We're about to tell you one of the most toxic workplaces in America.
The quotes are stunning.
There's almost unbelievable.
It's about one of the best teams in basketball is the Phoenix Suns and
their owner, Robert Sarver, you're looking at robert Sarver right there.
Now wait till you see the things that he is alleged to have said,
let alone the things that his employees say.
And to me, the most stunning was not just over the top racism and sexism.
We're gonna give you the quotes, but what his own human resources department says,
it is unbelievable.
So, it's back in the news now because the National Action Network led by
Al Sharpton is saying, hey, are we ever gonna do anything about this?
Cuz the NBA started investigation, an investigation in November.
And then as usual never did anything about it because he's one of the owners and so
they don't really want to do anything, they've been dragging their feet.
So good on Al Sharpton's organization for bringing that back.
There's actually a lot of good folks working on it and
they're doing the campaign, #SACKSARVER.
Now, I'm gonna tell you, there it is.
Okay, you're gonna wanna participate in a second after you hear what he has
been up to.
So let me start you out with some quotes here to give you a sense of how bad
it was.
One former female employee said about working for the Phoenix Suns.
It breaks you, I'm hard to break, and it broke me.
Another former female employee told ESPN, working there quote, it wrecked my life.
I was contemplating suicide.
Holy cow, okay, did I mention #SACKSARVER?
Okay, yeah there it is.
Now let me give you some context and then I'll give you more devastating quotes.
ESPN did this investigation and they did a brilliant job of,
it is one of the best investigative pieces I've seen.
They say current and former Suns employees told ESPN that Sarver is known to say he
has quote brutal to work for, a line he has repeated over the years,
even in job interviews.
Sarver has told executives that they were paid a lot of money to put up
with my crap.
So even he admits that he is very tough to work for.
Now, you're gonna be tough to work for but be within the bounds right?
And then he gives some character references, ESPN goes to talk to them and
they're all like he is demanding hard to work for, but good.
By the way, almost all of them currently still work for
him and to some degree have to say that, okay?
So I'm gonna get to his explanation as well.
But basically you can tell at a bare minimum, very difficult to work for now,
you're gonna see it's way beyond that, okay?
But he himself admits it with some of these quotes.
If one current business operations employee told ESPN if
the commissioner comes in and investigates investigates to
see what the f is going on in phoenix, he would be appalled.
That is a current business operations employee of the Phoenix Suns, okay?
He's saying Commissioner, please come investigate,
it's a nightmare in here, right?
So what would he find?
What he would find things like this.
Now there's allegations of Sarvar using the N word countless times.
If I got into it, the ESPN stories about 20 pages long,
it takes an hour to go through it, okay?
But I'm gonna give you one quote here that ends the conversation just on its own.
Apparently Sarver when saying that he was gonna hire a black coach instead
of a white coach, well that sounds good.
He's hiring a black coach instead of a white coach.
In fact, it was Lindsey Hunter over Dan Marley back in 2013.
Well, here was his explanation internally why he did that.
These N-words need an N-word and he did not say N-word.
He did not say N word, he said the actual word.
On that alone, what are we?
We're still having a conversation?
This is Donald Sterling level, so.
>> Can I actually jump in, sorry Cenk.
How is it that this has been going on for so long and
there seemed to have been no consequences?
Whereas with Donald Sterling as soon as his mistress came out with allegations,
it seemed like it started that domino effect, that he was out.
>> Yeah, well there's a couple of things.
One, there was tapes, there was so many tapes,
there's also a lot of overwhelming evidence in this case.
But when people hear it with their own ear they go, okay, that's it, right?
And so but that's a smaller part of it.
Look, everything is about politics Anne, and
Sterling lost the political battle inside the NBA.
Whereas apparently a lot of the owners look at this and go not so bad, right?
And the most important part guys is media attention.
The Sterling case with the clippers got tons of media attention partly because tv
and radio could play the tapes over and over again.
In this case it hasn't gotten enough media attention, ESPN did a great job.
That's why I think Sharpton's bringing this back up is terrific, okay?
So, I'm glad that somebody else is saying, you know what?
Enough is enough, is the NBA ever gonna do anything about this?
So again, that quote is so devastating.
But wait until you get to the women, okay.
So but keeping on that same theme,
Sarver apparently told one of his employees when he saw him, do I own you?
Are you one of mine?
So several employees recalled separate instances in which Sarver
referred to staffers and players as quote inventory.
>> My God, it just keeps getting worse.
Yes, by the way we're not even halfway through,
wait till you hear the last quotes.
Okay, so now more context, more than a dozen employees recalled Sarver
making lewd comments and all-staff meetings.
Including discussing times when his wife would perform oral sex on him.
Four former employees said that in several all-staff meetings,
Sarver claimed he needed to wear a Magnum or extra-large condoms.
Former employees said he asked players about their sex lives and
the sexual prowess of their significant others.
Guys, this is dozens of employees,
overall ESPN talked to 70 current and former employees.
This is not a one off, by the way guys again, context is important here.
Every once in a while at any organization, one or two people will come out and go,
yeah, it's a toxic workplace environment.
I heard of a story this one employee who is white said people are mispronouncing my
name, so it's toxic.
Well I got news for you sister, based on that I've been discriminated
against thousands, maybe millions of times, right?
So there are absurd cases from time done.
