Does the NBA Have a Bully Problem?
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2022
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Last week, Robert Sarver, the owner of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, announced he would be selling both teams. The decision came after ESPN revealed nearly two decades of harassing behavior by Sarver, and after the NBA slapped him with a one-year suspension and $10 million fine. How was Sarver’s bullying able to go unchecked for so long? Does his departure signal a positive step forward for professional U.S. basketball, or a continuation of the status quo?
Guest: Amira Rose Davis, assistant professor of Black studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and co-host of the feminist sports podcast, Burn It All Down.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Best gift I've ever received has to be a bike when I was younger, a pedal bike. |
| 0:07.0 | It was a sort of slick little road bike and I remember it was all like, it was so, it was all wrapped up, |
| 0:13.0 | it was so obvious what it was obviously because nothing shaped like a bike and I had a little ribbon on it and I was so |
| 0:17.0 | a guess. For that was a life changer and I'm still sort of big on cycling around my area now so, for that one change me a little. |
| 0:24.0 | Enjoy in every sip with red cups now back at Starbucks. |
| 0:37.0 | I have in my hands a 36 page report. It's written by a law firm, Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen and Katz and it's dated September 13th of this year. |
| 0:49.0 | This report is serious, it details allegations of racism and sexism inside the MBA. |
| 0:55.0 | But as serious as this report is, it's almost impossible to read it and not chuckle to yourself, just a little. |
| 1:04.0 | Robert Sarver, the owner of the Phoenix Sons and the Phoenix Mercury, he is the target of this investigation. |
| 1:12.0 | And reading about the culture he created inside the MBA, Sarver comes off like Michael Scott in the office, only turned up to 11. |
| 1:22.0 | He's malicious, he's petty and he thinks he's the best boss in the world. |
| 1:29.0 | It would be laughable if it wasn't real and harmful. It's one of those points where you just, you like, you do laugh at it because you're like, this is ridiculous. |
| 1:39.0 | Amira Rose Davis teaches at UT Austin and she hosts the Burn It Down podcast, which is great and all about sports. |
| 1:47.0 | Here are some of the stories in this report that stood out to her. |
| 1:50.0 | There is the fact that Sarver used the N word multiple times at work, even though he was told not to. |
| 1:56.0 | Sarver also told a pregnant employee that she wouldn't be able to do her job once she had a baby. |
| 2:03.0 | He passed around a picture of his wife in a Phoenix Sons bikini and he forwarded porn at work. |
| 2:11.0 | Oh yeah, and he joked that players should impregnate strippers in their adopted hometown so they could feel more connected. |
| 2:24.0 | This is not a complete list of incidents by the way. |
| 2:27.0 | Amira says she wouldn't be surprised if there were more stories that no one's dug up yet. |
| 2:32.0 | The amount of incidents you have recorded and reported in the number of people who you actually talk to is always the lowest number of actually things that have happened. |
| 2:40.0 | It's just what people will tell you. |
... |
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