Bruce Levenson to Sell Atlanta Hawks over Email Comments

[Robert Goren]

He has been trying to sell the Hawks for a couple years.

[cj's dad]

I regularly attended Baltimore Bullets games in the late 60's early 70's. Attendance was good, games vs. the Knicks were memorable. Then the downtown area went to crap (crime and violence) and people stopped attending.Owner Abe Pollin moved the team to DC.

Good thing for him e-mail wasn't around at that time.

[classhandicapper]

If I was an NBA owner I'd sell just so I didn't have to be part of a league that thinks these comments are enough to warrant you having to forfeit your business.

[magwell]

There was no problem when Bud (Light) commissioner of MLB said there wasn't enough "American" black players in Baseball.......

[Robert Fischer]

Ohhh the hardships of running a major professional sports franchise...

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

Ohhh the hardships of running a major professional sports franchise...

lmao.

Every last one of them is lucky they aren't part of some reality TV show where they were recorded 24 hours a day. Otherwise every owner, commissioner, coach, and player would be out of a job or forced to sell.

[Robert Fischer]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

lmao.

Every last one of them is lucky they aren't part of some reality TV show where they were recorded 24 hours a day. Otherwise every owner, commissioner, coach, and player would be out of a job or forced to sell.

That is true.

It's bullshit. It's media entertainment to drive revenue and sell advertisements and products.

And I like sports. It's legitimately entertaining, there's strategy, there's gambling, home town teams, rivalries, etc...

But it's all bullshit.

[Clocker]

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says:

I read Levenson’s email. Here’s what I concluded: Levenson is a businessman asking reasonable questions about how to put customers in seats. In the email, addressed to Hawks president Danny Ferry, Levenson wonders whether (according to his observations) the emphasis on hip-hop and gospel music and the fact that the cheerleaders are black, the bars are filled with 90% blacks, kiss cams focus on black fans and time-out contestants are always black has an effect on keeping away white fans.

Seems reasonable to ask those questions. If his arena was filled mostly with whites and he wanted to attract blacks, wouldn’t he be asking how they could de-emphasize white culture and bias toward white contestants and cheerleaders? Don’t you think every corporation in America that is trying to attract a more diverse customer base is discussing how to feature more blacks or Asians or Latinos in their TV ads?

[cj's dad]

Kareem is clearly a racist. Shocking !

[Clocker]

Originally Posted by CurtisontheBay

Kareem is clearly a racist. Shocking !

And probably a greedy, evil capitalist as well.

[classhandicapper]

I read a lot of what Kareem has to say on race issues. He's not one of those hypersensitive leftists that are all too common these days and he's not a race baiter strictly looking to advance a personal or black agenda. He's thoughtful and reasonable.

He could have gone even further and said it's not the job of a businessman to explain the economic circumstances of blacks or how to fix it. It's his job to attract people into the arena that have higher incomes and spend more. If that happens to be whites, so be it. If it happens to be people between the ages of x and Y, so be it. If it happens to be men, so be it.

[TJDave]

Originally Posted by Clocker

And probably a greedy, evil capitalist as well.

And a Muslim.

[Tom]

Diversity....the Mother of us all.

[PhantomOnTour]

Levenson was talking about something very prominent in American businesses...marketing (to a specific audience)

[jballscalls]

Originally Posted by Tom

Diversity....the Mother of us all.

I think diversity is a great thing. It's forced diversity isn't.