CLICK HERE FOR A LINK TO THE FULL COLUMN ON MYAJC.COM.
Below is the original blog on the most unexpected story in Atlanta sports in some time.
•
Somehow it figured that when the ownership tenure of the Atlanta Spirit in general and Bruce Levenson in particular ended, it would not end well. None of the partners have ever seemed destined for a victory parade on the way out the door.
But this is an uglier exit than anybody could have expected.
Levenson, the majority partner who orchestrated the Thrashers' sell and move to Winnipeg and has been the Hawks' governor in recent years, announced Sunday that he would sell controlling interest of the NBA franchise. The reason: An email that Levenson sent to new Hawks general manager Danny Ferry two years ago that Levenson himself painted as racist.
Levenson released a statement saying that he spoke to team executives about the Hawks’ attendance problems and the need to build a more “diverse fan base that includes more suburban whites …”
“In trying to address those issues, I wrote an e-mail two years ago that was inappropriate and offensive,” Levenson said in a statement. 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.”
The entire email, dated Aug. 25, 2012 and acquired by the Journal-Constitution’s Chris Vivlamore, appears below. Here's one part Levenson was referring to:
"...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 significant 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. ..."
It's not known at this point if there is any other element to this story involving the Hawks' organization. But the NBA is hyper-sensitive about racial issues in the league, particularly at the executive level in view of former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling's forced exit for racist comments.
I'll have a full column on this later. Until then, here's a copy of Levenson's original email.
COMMENTING ON THIS BLOG IS CLOSED
About the Author
