Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson to sell team after racist email

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CNN

(CNN) -- For Atlanta Hawks controlling owner Bruce Levenson, "a light bulb went off."

In a 2012 email addressing the troubles the franchise faced in attracting more affluent white season-ticket holders, Levenson said he had taken a look around Philips Arena and noticed a few things.

First, the audience was 70% black, he wrote. But that wasn't all. The stadium's bars were 90% black. There were few fathers and sons at the games. The cheerleaders were black. The music played in the arena was hip-hop, and the after-game concerts were either rap or gospel acts. "Then i start looking around at other arenas. It is completely different. Even (Washington) DC with its affluent black community never has more than 15 pct black audience," he wrote.

Now, he's losing his franchise because of the email.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/07/us/atlanta-hawks-owner-bruce-levenson-racist-email/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

---

Also on MSNBC's website -

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/09/07/following-bigoted-comments-from-2012-atlanta-hawks-owner-agrees-to-sell-team/related/

This email "incident" happened 2 years ago (2012) and it took this long?

Why should any of this be surprising?

[geek tragedy]

1. Stuff white people think but don't say out loud.

Life in America.

That was painful to read. Pushing institutional racism as a marketing strategy.

[heaven05]

2. so much violence

and racism. Blacks attacking whites, whites attacking blacks. It's a cauldron of simmering hate. Where will it end?

[tooeyeten]

3. Some Dummy!

You would think as his "cup runneth over" with the "big bucks" it is a tribute to the economics of Atlanta that there is substantial diversity and the people in attendance have money to enjoy sports.


When green just ain't enough for some bozos!

[ProfessorGAC]

20. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^This

If he owns an NBA team, he's got plenty of money. And, with the TV contracts and merchandising, i don't believe any franchise isn't making a profit.

It's the 2nd healthiest sport league in North America.

He's just stupid to say something like this.

[tooeyeten]

22. Check his genome

Something's missing!

[JI7]

4. did he comment on what percentage of the players were black ?

[DJ13]

5. This email "incident" happened 2 years ago (2012) and it took this long?

Well, the Clippers were only valued at $700-$800m before the former Microsoft CEO paid $2b in a league brokered deal, so maybe he thinks by admitting this he can get the league to broker the sale of his team at above market valuation?

[Calista241]

6. The Hawks are losing money.

Their games are not heavily attended, probably because the Hawks aren't very good. However, attracting a broader audience should be what we want businesses and especially sports teams to do. IMO, nothing bad can come from people of different races mixing together in social situations.

But his talking about blacks 'scaring' away white people is nonsense.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. "because the Hawks aren't very good"

This is USUALLY the reasoning behind low attendance for ANY team. You will always have your dedicated fans for certain teams but most folks tend to be "fair weather" fans - and moreso when looking at the cost of tickets.

Right here in Philly, for a total of ~3 years surrounding their World Series win in 2009, the Phillies had sold-out, standing room only attendance - http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/blogs/philthy-stuff/Phillies-Sellout-Streak-Ends-at-257-Consecutive-Games--165211486.html

Yet once they started fumbling and losing more and more, that was the end of that, and they are back to practically begging folks to come.

This has nothing to do with the "race" of the audience. If the team is consistently winning, the fans will come.

The problem is that you have cheap-ass owners who don't want to pay for "talent" (whether coaches or players), so you often end up with a mediocre team where no one really cares about them. This has been one of my pet peeves with Ed Snyder and later, Josh Harris with respect to the '76ers.

[Calista241]

9. Can't argue with your points.

Nice job.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. At least the Hawks did better than the '76ers

in 2013 - 2014. Atlanta 38-44 vs Philly 19 - 63

At that point, I figured the Sixers were going for getting a #1 draft pick (but we couldn't even get that, although we did get a low numbered 1st round pick).

[Calista241]

14. Both the Hawks and the Sixers

Are too good to get a good draft pick, and bad enough to not be able to do well in the playoffs. It's a lose - lose situation.

I halfway think the Hawks owner saw the $2b payday for Donald Sterling, and now he wants to cash in. I read the full email, and it's not that bad. I'd call it 'slightly uncomfortable' in one paragraph rather than a full on racist rant. He's clearly trying to think up ideas to get better attendance to the games.

There's a whole lot more racist crap out there that barely gets a nod, but this guy 'has' to sell his team. I'm not buying it.

[davidpdx]

16. I agree with what you are saying which is he seem to have some altrier motive

(correct me if I'm wrong). Now I'm not into conspiracy theories, but it seems as though there would be other possibilities than him just wanting out.

The email went to three people: Danny Ferry, Todd Foreman, and Ed Peskowitz. Danny Ferry is the Hawks GM and the last two are in another organization.

Could it be this email was discovered by someone else and pressure was put on him to either out himself or face the same consequences as Donald Sterling?

I'm not convinced it was about him just trying to get out owning the Hawks.

