Suns Owner Robert Sarver Is Threatening To Move The Team If He Doesn't Get A New Arena

We may have a situation brewing in the desert folks. The Suns owner, Robert Sarver, one of the worst owners in all of sports and apart from James Dolan is probably the worst owner in the league, wants a new arena. He wants the city to shell out $150M to replace or renovate their current building, and it appears we have a good old fashioned stand off.

It becomes clearer and clearer why the city of Phoenix is rushing this week to shell out $150 million to upgrade the Suns arena, springing it on citizens only after the deal was secretly cut.

Nearly 66 percent of Phoenix voters polled oppose the plan.

Not that many people over at city hall or in the Suns’ executive suite care.

Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver has been looking for the city to pony up to replace or renovate Talking Stick Resort Arena for several years. But that talk exploded into action last month, after Kate Gallego crushed the competition in the four-way Phoenix mayor election.

Within days, Gallego, the odds-on favorite to win the March runoff, announced that “spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a huge renovation for the Phoenix Suns is not a priority for me.”

Thus, the urgency to get this deal done Wednesday, during the City Council’s last meeting of the year.

According to this deal, he wants the city to fork over $150M and then the Suns to kick in another $80M. You’ll never believe this when when thi was taken to the public, 65.8% of the voters were against the deal. So why is this a big deal? Well this asshole has come out and straight threatened to take the team to Vegas or Seattle

Multiple sources tell me that Phoenix Mayor Thelda Williams will ask for a postponement of this afternoon’s City Council vote on whether to spend $150 million upgrading the Suns arena. This, because the deal will go down in defeat if it’s put to a vote.

Whether Williams gets a continuance or not could mark the beginning of a showdown between the city and Suns owner Robert Sarver, who is telling some council members that he will take the team to Seattle or Las Vegas.

Now, I’m on record saying I am all in favor of a team going to Seattle, so part of me doesn’t hate it. At the same time, the Suns have been in Phoenix since 1968, and while they haven’t been to the Finals since 1993, they do somewhat have a history there. Some say they were involved in the greatest game every played back in 1976, and I can speak from firsthand experience when this team is good, the people of Phoenix show out. I was at ASU during the 7 seconds or less/Steve Nash era of Suns basketball and the arena was always packed. You could get a Diamondbacks ticket for like $5, but you go across the street and the Suns were completely different. So this isn’t a situation where there will never be a market for Suns basketball like some other dogshit teams, when the Suns are good it’s a great basketball city.

It also doesn’t help that everyone despises Sarver. You think the fanbase that hates him with the power of 10,000 suns (no pun intended but intended) is just going to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars because Sarver wants a new arena? That cheap motherfucker? No chance. Remember, this is pretty much exactly what got the Sonics relocated, they couldn’t get a new arena, got a new owner and it was a wrap. The Suns are apparently worth $1.3B, so asking the public to come up with that much money is never going to go well. The building itself was rennovated in 2003 with $67M going into improvements, and it’s actually a pretty cool arena right in the heart of downtown Phoenix.

I get teams are building new arenas and new practice facilities in order to keep up with the Joneses, but the Suns are in a different situation given their recent lack of success and horrific owner. To then threaten to take away the team all together, is that supposed to make the public cave or something? Yeah they love the Suns but for a rich asshole like this to be acting like this is just a bad look all around. But given that we know he’s one of the cheapest owners in all of sports, it’s not all that surprising.

With Seattle getting a new arena and the NBA making major investments in Vegas it’s not the craziest thing to think the Suns could be on a short list of relocation options, but to do it because the owner is cheap and doesn’t want to pony up more in order to get these renovations/new arena for a team that has been in the desert for 50 years and is basically holding them hostage is such a bad look and par for the course for this asshole.

I know Knicks fans everywhere want James Dolan to sell the team but they never have to worry about him moving the team. Poor Suns fans are in just as bad a spot with another guy that will never sell and would definitely pull the trigger on relocating if it lined his pockets. Brutal.