It looks like our forever POTUS is exploring another passion post-retirement: basketball.
Barack Obama is reportedly part of a group looking to buy the Phoenix Suns. The NBA team’s current owner Robert Sarver announced his desire to sell the teams in September after valuable sponsors like Verizon Wireless and PayPal, laid plans to cut sponsorship deals with the Suns.
Sarver was issued a one-year ban and $10M fine by NBA officials after allegations arose of his involvement in racist, sexist, and bullying behavior.
The NBA found that Sarver used the N-word on at least five occasions among other alleged inappropriate activity, including demeaning language and behavior to female colleagues. “The days of somebody being able to put in a little amount of money and run the team, those days are over… The one guy who might pull it off and I heard, I’m probably breaking some news here, but I heard Obama is involved in one of the groups,” Bill Simmons said on his The Ringer podcast, via NBC Sports.
Bill Simmons said on a podcast episode with Charles Barkley earlier this week that he’d heard of Obama’s involvement in one of the potential ownership groups that have started to get together. Simmons didn’t provide any specifics on the matter, but implied that Obama could be a strong face for the organization if he were to ultimately get involved with the sale.
Suns coach Monty Williams commented about Obama’s possible involvement with the franchise earlier this month.
“I don’t tend to make comments about speculation, but I think anybody would value a partnership with someone like that,” Williams said, as reported by HoopsHype. “For me, as an African-American, even though you may have differences of opinions on certain views politically, whatever that looks like, someone that’s been through those kinds of experiences from a leadership standpoint, I would love to just pick his brain and just sit and listen for hours about life and decisions and things like that.”
Sarver staked claim over the franchise for $401 million in 2004 – and nearly 20 years later, Forbes values the team at $1.8B. The Suns’ selling price tag is estimated to be $3B. Disney’s Bob Iger, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Oracle’s founder Larry Ellison are among the rumored interested owners.