Photo by Michael Gonzales/NBAE via Getty Images
The new Suns owners are already making their mark in the Phoenix community and trying to create a new generation of fans in the Valley.
The Ishbia brothers may have only agreed to a $4 billion deal to buy the Phoenix Suns last week, but they are already making an impact on the surrounding community. On Christmas Eve, the billionaire siblings (Mat and Justin) donated $100,000 to send approximately 6,600 underprivileged children to their first Suns game on Jan. 30.
Bright Side Night — a community event run by site manager Dave King and our Suns website, Bright Side of the Sun — is an annual opportunity where this year Suns fans, Bright Side readers or anyone else can donate $15 to send two kids from around the Valley area to their first NBA game.
Over the last six years prior to this generosity from the Ishbias, King wrote that the event has “raised more than $100,000 in donations to send more than 12,000 deserving Valley residents — kids, first responders, health care workers — to their first Suns game.” The brothers matched that in one fell swoop on Christmas Eve.
Now, given that Mat Ishbia alone is worth a reported $5.1 billion, per Forbes, it’s worth acknowledging that this will not break the bank for the two brothers. But no one was asking them to donate their entire net worth, and what this act of charity does demonstrate is that the Ishbias want to come in and invest in not just the team they’re purchasing for an NBA-record valuation, but creating a new generation of Suns fans in the surrounding Phoenix area. And after a tumultuous last few years in which basketball fans in Phoenix had very, very legitimate reasons to be repelled by the previous ownership group led by Robert Sarver, this could potentially be the start of a breath of fresh air, and a new era for fans in the Valley of the Sun.
If you want to join the Ishbias in donating to Bright Side Night and sending a couple of kids to their first NBA game, you can do so at Ticketmaster here.