This ain't one of them, this is nuclear.
This is almost a textbook definition of toxic workplace, so here we go, more.
One former Suns basketball operations staffer said I was there for
a long time, I didn't even get fired.
If that gives you any context, I left on my own.
There's no reason to be miserable every day anymore.
Now one former female employee said, especially with the younger girls,
I felt like I was abandoning them.
And so I was happy when I learned all of them are out of there.
It's so bad especially for female employees.
That a female employee feels bad leaving because she's leaving her comrades behind
to be brutalized by this guy.
#SACKSARVER, this is out, I've never seen anything like this.
Again, we haven't even gotten to HR yet.
Wait till you get to those quotes.
Here's another current Suns executive.
When I went to a psychologist, I cried a bucket of tears.
And it's like that with a lot of us.
It's just sad.
Okay, now we go to HR, they say that is a standard in our company.
If something happens, don't go toHR.
Okay, on that quote alone, you know the place is nuclear level toxic, okay?
>> Where HR runs interference on behalf of the owner rather than looking out for
the best interests of the employees.
>> A 100%, but don't take our word for it and don't take the so
called aggrieved employees.
It's 70 of them.
There's 70 of them, okay?
You're gonna hear from HR itself in a second, okay?
But here's one more, no here's a former HR representative right now, okay?
This is the quote, there was sometimes where I told people, I'm not gonna tell
you this on the record and we need to go out into the parking lot or someplace.
But I think you should sue.
I'm not sure I've ever seen that, where human resources says,
don't come in here, go to the parking lot and please sue this place.
I've never seen it, never seen it.
That's stunning.
#SACKSARVER, okay, here's another former HR representative.
I would hope that they would sue, because I knew they would get money.
So whenever we would see the claims coming, I would just be like, well,
at least that person is gonna get some money.
Because human resources knew that everybody in the building deserve money
for the abuse that Sarver was heaping on them and for his insane sexism, racism.
And you name it, right?
And so when they came into HR, they're like parking lot parking lot, please sue.
I get unprecedented.
I've never seen it in my lifetime.
And now here's a current employee to end this, okay?
And by the way, you know what?
Before that, let me just, before I get to the final devastating quote,
let me give you one more piece of context.
So let's skip ahead here to one graphic and I'll give you Sarver's denials.
The NBA began its investigation of the Suns and Sarver early november 2021.
That's very relevant, because they still have done nothing,
hours after ESPN published this story.
Based on interviews with more than 70 current and
former employees that included allegations of racism and misogyny,
sometimes hostile and toxic workplace in Phoenix, duing Sarvers 17 year tenure.
They've known this for a long, long time.
If you don't force the NBA owners to do something,
they're not gonna do it, because it's one of their own.
That's why you gotta do the hashtag, you gotta put the attention on it.
So, Sarver says the story contains outright lies about me that
bear no resemblance to my values or who I am as a person.
So he has many denials, by the way, on some of the stories,
some of them are on tape.
So he says, well, okay, yeah I did that one, but I didn't mean it or I meant it in
a different context, the ones that aren't on tape, he's no outrageous.
I never did any of that, okay?
So I'm giving you his denials for what it's worth.
Now, the final quote from a current employee.
Now, the context on this guys is the Phoenix Suns are arguably the best team in
the NBA.
They were in the NBA finals last year, right now,
they're poised to perhaps win it all.
So if you work in basketball, that should be a dream place to work.
>> Right.
>> You wait for that your whole career, to be an executive, a staffer,
let alone a player at a place where you can win a championship.
It's your dreams come true.
So here's what a current employee said.
If I knew and I wish I knew what I was coming into,
I would have never taken the job here.
Never.
So Anna, I said this would was one of the most toxic workplaces I'd ever heard of.
Did I deliver?
Is it? >> Yeah, I mean, you definitely delivered.
Usually when we're talking about accusations against an owner or
a CEO, that person who's being accused typically
focuses on being hateful or discriminatory in one area.
This guy seemed to be brutal to all of his employees,
to everyone who worked under him.
And it's a terrifying situation, because it's not just about having
a job that you find valuable, threatened as a result of the most powerful
person within this institution having this kind of control.
It's also what he might be able to do to you and
your career if you have the willingness to speak out.
If you have the willingness to confront him about his behaviour, or
more importantly, if you're willing to go to HR.
Or even go to the press to blow the whistle on what's happening
internally with the Phoenix Suns.
>> And I gave you the tip of the iceberg.
Like I said, the ESPN story is gigantic.
So to Anna's point, there are females and black employees who
had gone to HR to complain, they were fired immediately thereafter.
So brazen, totally brazen.
That's why everybody in the building is like don't go to HR, if you wanna see
HR go to the parking lot, a couple of brave people are telling people the truth.
And then there are other brave folks who clearly said,
former coaches, who stood up to him and said no I won't stand for this.
He's like okay you're fired.
So it's just over the top.
So by the way there's a new group called American Sports accountability project.
Aptly named ASAP, they should fire the guy ASAP.
Now if you're an owner, you think well how do you fire the owner?
Well it's a league and the rest of the league can vote and remove an owner.
And they did it with Donald Sterling in the Clippers and they could do it here.
So I love this movement towards justice and do something simple participate.
Do #SACKSARVER, the more that it grows, the more there will be media attention and
there could be action and most importantly, justice.