Levinson black mailed?

[PandaKidd]

Wojo reporting that levenson will sell the remainder of his share of the team , after notifying the NBA of a racist email he sent back in July 2012.

NBA started investigation but before it concluded he informed them he is selling his portion.

Reeks of black mail to me.

A coup?

Coworker?

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[PandaKidd]

Check out @NBA's Tweet: https://twitter.com/NBA/status/508636146146889728

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[Jamaaliver]

<Sigh>...it's hard to be a Hawks fan.

I don't even know what to make of this.

Hopefully with him selling his stake in the team, it doesn't effect our ability to attract talent in the future.

[Renmazuo]

Well we don't have to worry about this effecting whether players want to come here or not. They never wanted to come play here anyways.

Good news it will likely lead to a new owner of the team. Bad news it could lead the Hawks possibly leaving Atlanta. I highly doubt the Hawks leave town but anything is possible.

[Jamaaliver]

Levenson writes in a statement that the racially offensive comments came as he pondered ways to bridge Atlanta's racial sports divide and increase fan attendance at Hawks' games.

In trying to address those issues, I wrote an e-mail two years ago that was inappropriate and offensive, I trivialized our fans by making clichéd assumptions about their interests (i.e. hip hop vs. country, white vs. black cheerleaders, etc.) and by stereotyping their perceptions of one another (i.e. that white fans might be afraid of our black fans). By focusing on race, I also sent the unintentional and hurtful message that our white fans are more valuable than our black fans.

HERE

Kind of a stupid thing to put into a company e-mail. But somewhat harmless as there is indeed a valid concern from a marketing standpoint.

But based on him self-reporting this after two years, I agree with Panda. He was coerced into selling or being outright extorted. But who benefits most from this move?

Levenson had presided over the Hawks' ownership group since 2004.

Atlanta CEO Steve Koonin will now oversee all team operations.

[ATL Boy]

He might've seen how much money Steling made from selling the Clippers and decided to turn himself in.

[azuresou1]

But Levinson could just as easily choose to sell without implicating himself as a racist.

Blackmail doesn't seem like the right word - seems more likely that someone decided to report the e-mail, and Silver gave Levinson an out to 'voluntarily' step forward and leave. Whether it was reported for personal gain or legit outrage is a different question.

[azuresou1]

Found full text of the e-mail:

From: Bruce Levenson

Sent: 8/25/2012 11:47:02 PM

Subject: Re: Business/Game ops

1. from day one i have been impressed with the friendliness and professionalism of the arena staff -- food vendors, ushers, ticket takers, etc. in our early years when i would bring folks from dc they were blown away by the contrast between abe pollin's arena and philips. some of this is attributable to southern hospital and manners but bob and his staff do a good job of training. To this day, I can not get the ushers to call me Bruce yet they insist on me calling them by their first names.

2. the non-premium area food is better than most arenas, though that is not saying much. i think there is room for improvement and creativity. Levy is our food vendor so we don't have much control but they have been good partners. i have wished we had some inconic offereing like boog's barbeque at the baseball stadium in balt.

3. our new restaurant, red, just opened so too early for me to give you my thoughts.

4. Regarding game ops, i need to start with some background. for the first couple of years we owned the team, i didn't much focus on game ops. then one day a light bulb went off. when digging into why our season ticket base is so small, i was told it is because we can't get 35-55 white males and corporations to buy season tixs and they are the primary demo for season tickets around the league. when i pushed further, folks generally shrugged their shoulders. then i start looking around our arena during games and notice the following:

-- it's 70 pct black

-- the cheerleaders are black

-- the music is hip hop

-- at the bars it's 90 pct black

-- there are few fathers and sons at the games

-- we are doing after game concerts to attract more fans and the concerts are either hip hop or gospel.

Then i start looking around at other arenas. It is completely different. Even DC with its affluent black community never has more than 15 pct black audience.

Before we bought the hawks and for those couple years immediately after in an effort to make the arena look full (at the nba's urging) thousands and thousands of tickets were being giving away, predominantly in the black community, adding to the overwhelming black audience.

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.

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.

Gradually things have changed. My unscientific guess is that our crowd is 40 pct black now, still four to five times all other teams. And my further guess is that 40 pct still feels like 70 pet to some whites at our games. Our bars are still overwhelmingly black.

This is obviously a sensitive topic, but sadly i think it is far and way the number one reason our season ticket base is so low.

