Mat Ishbia On The Suns’ Future, His Durant Takeaways And Why Tanking ‘Is For Losers’

Coming up this week on CNBC Sport the podcast, Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury owner Matt Ishbia tells me he wants to put to bed any rumors that the Phoenix Suns are in jeopardy of ever being sold. Even as shares of UWM, the publicly traded mortgage company that his family controls, which made him his fortune are down about 80% this year. The reality is the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury have zero due and responsibility tied to UWM. Plus, we talk about changes that may be coming to All Star Weekend, which is in Phoenix this season. Give Adam Silver credit; he's open to some of the ideas, and he breaks some news on getting a recent bid for a minority stake in the team. That's all coming up this week on CNBC Sport, the podcast. I am pleased to be joined by Matt Ishbia. He is the owner of the Phoenix Suns and also the Phoenix Mercury. Also, he and his brother own a minority stake in the Chicago White Sox. Your brother also owns a minority stake in the Nashville Major League Soccer team. I know you've publicly expressed interest or wanted to potentially buy the Arizona hockey team before it moved to Utah. So let's start here. Is your goal, Matt, to one day be part of a sports empire like we're seeing with Stan Kronke and Fenway Sports Group and Harris Blitzer, etc. Yeah, no. So I mean, I love sports. I have different goals than those guys. Those guys are obviously doing great things. But my view is not to be some sports empire. My goal is to own a team, or I own two: the men's and the women's team, and be the best owner I could possibly be, make an impact, be a leader in the NBA and the WNBA, impact the fans, the community, try to win a lot, have a lot of success. If another team came available, you know, would I buy one? Would I look at the opportunity? If I can impact it and win, yes, you know. But I really like impacting fans. I love being the owner of a team. I'm not trying to like. I'm not making investments in sports. I'm buying a team that I can impact and help win and help compete and do some cool things with the fans. So, do you hold yourself to a standard where perhaps before you bought another team, you would need to have demonstrable winning success with the Mercury or the Suns? No, I don't look at it like that. I know the path we're on. I mean, the the women's, the Mercury. We got to the WNBA Finals last year. The men's team, the Suns. I feel really good about our path that we're on. But most importantly, is am I impacting fans? Am I on a path? And I have to. I'm an operator. Like I run my mortgage business all day. I'm very active in the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury at a high, high level right now, and I get very much in the weeds. If I can't impact it in a positive way, I'm not going to do it. So I'm not just making investments here and there. Yes, I'm going to be the minority owner of the White Sox. My brother and I are doing that together, and but he'll be the guy running it. Like I'm going to once it's done in 2029 or 2034 down the future. But my focus is how can I impact winning, impact the fans, and that's what my focus is. Let's talk about basketball ownership, NBA ownership, because we're in an interesting time right now, where we just saw perhaps the most storied franchise in all the NBA, the Los Angeles Lakers, change hands. Surprisingly, so because of a situation where an owner had business dealings in sort of the area that he earned a lot of his money, and then he suddenly had to sell the team. There has been speculation, which you have tamped down, that you may be in a similar situation here because you've earned the bulk of your money through UWM, which is a mortgage company. You took out loans to buy the Phoenix Suns, or in part, sort of to help generate cash to buy the Suns as collateral for that loan, you put up more than 800 million shares of this mortgage business, which is down 80% over the past year or so. Look, we're CNBC, so we'll get in the weeds here a little bit. Like, walk me through why you assured Suns fans that the team is not in jeopardy at all here? Yeah, it couldn't be more of a silly news story. Not that you're asking the question. I have people ask questions, no problem. You know, my mortgage company has a bad quarter, and people think, oh, Matt has to. It has zero to do with the Phoenix Suns. The supposed loans that people like to say that I have aren't true. People like to make up stories, and you know I always say don't let the facts get in the way of a good story. The reality is, the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury have zero due and responsibility tied to UWM. Our mortgage company had not the best quarter. Guess what? We're going to have a great quarter in the third quarter when I report those numbers. No one's going to write an article that Madishview is making all this money, and what are they going to do next? It's got nothing to do with it. It's I have so much financial support and strength outside, personally, outside of any mortgage business or the basketball business that has zero to do with anything, and so zero impact, zero concern. It's just a story that people like to say, and I don't know about other people, but it's got nothing to do with my business. So go back to what you said about. The loans