Robert Sarver says he has began the method of promoting the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury, a transfer that comes solely eight days after he was suspended by the NBA over office misconduct together with racist speech and hostile conduct towards workers.
Sarver made the announcement Wednesday, saying promoting "is the very best plan of action."
"However in our present unforgiving local weather, it has change into painfully clear that that's not attainable - that no matter good I've carried out, or might nonetheless do, is outweighed by issues I've mentioned up to now," Sarver wrote in an announcement. "For these causes, I'm starting the method of in search of consumers for the Suns and Mercury."
Sarver purchased the groups in July 2004. He isn't the lone proprietor, however the main one.
"Phrases that I deeply remorse now overshadow almost 20 years of constructing organizations that introduced individuals collectively," he wrote on Wednesday.
Final week, the NBA has suspended Sarver for one yr and fined him $10 million after an investigation discovered that he had engaged in what the league referred to as "office misconduct and organizational deficiencies."
The findings of the league's investigation got here almost a yr after the NBA requested a legislation agency to research allegations that Sarver had a historical past of racist, misogynistic and hostile incidents over his almost two-decade tenure overseeing the franchise.
The report based mostly its findings on interviews with 320 individuals, together with present and former workers who labored for each groups whereas Sarver was managing companion, in addition to greater than 80,000 paperwork and supplies corresponding to emails, textual content messages and movies, the NBA mentioned.
"I don't wish to be a distraction to those two groups and the advantageous individuals who work so onerous to carry the enjoyment and pleasure of basketball to followers all over the world," Sarver mentioned. "I need what's greatest for these two organizations, the gamers, the staff, the followers, the neighborhood, my fellow house owners, the NBA and the WNBA."