And many of our black fans don't have the spendable income which explains why our f&b and merchandise sales are so low. At all white thrasher games sales were nearly triple what they are at hawks games (the extra intermission explains some of that but not all).

Regardless of what time a game starts, we have the latest arriving crowd in the league. It often looks and sounds empty when the team takes the floor.

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.

We have all the same halftime acts that other arenas have but i question whether they make sense. people are on their cell phones during half time. i wonder if flashing on the scoreboard "$2 off on hot dogs during halftime tonight" just as the half ends would be a better use of our halftime dollars and make the fans happier.

We do all the usual giveways and the fans are usually their loudest when our spirit crew takes the floor to give away t-shirts. It pisses me off that they will yell louder for a t-shirt then for our players.

Our player intro is flat. We manufacture a lot of noise but because of the late arriving crowd and the fact that a lot of blacks dont seem to go as crazy cheering (another one of my theories) as whites, it is not great. Even when we have just returned from winnng four straight on the road, i am one of the few people in the arena standing and cheering when our team takes the floor. Bob has kicked around ideas like having the starters coming down aisles rather than off the bench during intros. Sounds cool but may highlight all the empty seats at the start of games.

Not enough of our fans wear hawks jerseys to games. i have just begun to push for ideas like discount food lines for folks wearing jerseys, special entrances, etc. I think we need a committed and perhaps incentivized fan club. We need to realize atl is simply different than every other city. Just adopting nba best practices is not enough. we have to create our own.

I am rambling and could probably go on forever. If you have any specific areas you would like my thoughts on, let me know.

Best,

Bruce

ps -- I have cc'd todd and ed so they can chime in with additional or different thoughts.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nb ... /15241591/

[azuresou1]

High-ranking league official w/ direct knowledge of Bruce Levenson probe disputes to Yahoo the fact that owner self-reported email to NBA.

https://twitter.com/WojYahooNBA/status/ ... 0725254144

[atlantabbq99]

The email is not racist, it is just very poorly worded. It looks like it is just demographic research. If the Sterling thing is 100, then this is like a 4.....

[MaceCase]

High-ranking league official w/ direct knowledge of Bruce Levenson probe disputes to Yahoo the fact that owner self-reported email to NBA.

https://twitter.com/WojYahooNBA/status/ ... 0725254144

I was wondering about that too but then saw that Silver himself confirmed that Levenson reported himself in his own release unless this "insider" is also questioning his boss.

As to blackmail? I don't know, Levenson was pretty adamant about the ASG having zero intention of selling not too long ago and he's only a part owner amongst tens of others. He certainly can't expect to make a good amount of money off of his shares alone because that doesn't grant a new owner control over the Hawks. Embroiling himself within a scandal puts pressure on other owners to get out of their shares and thus increasing the value of his stake.

[azuresou1]

Is our ownership still split? I thought ASG sold to Levinson, but I stopped paying attention to that entire situation years ago.

[atlantabbq99]

To be fair, the Braves also have low attendance.

[willywazza]

This whole thing reeks of fish.

[PandaKidd]

Ferry will be punished as well.

Levenson to sell interest in Hawks after inflammatory email | www.myajc.com (via http://ble.ac/teamstream-) http://teamstre.am/1tDFNAS

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[PandaKidd]

TBH I don't think an owner should be distinguishing between "white fans" and "black fans". NBA is a predominantly black sport, but so are most pro sports. He should be focused on attracting FANS , black white Asian male female etc.

He also says they need to attract " affluent" black fans, which, just sounds dumb.

Build a better product and it won't matter what your racial demographic is.



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[Hawk Eye]

Do any of you guys think a re-location is necessary? New arena, new name, new everything to attract more fans and hopefully more nba stars

[Starks1994]

Knicks fan her curious to know what the mood like in Atl over this. How was Levinson as an owner? Anyone upset to see him go or is there a sense of glee?

[HMFFL]

The Atlanta Spirit as a group need to sell.
We need a group that is going to be respected and not create drama year after year. This group has been fighting themselves, their decisions, and actions since purchasing the team wrongly in the first place.

[Jamaaliver]

To be fair, the Braves also have low attendance.

Part of the reason the Bravos are moving to the suburbs. Closer to the affluent, upper-middle class crowd with all the disposable income. Further from the sketchy neighborhoods of downtown Atlanta.

It's the same reason the Pistons play almost an hour away from Detroit in Auburn Hills. And why the Los Angeles Angels play in Anaheim. And why the Dallas Cowboys play in Arlington...

The business side and the team operations side have almost nothing to do with the other.