not being true, so there are no loans. You you don't owe J.P. Morgan billions of dollars in loans. I don't owe J.P. Morgan billions of dollars loans. I know people like to make the stories out, but no. Do I have any loans out of anything of of money? Of course I do. I I have billions of dollars. Of course I have a couple 100 million dollars of loans here and there, but the the stories that people like to report, like I said, people don't like the facts getting the way a good story. Not even close to true. I wish if someone wants to send me billions of dollars, I'll borrow it from them. But I've got enough money in my bank account, and I have enough money in my business, outside of my mortgage business, outside of my basketball business, that I'm doing great. It's got zero to do with anything. So there's no margin call risk here. Nothing like that. Zero. I'm sorry. I know it's not a fun story that they like to talk about, but zero. I don't know if there's anything lower than zeros or a negative number. Zero margin call risk. Nothing to do with it. If anything, I can I can borrow money from any. Like it's got nothing to do with anything. It's it's. I wish it was a real story. Actually, I'm happy it's not a real story, but I wish it's a real story so that it made sense for all the people that are reporting it. But it was a complete joke, and I got kind of tangled in because there was another story about another owner selling the team, and it must have been Ishbia might be in the same situation. It couldn't be far other than just. In fact, I'm buying more of my NBA team and WNBA team right now to where I own about 79% which is actually one of the highest in the NBA and WNBA of ownership by one man and my brother and my dad combined for about 20% So we're 99% as a family. I'm buying more. It's got nothing to do with my mortgage business, nothing to do with anything. My liquidity couldn't be further, less of an issue than people like to make it out to be. Just to be clear, though, you are buying more in part to settle a lawsuit that was brought forth by your minority owners, right? That that's sort of the impetus for why you are buying that 14% stake. No, no, that's not that's not the case. Actually, the truth is those owners didn't partake in the first time I was buying it, and they wanted to get bought out. And so, like a lot of people do, sometimes people like to sue to think. I said, if you just called me and said you'd like to be bought out, we'll we'll come up to it with a fair valuation. I'll buy you out. And so they canceled all the ridiculous lawsuits and said, okay, what's the deal? And then we came up with a fair deal, and we're finalizing that right now. And so, no, it's not really that. I'd buy, you know, I have one other guy in there that holds 1% That's not my brother or my dad, and he likes to be part of the team. So I said, hey, it's fine. You can stay in, but I have the right to buy him out, and I might at some point. CNBC, I think, has a real-time valuation of the Suns at about six and a half billion dollars. You bought the team for 4 billion. Just curious if you'll share this latest transaction, the 14% does that value the team at even higher than six and a half billion? You know I can't share that, but I will tell you this: that I have another person that's reached out recently, and I'm not going to partake in the deal, but of over $8 billion for a portion of my team, a couple percent, and so just realizing that the valuation and that's Suns and Mercury combined, to be clear. So I'm not exaggerating it, but I think the NBA valuations and with the expansion teams coming potentially, and what's going on with the Lakers transaction, I believe that when I bought the team at 4 billion, everyone thought I had overpaid for it. I think most people will put my my basketball teams, the Suns and Mercury, at a between eight and $9 billion valuation right now, and I think that that's going to continue to grow. There's only 30 of them, and maybe there's going to be 32. But I feel really good about those investments, and but more importantly about the impact I can make as a sports owner and as a leader in the NBA. One more follow-up to what you were just saying about the mortgage company. You're you're saying that you're very confident that the mortgage company is going to have a good quarter this coming quarter. What gives you that confidence? Because we're looking at the mortgage market, and we're not seeing a lot of activity here as rates remain high. Yeah, it's a good question. So the third quarter just ended, so I actually know the numbers. First off, second off, we're the best and biggest mortgage company in America. Four straight years, the biggest mortgage company, best mortgage company year in the company in the in the country for years and years, I know what we're capable of doing. Just because there was a anomaly bad quarter based off of a hedge, based off of market conditions and movement, people just don't understand what they're talking about. Which is fine because they don't need to. That's my job as the CEO. But UWM is is extremely strong. We have billions of dollars of equity, billions of dollars of cash, and at the same time, we're the biggest mortgage player in the country. Continue to win. Just to quickly follow up on that, though, you're saying that the quarter is going to be strong in spite of the mortgage