[Enthusiast]

7. Can't have them darkies messin' with my basketball!

[Lucky Luciano]

10. Seems he doesn't care what color someone's skin is as long as they spend as much $$ as possible:

He does make it clear that he thinks he is having a hard time courting the wealthier white racists he needs to be more profitable - and he cares only about profits:

"My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a signficant season ticket base. Please dont get me wrong. There was nothing threatening going on in the arean back then. i never felt uncomfortable, but i think southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority. On fan sites i would read comments about how dangerous it is around philips yet in our 9 years, i don't know of a mugging or even a pick pocket incident. This was just racist garbage. When I hear some people saying the arena is in the wrong place I think it is code for there are too many blacks at the games."

[Lucky Luciano]

19. A quote I saw on Bloomberg from levenson

"If you're angry about what I wrote, you should be. I'm angry at myself too. It was inflammatory nonsense. We all may have subtle biases and preconceptions when it comes to race, but my role as a leader is to challenge them, not to validate or accommodate those who might hold them."

Reasonable apology - said it was a fail to try to court the southern white racists. I still tend to think he is just looking to cash out after the clippers went for $2B.

[cbdo2007]

21. Which is really the same as every other company in the US and around the world....

so this email isn't all that shocking. The terms he uses are shocking and inappropriate, but it is hardly new or necessarily inappropriate in an of itself to be wanting to expand your business beyond specific races/genders who are your biggest customers. Trust me, every product and company that sells any product has had meetings to brainstorm how to market to specific races and genders to get them to buy their product, that's just the nature of business.

[wilt the stilt]

12. I live in Atlanta

and I have been to many a basketball game. I especially went during the Dominique era and I even sold Dominique his registers for his night club. I have been following the NBA for 40 years and I saw Chamberlain and Russell.

That being said the Northern suburbs just doesn't want to go downtown at night. The Braves are moving to Cobb County because of the"downtown". When my son's best friends brother who plays for the raiders and his Dad was a 12 year vet of the falcons transferred from his college to another college you should have seen the comments about him being a "felon" and dumb. he graduated in 3 years from college. All the boys are or will be college graduates.

I used to sell registers in the African American neighborhoods. I never lost a sale guess why i had no competition because I was the only person who went into those neighborhoods.

If you knew Atlanta like I do you would not be saying what you are saying. Buckhead had been a "white" hangout for many years and for a couple of years before the ray lewis fiasco it started to become racially mixed. right after that incident they totally shut the area and now 10 years later it is back to being entirely white.

It is very segregated here. Downtown Atlanta is avoided by white people.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. I have an aunt, a bunch of cousins, and friends there

and my great-grandfather and great-grandmother both graduated from Atlanta U in 1883 & 1884 respectively - all having been "northern transplants" (I have been there twice myself). There's an odd dichotomy that occurred down there - i.e., from my perception, there had been a desire of what could probably be dubbed "carpet-baggers" who wanted to remake the city into a "northern style", upscale enclave that would appear to be the "un-southern" (in the manner that 7-UP used to call themselves the "un-Cola&quot . But as with everything, water seeks its own level, cycles repeat, and places revert.

[Iamthetruth]

15. So when does he get his $2,000,000,000 check

Just curious

[Enrique]

17. he says that due to his work...

it went from 70% black to only 40%. I'm curious how he achieved that? How did he de-blackify the crowd?

[toopers]

23. I am not sure this is racist . . .

unless complaining about how white people are racist is racist? He seems to be complaining about the attitudes of rich, white folks and not the black folks. If anything he is saying that the black crowd is a normal crowd. I guess his pointing out that he has not heard of any crime around the basketball games could be interpreted or construed as prejudice/racist if you assume he meant that crime typically follows black crowds.

[BumRushDaShow]

24. Denial is not just a river in Egypt,

which is why white privilege is so insidious.

The arrogance of white privilege denies the racism of this and assumes that the white is "universal" and everything else is "other". There is nothing in the email that claims that the black crowd is "normal", despite the fact that they were STILL paying supporters of a poorly managed and poorly performing team. Below (from the actual email) is typical racist dribble -

I have been open with our executive team about these concerns. I have told them I want some white cheerleaders and while i don't care what the color of the artist is, i want the music to be music familiar to a 40 year old white guy if that's our season tixs demo. i have also balked when every fan picked out of crowd to shoot shots in some time out contest is black. I have even bitched that the kiss cam is too black.

<..>

In the past two years, we have created a section of rowdy college students that has been a big plus. And we do a lot of very clever stuff during time outs to entertain the crowd. Our kiss cam is better done than any in the league.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/07/us/nba-hawks-levenson-racist-email/index.html

In the privileged white world, "rowdy college students" (re: "white" college sudents) = "fun" whereas "noisy black fans" (re: "black thugs", even if they graduated from or were attending college themselves) = "scary and low income". And this despite the fact that Atlanta is home to a large consortium of black colleges - e.g., Clark-Atlanta U, Morehouse, Morris Brown, Spelman, etc.).

But such is the way things are and it will take a long time to dislodge this nonsense.