Post: #51

The Clippers just sold for what most league observers consider twice their true market value. There's only 32 NBA teams and more billionaires than that waiting for a spot to open up in the club. Ballmer overpaying for the Clippers like he did is not a big deal to him personally; he can afford it and the team's value to him is intangible.

Teams like the Lakers and Celtics practically have a license to mint money, but some of the small or mid-market teams like Atlanta or Milwaukee probably operate at a loss year to year when it comes to net profit, especially if the team is not winning and thus not drawing. In Atlanta's case, the Hawks were really bad for a long time, and although they've been better the past few years they haven't been an elite team by any means. Add to that the fact that Atlanta is a transportation hub and a city with a large transplant population. Half the people that live there don't owe their allegiances to the local teams. It's SEC country and the Georgia Bulldogs are the only thing people there really care about. The Braves had problems selling out their playoff games.

However, every time any NBA team changes hands the outgoing owner ends up making a killing on his original investment, so it could be argued that this guy probably figures that it's time to get out before the bubble bursts. But if he just wants to cash in on a sure thing while he knows he can sell his original investment for a huge profit, he wouldn't need to manufacture a controversy. If he doesn't want to own a team, there's plenty of rich VCs out there to take it off his hands.

I don't think that V Stiviano woman got the idea on her own to blackmail Donald Sterling and in this case not for one second do I believe he "self-reported" this email out of the goodness of his heart to the commish. I think it's very plausible he was coerced into doing it, perhaps by somebody who wants really badly to own an NBA team but there wasn't one up for sale before this morning. The email comes across to me as exhibiting no malice or spite at all towards black people. If anything, he seems to lament that he has to market the Hawks towards white middle class guys that he considers casually racist in order to be more profitable, that he can't maximize his profits with the status quo. So perhaps there is more that hasn't come out that is compelling him to sell now.

Post: #52

Why does Detroit play in Auburn Hills? I bet if you looked into the past you could find a number of situations where owners made moves to ensure that white fans were catered to.

The email in question is not revealing in any way. Consider that the Atlanta Thrashers (now the Winnipeg Jets) had a very small fan base, partly due to the insanity of having a hockey team in the deep south and of course, Atlanta's demographics.

The Hawks are actually a decent team right now, they have a good core of players and a strong coach that came over from the Spurs. If Al Horford didn't get hurt they would have likely been the 3rd seed. They still made the playoffs and yet were the 28th ranked team in attendance. (http://espn.go.com/nba/attendance) They have made the playoffs seven years in a row, yet their attendance has steadily dropped over that time period. Granted they have lost in the first round every time.

Contrast that with the Utah Jazz, a team that has missed the playoffs the last two years and had one of the worst records in the league last year, yet were the 12th ranked team in attendance. Consider the two links to follow:

Salt Lake City's Demographics -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Lake_C...mographics

Atlanta's Demographics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Atlanta

Keep in mind that Atlanta has a population of 550,000 with over 5,000,000 in its surrounding area while Salt Lake has a population of roughly 200,000 with 2,000,000 in the surrounding area.

What is truly interesting is that Atlanta had a median income of $58,000 as of 2012 while Salt Lake had a median income of $42,000.

So was Levenson at all wrong in what he said? No, he wasn't. All he is guilty of is using facts to support his notion that white fans contribute more to a team's bottom line than black fans, in general. That isn't racist, that is factual.



I think his biggest mistake was his word choices. Stating that white fans are scared of black fans was just dumb. Saying the kiss cam was too black was ignorant. In light of the Sterling debacle, the safest course is indeed to get him out. Especially in a city with a majority African American populace.

Post: #53

I am curious as to why so many are so willfully obtuse to the problems with this email. On the surface it seems the owner found it problematic that a large part of his customer base had racist tendencies. It's important to note that he wasn't forced to sell, and this was an investigation of his initiation.

Hiding behind "it's not racism, it's economics" is BS. This is a country where just a few decades ago, armed soldiers had to be called out to just so black people could attend publicly funded universities, and Jim Crow laws and policies were prevalent. It was just a few decades ago that the NCAA and NBA openly and uniformly practiced discrimination against blacks, and now blacks can only be represented in certain percentages not just in attendance, but even in something as innocuous as the kiss-cam and at the stadium bars? Really??

Also, nowhere in his email did I see much in the way of real business analysis, just hunches and his gut feeling, articulated. I am curious to know if this was successful, and how successful. If the "whitening" of the stadium didn't bring up revenue, would he welcome back the blacks he'd tried to exclude? No mention of improving win/loss ratio.

Race matters, racism matters, and it seems (unless more damning details are forthcoming) this man was bothered by the implications of why whites weren't attending. Even if you are a replicant, completely lacking in any human empathy, just a cursory knowledge of history or American culture would let you see the flaws in openly plotting to limit the number of blacks attending the game, yet doing everthing you can to fill the teams with blacks to attract people who seemingly find them loathing in every way, except when they are in uniform, dancing, dunking, or singing.

Another thing: there is this idea that talking about race now automatically means someone will call you a racist, which is false, unless you troll the worst sorts of websites searching for some, any, validation. I think it's just a bone-deep resistance to discussing/trying to tamp down anything except the most visceral, dumpster-on-fire forms of racism. Like some guy standing on his roof throwing eggs at kids and shouting the n-word through a megaphone. It's as if, by pretending that racism is something only verbal (and obviously verbal at that) then we can just go on saying it's bad, but never actually seeing it at all. Willfully obtuse.