market. Absolutely. Yeah. And and and so just to press a little bit, why is that? Because we're the best mortgage company in the country. So we are the best. We do purchase. We're not reliant on only rates dropping. We do 60% plus purchase business, and so the more purchase business you do, is less reliant on rates. People aren't going to refinance when rates are 7% but they're still going to buy houses, and so we still do most purchase business, most overall business in America. And so yeah, we had a great third quarter. That you'll see the numbers when they come out. You can tell me what you consider a great. You know, it's all arbitrary whether we positive, negative, but it's definitely different than the second quarter, which created a bunch of negative articles. I don't think I'll see, although I'd love you to report on it, as many positive articles when I have a great quarter because I don't think people care. People only care about the basketball team and could it be affected? And the answer is, it cannot be affected by it. All right. You mentioned that the league may go from 30 to 32 teams. One of those teams will be based in Las Vegas. It strikes me that that may be a threat to the Phoenix Suns. I mean, they're they border Arizona. I'd have to imagine that there's some sort of you know fan base in that region that will become Vegas fans. Now that there's a team there that may have been Suns fans. Do you feel that the Vegas team is a threat to you, and do you have to sort of alter your marketing strategy to prevent fans from fleeing? Not at all. I'm excited for the Vegas team. It has zero impact on the Phoenix Suns, except for positive. I'm a believer in abundance. More NBA fans, more more success, more TV markets, more opportunity, and the Phoenix Suns fans. Honestly, in Arizona, I got lucky. I got an amazing fan base. They love the Phoenix Suns. They love the Phoenix Mercury. They are so supportive. I'm not worried about losing fans to Las Vegas. Not even one iota. You've developed a reputation for sort of being a consumer-friendly owner. You you change the concession menu for two-dollar hot dogs and sodas, etc. For the Suns games, the the the you switch the RSN deal, which has been followed by other teams as well, to make Suns games free over the air. Is there something else that you're now looking at in terms of the way the league is structured, that is not fan friendly. Where you or the Phoenix Suns or the Mercury can become leaders. Yeah. So first off, the answer is yes. There's a bunch of things I'm looking at. The way I look at it, I'm focused on fans, focused on growing the game. Can I make the the value the two-hour value menu make it cheaper so families can come to the games? Can we you know make the TV free for everyone? What's the next thing? And so we're looking at a couple different things. But the key thing is this: is we got to lead and we got to look at what's best for the fans, what's best for the community. And you know what happens in my business and all my life is do the right things, and and do the right things, be successful, and money will follow. And a lot of other people, a lot of other business owners, or maybe other owners of sports, are looking at as an investment and say, "How can I make money? Oh, well, if I do this, is it going to make more money? I don't think about it at all. I think about it as it could be better for the fans, better for the community, better chance for us winning. And if those things are true, true, true, money will follow. But I'm going to focus on doing it either way. Well, you said you're looking at a couple things. What, even hypothetically, what are those things? Well, just I can't go into details because I I like to be a leader and like to go through. But I will tell you this: the fan experience is always the focus, right? And so, how do we make sure that every fan? We're not going to win 82 games. That every fan that comes to a game, they have an amazing. We just put an LED experience. That's by the way, example like the biggest LED thing in America outside our arena. It's a huge thing to try to create a cool fan zone outside the arena. That's a minor thing, but I got some cool stuff that we're working on in game, during the game, after the game, before the game. How do I make it the players more connected, the fans more connected? There's some cool things we're working on. You have the All-Star Game this year. I heard you in a previous interview, kind of make vague comments about how maybe there's a way that you could work with the league to improve All-Star Weekend. My question specifically has to do with the dunk contest. Maybe this is a personal pet peeve of mine, but I think objectively the dunk contest is a shell of what it once was. Is there anything that you and the league can do to improve the dunk contest for this year's All-Star Game? Yes, there is, and we are working on it. You know, give Adam Silver credit; he's open to some of the ideas, you know. We got to put more star power behind it, and I think that's where you're alluding to it on the NBA dunk contest, the three-point contest, even All-Star Saturday night. We're even thinking about adding a new contest, a new thing in there that's going to really engage fans, even Friday night. So we're working on it, and Adam Silver's been great. We are going to make some big changes to make the NBA. I'm going to make this the