There appears to be an omission in AJC reporter Chris Vivlamore's report today about potential buyers for the Hawks. There is no mention of the bold group headed by Mark DiNitale, who lists among his qualifications the ability to "dribble between my legs 60 percent of the time."
DiNitale's goal is modest: to make the Hawks the first fully crowd-funded sports team in the history of the world. Those fans who complained about the buffoonery of the Hawks ownership group now have the chance to prove they can do better. The bar is set low for the new owners: don't litigate against one another and don't base your business strategy on keeping away black folks a.k.a. many of your potential customers.
As of Wednesday morning DiNitale's group had raised more than $48,000 of the $600 million it may take to buy the Hawks. While the current Hawks owners are going with the Goldman Sachs to facilitate the sale, DiNitale is using the fundraising site GoFundMe. Laugh if you must, but at least GoFundMe didn't help set off an economic collapse, take taxpayer bailout money and then outsource jobs.
Anyway, DiNitale says on his listing that he’s an ATL-ien with big dreams “and I know the ATL is just weird enough to dream with me.” To entice fans to donate, he’s offering knick-knacks ranging from a gauntlet of high fives to a slice of pie. He’s short on details about how he plans to finance franchise operations (“sell tickets, concessions, broadcast rights and advertising”) but notes that if his campaign doesn’t raise the full $600 million by Feb. 2 then
investors are off the hook.
This is a chance for the Hawks to join the Green Bay Packers as the only fan-owned teams among the four major sports leagues in the United States. The NFL long ago banned public ownership of its franchises. Can’t have the riff-raff rubbing elbows with the bourgeoisie—even as those billionaires fatten up on public money for their private businesses that return no value to society. Socialism for me but not for thee!
Alas, this also is why DiNitale’s dream the Hawks being owned by the people could never come true even if the people ponied up the cash. The NBA must approve the new owners of the Hawks, and the league’s currant franchise owners aren’t going to let a bunch of fans into the inner-circle because they are a bunch of snobs. Well, also because they want the franchises in their association to be financially viable and run competently.
I'm guessing that even if DiNitale's group comes up short on the money, they would do no worse the Hawks' outgoing owners in operating the franchise capably.
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