then yesterday, Adrian Wojnarowski revealed that Mat Ishbia, a 42-year-old billionaire from Michigan, reached an agreement to purchase Sarver’s stake in both the Suns and WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and assume the role of team chairman.

But who exactly is Ishbia? First and foremost, he’s the chairman and CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage, that was founded by his father. Ishbia owns a 71% stake in UWM and had an estimated net worth of $9.7 billion in 2021. 

More interestingly for basketball fans is the fact that Ishbia has an ongoing rivalry with Cleveland Cavaliers’ chairman Dan Gilbert, with both being in the mortgage lending business, as well as alumni of Michigan State.

But Ishbia even played in the Final Four (as a walk-on) a couple of times during his time with the Spartans, the new Suns owner was part of Tom Izzo’s dynasty that had them win the National title in 2000. So one thing’s for certain, the man can play… at least he was dubbed the greatest Walk-On of all-time.