best NBA All-Star weekend of all time. Is the goal? I love the city of Phoenix. How do we make it that? And I'm I'm very intimately involved with it. And to give credit to Adam Silver in the NBA, they are open to ideas, and we are working on it as we speak right now. Meaning, you could throw some more money at star players and maybe convince them to come, or there's some other incentive. Is that what you're alluding to? I'm not going to go into details of what we're doing, but I'll tell you: is my plan is for it to be different than what you described from the last couple years, and you see a significant enhancement that All Star Saturday Night will bring that allure that maybe you've seen as you and you were growing up when I was growing up. How do we make it better? I'm not saying it's going to be perfect, but how do we make it significantly better? That's what we're working on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. The WNBA is now in the hunt for a new commissioner. I'm curious if you have a name in mind for who should take that job, or even kind of the type of person you're looking for. Yeah, I don't have a name specifically in mind. I've talked to the WNBA and the committee that's working on it, and I'm I'm heavily involved with a lot of details, but it's you know Kathy did a good job and helped get us from where we are to where we are now. But now it's time to take it to a whole nother level, and so I'm looking for someone, and we're looking for someone that's going to truly impact growing the game of the WNBA, the women's basketball, and take this this league to a whole other level. And I think we have a shot at doing it. We have got great players. We have got a lot of momentum behind it. We we we started with putting a huge investment in 100 million dollar practice facility, and other teams are following. We did the WNBA trade. We're going to keep pushing, and I think with a new commissioner, you know this the sky's the limit with the WNBA. You've talked a lot about how lessons that you've learned from the Kevin Durant trade, how that didn't go well, and how you kind of took a more hands-on approach with running the team, looking for a certain type of player after that happened. I have two questions related to this. The first one, I I want to clear the air for people that maybe Suns fans or or or New York Knicks fans for that matter. Does Isaiah Thomas have any role at all as sort of a sounding board for you these days in running the team and making basketball operation decisions? Now Isaiah is a friend of mine, just like Tom Isles is a friend of mine, and I talk to my friends about basketball all the time. But to say that you know I have a great GM right now, Brian Gregory, who runs my basketball operation, CEO Josh Bartelstein, obviously my coach, and I'm heavily involved. And so, no, Isaiah is not like someone that's involved. Besides a friend of mine who I talk basketball with, just like me and you would talk basket, or me and Coach Izzo would talk basket, or me and whoever would talk basketball. Okay. Second question is on the Durant front. You've made comments about how one of the lessons that you learned, or maybe the major lesson you learned, is that culture is important. Setting culture is important, and it's not just about spending the most money on a player, going over the luxury tax, or you know paying for the right guys. Like you need to build this thing with sort of a sort of specified traits in mind, which you have defined as you know we're going to rebound. We're going to be good at defense. We're going to be gritty, etc. Is the takeaway there that a player like Durant, who is maybe well into his career and has other interests that are off the court, that may be the type of player that you do not want to sign in the future. In other words, was your experience with Kevin Durant that simply his interest was not building the culture of the Phoenix Suns? No, you know, Kevin Durant. I'll move Kevin Durant aside and I'll answer your question though for you. But the first part is like when I bought the team. You know, the team was I think the eight or nine seed when I when I bought the team, and we had some good young players, like, can we get over the top? And I basically was told, and like, hey, as an owner, stay out of it and give them some money. And so I said, hey, listen, we'll go into the luxury tax, go do whatever it takes to try to win a championship. And so we did that, but it was more going getting Kevin Durant, which good player, done a lot of great things and won a championship before or two championships before, but it wasn't aligned. It was not aligned with my vision. We had a couple years and it did not succeed, as we're well aware of at this point. After that that year, I decided to trade Kevin Durant, bring in my GM, bring in a coach, and and get extremely involved personally with the type of guy and type of person we want at our organization, not just on the court, but off the court. And I'm not saying it's Kevin Durant or not Kevin Durant, but here's what I just say: is it is Dylan Brooks, it is Jordan Goodwin, it is Colin Gillespie, it is also like the guys that we have. Of course, Devin Booker. I'm not going to go to name every one of my players, but we've defined what matters to us. We have a thing called the Suns' DNA, the type of player that we believe in, that we want, and it's a team