Mat Ishbia Relishes WNBA All-Star Game as Phoenix Empire Expands

PHOENIX – Mat Ishbia is right where he wants to be. The WNBA All-Star Game is in town Saturday night at a sold out Footprint Center. The Mercury’s new $100 million practice facility was christened Friday—three months ahead of schedule—just south of the arena downtown and featuring courts named after star Diana Taurasi.

Ishbia also has the NBA All-Star Game coming in 2027. Not bad for 18 months owning the Suns and Mercury.

More from Sportico.com

“We’re trying to make Phoenix a destination,” Ishbia said in an interview Friday standing near center court at the new practice facility. “We want to make it the best basketball city in America. I believe it is. We’re going to continue to show it off.”

The game and facility debut comes only three months after the opening of adjacent state-of-the-art offices and the staging of the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four at State Farm Stadium in nearby Glendale, Ariz. The women’s Final Four is slated for April 3-5, 2025, at Footprint.

Saturday night, the WNBA All-Stars will face the U.S. Women’s Olympic team as it prepares for the Paris Olympics in a rare All-Star Game format. Ishbia will have rookie WNBA sensations Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese playing for the All-Stars. His own stars—Taurasi, Brittney Griner and Kahleah Copper—are playing for the U.S. Olympians in a nationally televised game on ABC.

It’ll be the second WNBA sellout of 17,071 here in a matter of weeks. Clark was the drawing card June 30. She always is when the Indiana Fever travel; they drew a capacity crowd of 20,366 earlier this month at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

The Fever defeated the Mercury, 88-82, in their June meeting, and the crowd was the largest for a Mercury game since 1997 and second-largest in club history. The Suns regularly sell out the arena, with 121 in a row, including playoffs, since Dec. 19, 2021.

Ishbia invests the money, and he’s getting his financial return, though no championships yet. He has a basketball history as a walk-on point guard at Michigan State, playing on the 2000 team that won the NCAA men’s national championship.

“They’re really going all out,” Clark said Friday about the festivities. “Obviously Mat Ishbia is really investing in the women’s side of their ownership. For me, that’s really cool to see. He really cares. He wants it to be great. His team really deserves it.”

For Ishbia, “It’s all part of the strategy,” he said.

Ishbia purchased a majority share of the entire package from the suspended Robert Sarver for $4 billion and since has made significant investments in the arena, practice facility, office space, players and personnel for both franchises. Footprint Center is a partnership between Ishbia and the city of Phoenix, although the city owns the building and property.

The franchise purchases became official on Feb. 7, 2022, as the NBA trade deadline approached. Ishbia immediately approved a major trade, obtaining Kevin Durant from the Brooklyn Nets.

The Mercury were a sad stepchild to the Suns under Sarver, and Ishbia has now elevated the WNBA team’s facilities to NBA status. The 123,000-foot practice palace is on par with the midtown Suns facility built by Sarver as part of a major $230 million renovation of the arena in 2020. The city, which built the arena for the Suns in 1992 at the cost of $89 million in public funds, invested $130 million, with Sarver adding $100 million, $50 million of that for the practice facility.

The Suns and Mercury have a lease to play in the arena until 2036.

Ishbia said he personally paid the $100 million in cash for the Mercury’s practice facility without any help from the city, and will continue to invest. He’s worth $10.1 billion and is chief executive of Michigan’s United Wholesale Mortgage.

“I’m going to be here for a long time,” Ishbia said, who at 44 isn’t kidding. “It’s an investment I made, and we made as an organization for the Mercury. We’re going to continue to evolve. The investment in basketball and community is not going to stop. Sometimes investment pay off in a real big way, sometimes it won’t. But we’re going to adjust and make it happen.”

Of course, the investment in the Mercury and the WNBA in general has impressed the players. Ishbia said he hopes what he’s doing in Phoenix will set the standard everywhere in the sport.

Taurasi, now 42 and near the end of her career, has seen it all during her 20 years in the league, all with the Mercury. She remembers a time when both the Suns and Mercury practiced in a subterranean facility deep in the recesses of the current arena that she less-than-affectionately calls “the dungeon.” She was reminded, though, that “the dungeon” was state of the art when the arena opened in 1992.

“I have some great memories of practicing in that bunker,” Taurasi said on Thursday. “But it’s kind of nice now to get a smoothie after practice.”

Some things don’t age well, including the Suns’ current practice facility, which Ishbia said will eventually be replaced. The “dungeon” has been converted into a party suite replete with the lines on the floor to remind visitors what once transpired there.

Taurasi recognizes the WNBA has taken major steps—flying charter from city to city for the first time this year—since Taurasi broke on the scene in 2004. Like Clark, she says Ishbia is an owner who really cares about his people and the product.

“Mat has found a way to push things to the limit,” Taurasi said. “Not only building this facility in the time he’s built it, bringing All-Star here, he’s just changed the perception of what this city and the franchise looks like. He’s moved the needle. He pushes boundaries, which is what you need from a WNBA owner if you want to compete.”

Ishbia said he’s pleased about that kind of praise. He wants to be known as an owner who does everything first class, and so far he’s accomplished that.

“It feels great,” he said. “I bought the Suns and Mercury less than 18 months ago. We talked about putting them on a pedestal. We’re going to treat them great. We’re going to invest in them. It’s easy to say and sometimes harder to do. Seeing it come to fruition, it’s not because of me. It’s because of my amazing [front office] team.”

Best of Sportico.com