Phoenix Mercury owner Mat Ishbia is the WNBA's new villain — for investing in the team?

Phoenix Suns and Mercury owner Mat Ishbia is the new villain of women sports.

Some of the women who play, coach and cover women’s sports dislike him.

And you can see why.

The billionaire businessman just made a major investment in women’s professional basketball, purchasing the Phoenix Mercury along with the Phoenix Suns.

The Mercury have long been a staple of the WNBA, praised by the league’s commissioner in recent years as a model franchise.

Mat Ishbia is making a huge investment

Ishbia got in there and announced he was investing $100 million to build the Mercury their own practice facility that would be “state of the art, the best in the WNBA."

The Mercury’s new headquarters, according to Cronkite News, will “offer state-of-the-art amenities, including indoor and outdoor courts, a fitness room, pools, underwater treadmills, a lounge area, a film room, a locker room and a dedicated chef.”

And that’s not all.

Ishbia told Arizona Sports radio, “There’s more sports science coming out, and I can use some of the room in the Mercury’s new training area for ... sports science. ... We’re trying to make this the best in country.

“We think the WNBA has a lot of room to grow and so we want to show, ‘Hey, we’re putting our money where our mouth is. We’re investing in the women and helping them to become even better, because I love the game.’”

He wants NBA talent to lift the WNBA

Ishbia also went out and lured executive Nick U’Ren from the Golden State Warriors to become the general manager of the Mercury.

The Warriors are the premier franchise of the modern NBA, cutting edge in coaching, tactics, facilities, marketing, fan base, everything.

Such expertise and top-tier experience can only lift the WNBA.

But U’Ren has a problem. He’s a man.

Like most of the NBA talent at this stage, he is male. If you want to bring NBA talent to the WNBA, you’ll likely have to hire some men.

That can help women coaches everywhere

In that vein, Ishbia went out and spent top dollar on a new head coach for the Mercury.

He hired Nate Tibbetts, assistant coach with the NBA’s Orlando Magic, and brought him and his 13 years of NBA experience to Phoenix.

Ishbia was sending a message.

To hire from the NBA is to hire from one of the most advanced professional sports leagues on the planet. When you do that, you do it to raise the game of your newer league — the WNBA.

By making Tibbetts the highest paid coach in the WNBA, he also raised the future earning potential of everyone in the league. He set the new threshold for premium talent.

WNBA women in the future will make more money because Ishbia made this hire. He’s priming the market.

Muffet McGraw simply wasn't having it

But these moves are highly controversial.

The first salvos came from Muffet McGraw, the former coach of the Notre Dame women’s basketball team, a magical personality with two NCAA championships and a huge chip on her shoulder about men. She tweeted:

“Breaking news: white man hires white man to coach WNBA team AND makes him the highest paid coach in the league. Gender bias is real. 95% of men’s sport coaches r male and 60% of women’s sport coaches r male - title IX is 50 yet we don’t have equal oppty, equal pay or equal rights.”

Back in 2019 when McGraw was coaching, she once said, “Men run the world. Men have the power. Men make the decisions. It’s always the man that is the stronger one.”

And why?

“People hire people who look like them,” McGraw said. “That’s the problem.”

So much a problem McGraw announced she would only be hiring assistant coaches who look like her — like women.

Other columnists joined the criticism

Then came women sports writers firing broadsides at the Mercury owner.

“It’s offensive to the players and fans that a white man whose only head coaching experience is in the (NBA development) G-League is making the highest salary in the history of the (WNBA).”

Particularly off-putting to women was this tweet from the Mercury franchise:

“Elite basketball coach. Legendary player. Girl Dad. Get to know Head Coach Nate Tibbetts!”

“Girl dad”!

USA Today’s Nancy Armour recoiled.

“The Phoenix Mercury’s leadership could have just had T-shirts made up with a middle finger on the front,” she wrote. “The Mercury decided to go full dumpster fire.”

Armour explained, “As a coach, he’s got no experience with the different challenges the women’s game will present. Challenges like pregnancies. Child care. Injuries that are more likely to occur in women athletes than men.”

Play gender politics, or play to win?

Yes, but this owner has already proven in the NBA and WNBA that he wants to win, and he’s spending hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money to raise the level of play in Phoenix.

Ishbia has what no sportswriter has — skin in the game — and he has decided that a highly seasoned NBA assistant can lift the Mercury from their recent doldrums and turn them into champions.

One of the advantages of ownership is you get to choose. You can play gender politics. Or you can play to win. If you play to win you hire the best person, not necessarily the best woman.

Is it a good-old-boy play? No. Because sports, more than any other field of endeavor, is a meritocracy. Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing, to paraphrase an NFL great.

Brittney Griner's flight trouble: Is a lesson in capitalism

Ishbia has chosen winning, because winning is what builds enthusiasm in the fan base and enthusiasm is what will build the women’s league.

Deadspin’s Julie DiCaro railed that what Ishbia did is “antithetical to everything WNBA players have stood for.”

Is it?

The WNBA spent its first two decades losing money and getting subsidized (actually, saved from the wrecking ball) by many, many male sports executives and investors with deep pockets.

Women can build an all-women league

Those investments in women's professional sports are beginning to pay off. The women’s game is fantastic — team oriented, fast-paced and (now) star building.

I learned that firsthand, taking my own kids to WNBA games when they were young. The other day, one of those kids, now an adult, pulled out her thread-worn Mercury jersey and charmed her dear old sports-loving Dad.

But if the women of sports want the WNBA to be strictly a jobs program for women, if they want to express their power and independence, great.

Build a league of your own.

Get all female investors. Get all female front office and deep pockets. Hire whoever you want.

Be patient when the receipts don’t match the expenses. Play the long game and endure the short-term pain.

Never lean on the NBA for funding, for marketing, for player endorsements.

Do this on your own. Do it just like other women who are doing it all the time and in every field.

But don't mistake friends for enemies

I’ve spent my entire career working for women who are smarter and more capable than I am. I don’t need convincing that women can compete with and out compete men.

While it is true that women are the equal of men, it is also true that many well-meaning men played an essential role in helping to build the WNBA.

They’re still there. Helping.

And they’re not your enemies.

Phil Boas is an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com. 

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix Mercury owner is WNBA's villian for investing in the team