Sarver is often referred to as owner of the Phoenix Mercury, but this isn’t strictly true. He’s not even the majority owner of the WNBA franchise. Sarver owns less than half of the club.
However, Robert Sarver is the most influential minority stakeholder and leads a group of co-owners.
This article takes a quick look at the full ownership group. We then look in more depth at Sarver before covering three previous owners.
The Phoenix Mercury’s Ownership Group
The Phoenix Mercury is owned by a group of eighteen investors through a private company, Suns Legacy Partners.
Robert Sarver put the initial members of the group together in 2004 to buy the WNBA franchise.
Sarver was reported to have a 30% stake after the purchase of the franchise in 2004. The amount was reported as being 35% by a local newspaper in 2022.
Jahm Najafi, an equity investor, is the second largest stakeholder. The rest of the ownership is distributed across another sixteen minority owners.
Here are the other partners within the ownership company:
- Francis Najafi, older brother of Jahm
- Larry Fitgerald, former Arizona Cardinals star receiver
- Andy Kohlberg, a former tennis player who manages the Spanish soccer club co-owned by Sarver
- Scott Seldin, son of Millard Seldin who co-founded a real estate company with Sarver
- Mark Schlossberg, a high school friend of Sarvers and MD of his real estate company
- Family of Dick Heckmann, who died in 2020 and was the owner of K-2 sporting goods
- Steve Hilton, real estate developer
- Byron Roth, investment banker
- Jaffe Family
- Rogers Family
- Glen & Lynn Carlson
- Sam Garvin
- Steve Pidgeon
In addition to the list above, an investment firm called Dyal Capital Partners purchased a five percent stake in the club.
Robert Sarver, Largest Stakeholder In The Phoenix Mercury
Robert Sarver grew up in Tucson, Arizona, where his father was a banker and hotel developer. The young man worked in his father’s bank while attending school and college.
He was only twenty-three when he founded a bank in Tucson in 1984. He sold it ten years later and purchased another one.
Sarver co-founded a real estate company in 1990 with Millard Seldin, who would join him later in investing in Phoenix Mercury. Millard Seldin died in 2020 at the age of 90. His son Scott owns his father’s shares.
Sports fans usually want to know that owners have solid and successful businesses outside of the sports franchise. Several sports teams got derailed because their owners ran into financial trouble elsewhere.
There’s no doubt that Sarver has had a successful and lucrative business career. Aside from banking, his real estate company (Southwest Value Partners) has conducted significant deals in San Diego, Orlando, and Nashville.
Other sports ownership
The same investor group and company that owns Phoenix Mercury also own the Phoenix Suns.
So, all the investors I’ve listed have the same stakes in the NBA team.
Sarver himself also has ownership stakes in a soccer team in Spain. He is a co-owner of RCD Mallorca with former NBA player Steve Nash.
Nash is now the head coach at the Brooklyn Nets.
Recent controversy
Sarver has been embroiled recently in controversy over his management.
In 2021, ESPN published an article alleging serious misconduct and mistreatment of staff.
This was strenuously denied by Sarver and his lawyers. He also responded with his side of the story.
The coverage is focused primarily on allegations involving staff at the Suns.
However, the General Manager of the Phoenix Mercury came out strongly in Sarver’s defense. Jim Pitman described him as being:
consistently on the side of women and the WNBA.
Jim Pitman
Anne Mariucci and Kathy Munro, Former Minority Owners
Before the group headed by Sarver purchased the Phoenix Mercury, two local business leaders bought a 25% stake in the club.
Anne Mariucci was a former President of the Dell Webb Corporation, a notable construction company.
Kathy Munro was a former CEO of Bank Of America-Southwest Region.
The investment and minority ownership of these powerful businesswomen in a WNBA franchise garnered significant media coverage at the time.
It was also a new departure for the WNBA. Their former policy was that WNBA teams could only be owned by NBA teams.
However, their involvement lasted barely a year. When Sarver’s group purchased the Suns and Mercury, he wanted complete ownership. He purchased their stakes in a cordial deal on both sides.
Jerry Colangelo, Former Owner
Jerry Colangelo grew up in Illinois where he was captain of his college basketball team. When he graduated, he went into management roles with several sporting organizations.
He was hired as General Manager in 1968 by the NBA’s Phoenix Suns. Aged twenty-nine, he was the youngest person to have this role in an American sports franchise.
Nearly twenty years later, the Suns were going through a difficult time on and off the pitch.
A drug scandal erupted in 1987. Three current and two former players were indicted for cocaine trafficking. Ultimately, most charges were dropped.
But the media coverage had hammered the club’s reputation.
Like Sarver would do in 2004, Jerry Colangelo now brought together a team of investors. He headed the group that bought the Phoenix Suns in 1987. Of course, this was ten years before the advent of the WNBA.
Owning Phoenix Mercury
The WNBA was founded in 1997 with eight franchises.
Colangelo formed the Phoenix Mercury as one of the inaugural teams. He recruited Cheryl Miller as a strong coach.
As a player, Miller had led the U.S. national team to Olympic gold in 1984 in Los Angeles. When her playing career was curtailed by knee injuries, she went into coaching.
When she joined the Phoenix Mercury, she has two years behind her as head coach at the University of South Carolina.
Colangelo’s inaugural roster included Nancy Lieberman, who had been elected to the Hall Of Fame the previous year. She was thirty-nine at the time.
The following year, Lieberman left to coach a new WNBA franchise, the Detroit Shocks. That team went through several name and location changes. You can read about it in our article on the owners of the Dallas Wings.