that the fans will be proud of. Everyone thought we were going to be the worst team in the league last year. We made the playoffs, won 45 games. We're going to build on that. And so, what I've learned, my biggest lesson to kind of come back, one is it's not positive or negative. Like Kevin Grant, what it is is we have to define what we're about in Phoenix and then stick with it and believe in our vision and our path. And I didn't do that at the beginning. I kind of just threw money at the problem. Now I got personally involved with every decision from the 14th man on the roster, the first man on the roster, every aspect of it, fan experience, players, coaches, and I'm putting my heart and soul into it. We'll deliver a championship tomorrow. I don't know, but I know that we're doing it the right way with the right type of people. That as the city of Phoenix, we're proud of the way we play. So just to put a pin in it, the lesson learned from the Kevin Durant, like sort of, if I were to ask you why didn't the Kevin Durant experience work, your takeaway is that there was not a defined enough culture and nor. Star around Kevin Durant at the time is that? Am I putting words in your mouth? No, I would say yeah. So I say it a little differently. There was not a defined culture in North Star where we were going, and therefore bringing in super talented players like Kevin Durant doesn't necessarily lead to championships, right? You got to find guys and people that are aligned with the vision of where we're going, the work ethic, the attitude, the care factor around winning, the grind every single day, and that's what we're looking for in Phoenix. And it whether it's Kevin Durant or not, it doesn't really matter. It's all about the type of players that we have. And now we've defined it, and so now we only get those type of players. Two two more questions. First one along that subject. Again, sort of talking about this, I was listening to a previous interview you did, and you made a comment that you're okay losing if we're losing with the right guys, if we're losing in the right way, and it made me think like I'm thinking about like an owner, an owner like George Steinbrenner. Like I can't imagine him ever saying I'm okay with losing, but in today's NBA culture, is it such that you almost have to be okay losing because these teams, the way they're constructed, have certain arcs, and you're simply going to go through a series of years where you're not going to win. Yeah. So I don't know if you misunderstood or something I said at some point, but I'm never okay losing in anything I do. I don't want to lose anything ever, whether it's my kid's game or the Suns or the Mercury. With that being said, what I said was I'd rather be in a situation. If I'm going to lose, I'm going to lose my way, our way, the right way, the Phoenix Suns way. I'm not going to lose by just going and following what everyone else said, and so what I said is I'm going to get involved and get the right type of people. I don't think we're going to lose with those type of people, but we're going to compete the right way in a team that the city is going to be proud of. Now, with that being said, I don't believe in that whole you got to you win for a couple years and they're going to tank. Like that whole tanking thing is for losers. I don't believe in it. I'm never going to be part of it. I'm glad the NBA got rid of that nonsense. With that being said, I'm focused on winning, winning all the time. Does that mean we're going to win a championship? We're going to 82 games? No and no. But we're going to compete for a championship. We're going to get better every year. And if we have a bad year, which we're going to have plenty of bad years, I'm going to figure out how to revamp and get us better. But I'm never okay losing in anything I do. To be clear. So that's my last question, which is, if I'm a Phoenix Suns fan and I'm listening to you right now, give me the right expectations for this season. I should be going into it. I'm looking at a stacked Western Conference: Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Lakers, Denver, Minnesota. Like, how should I be thinking about this season? You should be thinking that we're going to be better than we were last year, and that we're going to be a team that you're going to look and be like, I love this team. These guys play hard, they care, and they're winning more. And our goal is to be very clear: is to win more and compete. Like I believe that you know, of course, there's great teams at the Western Conference and the Eastern Conference, a lot of great NBA teams. So saying you're going to be the best team in the league is really, really hard to do. However, I believe getting the first round, winning a first round playoff series, and then you see matchups, health. There's a lot of things that happen to get yourself to the NBA Finals and compete for a championship. So I believe that we have a team that can get there. As in, we're going to make the playoffs. We're going to win the first playoff series, and how do we continue to build? But the most important thing is we're on this trajectory. We're an ascending young team, getting better every day, and we have a superstar in Devin Booker who we're going to continue to build around. The NBA regular season kicks off next week. Matt Ishbia, thanks for the time. Good luck this year. Thank you.