He initially considered going to college out of state in mid-western and southeastern places like Columbus, Ohio and Syracuse, New York, but after experiencing winters in those areas, he reneged on those plans and enrolled with the University of Arizona in 1989.
During his time there, he joined the Upsilon Alpha Chapter of Phi Gamma Delta, which was a move he considered a key part to his future accomplishments.
During his time with Snell & Wilmer, he would help represent Robert Sarver and his ownership group that would own the Phoenix Suns following Jerry Colangelo's sale of the team in 2004.
He would also at times go to Washington, D.C. during this period to help protect civil rights, provide legal advice to veterans and low-income individuals, and represent clients in trials that went as high up as the Supreme Court there, as well as teach courses in litigation and appellate advocacy at the Georgetown University Law Center as an adjunct professor there.
Following his departure with the Van Tuyl Group, Rowley was hired by the Phoenix Suns in 2008 during the franchise's 2008–09 season to become a part of the team's general counsel as their new senior vice president.
[17] While under his new roles, he acted as the team's public representative for all of their business, governmental, and community affairs-related engagements, including successful affairs where the Phoenix Suns bought out the Bakersfield Jam NBA Development League team to become the Northern Arizona Suns for the Prescott Valley, Arizona during the late 2010s[18] and the Phoenix Suns were approved to not just build a new training area nearby the Footprint Center for the team called the Verizon 5G Performance Center, but also renovate the Footprint Center near the end of the 2010s and the start of the 2020s.
[23] In his first season working in his new role with the Mercury, Rowley would help lead the team to their third WNBA Finals championship in 2014 with a 3–0 sweep over the Chicago Sky.
[24] He would join in the ownership group alongside the likes of Devin Booker, Dierks Bentley, Larry Fitzgerald, Michael Phelps, and various other people.
Sarver and his legal team, including Rowley, denied the vast majority of accusations, citing that there are only a handful of sources on the record and, while the reporter may have reached out to 70 employees, the article provided no evidence that all of them spoke negatively of the organization.
[37] Despite that fact, Robert Sarver still held final approval on potentially firing Jason Rowley alongside chief financial officer Jim Pitman (who was also working as the general manager of the Phoenix Mercury at the time) and chief revenue officer Dan Costello from the organization during the season while he still held ownership of the team.