Good grief! And in Atlanta, where they still fly the Rebel flag. I wonder if the rest of the league is of similar cloth.

Post: #54

This can't be the story. It just can't. America really hasn't come to this, has it?

Either Silver has some sort of trump card he wants to play, Levenson has some really dirty laundry, or this was a carefully orchestrated move to sell high. There is something in this story that is not obvious.

Post: #55

I went to a Hawks game in the 2012-13 season with my girlfriend. I'm white, and so is she. I do recall that it was a mostly black crowd, but that didn't bother me at all. I don't remember the music played, or whether the "kiss cam" focused too much on black people. Frankly, I didn't give a damn about any of that. I was there to see basketball and the Hawks had a decent team that year. Ironically, the Hawks played the Clippers, and we both enjoyed the game. I can't remember which team won. Would I go back to another game? Hell yes.

Like a lot of you, I see nothing offensive in Levenson's email, just an owner attempting to improve the economics of his business. It is surprising to me that the Hawks continually rank near the bottom of the league in terms of attendance, despite having better than average teams, but as another poster pointed out, I think that can be attributed more so to the fact that college football is king in the South and all other sports, pro or amateur, take a backseat in terms of popularity.

Post: #56

In a perfect world, Levenson would've been thrilled to see blacks and whites seated and cheering together in harmony at Hawk's games

One also gets the sense that he would've been willing to sacrifice his african-american clientele in a heartbeat for those "southern whites" (ie more "loyal" fans) if given an opportunity.

Despite the gibberish found on the team website about the impending danger of the logistics of the arena, Levenson also pointed out there hasn't been nary a pick-pocket theft reported there in nearly a decade.

Not sure what else it would take for those good ole boys to attend. I've attended Detroit Tiger's games (located in the heart of downtown Detroit), and have been part of the 3% of black fans in attendance. Not one time did I think of it as a "white experience". Just a mutual FAN experience.

The irony of it all

Post: #57

The Miami Marlins fanbase would be thrilled if there were some leaked racist owner remarks.

Post: #58

How much worse would the situation be if Levenson got his wish and the majority white crowd was rooting for an entirely black team? The cries from professional athletes, likening themselves to gladiators in the arena, have already been made. How much louder would they be?

Post: #59

There's more to this story...

Quote:An internal and unexpected chain of events stemming from a June free-agent meeting led to Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson putting controlling interest in the team up for sale Sunday, multiple officials told ESPN.com.

A racially insensitive email written by Levenson more than two years ago came to light only after one of his co-owners called for an investigation because of something that was included in a potential free-agent target's background report that was read aloud by team general manager Danny Ferry, who did not fully edit the remark as he read it off the report, according to multiple sources.

Hawks CEO Steve Koonin, who will oversee the day-to-day operations of the team, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday that Ferry will also be disciplined for his role in the situation. The nature of the discipline was not disclosed by the team. According to multiple sources, Ferry will remain the team's general manager.

Koonin told the Journal-Constitution that the Hawks held a meeting in early June to discuss potential free-agent targets. According to Koonin, Ferry cited a background report that included an "offensive and racist" remark about a player.

"Instead of editing it, he said the comment," Koonin said.

Sources told ESPN.com's Marc Stein and Ramona Shelburne on Monday that the player involved was Miami Heat swingman Luol Deng, who held free-agent discussions with the Hawks in July before signing with the Heat in the wake of LeBron James' return to Cleveland.

The specific nature of Ferry's comments regarding Deng was not immediately known, but Koonin told the newspaper that the comment troubled others in the meeting, saying: "This is wrong. This should not be said. It's not appropriate in any world but not a post-Sterling world."

The meeting took place less than two months after NBA commissioner Adam Silver banned Donald Sterling, the Los Angeles Clippers' former owner, for life and started proceedings to force him to sell the team when racist comments he made became public. Levenson had been one of the most outspoken owners against Sterling's actions.

After the meeting, one of the Hawks' stakeholders called for an internal investigation based on the remark being in the team's research of a player.

The team hired an Atlanta law firm to perform an investigation, which included 19 interviews and a review of more than 24,000 documents, according to the team.

It was in the review of these documents that Levenson's email was discovered.

The email, which was sent to Ferry and copied to several of Levenson's partners, had numerous comments that could be considered racist when discussing the atmosphere at Hawks games. In it, Levenson suggested changes that he thought would potentially attract more white ticket buyers. It included the following passages:

"I think southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority" and "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 [tickets] demo. I have also balked when every fan picked out of crowd to shoot shots in some timeout contest is black. I have even [complained] that the kiss cam is too black."

The Hawks' ownership group has a cluster of owners based in Atlanta and a cluster based in Washington, D.C., that includes Levenson. The group, which operates as Atlanta Spirit LLC, has been divided frequently since it bought the team in 2005.

There have been lawsuits among owners over personnel decisions, a failed sale attempt of the Hawks in 2011 and Atlanta Spirit's sale and relocation of the NHL's Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg, Manitoba, that same year.

After Levenson's email was found, the Hawks informed the NBA, which launched its own investigation. Within the past week, sources said, the details of the email became known to several other owners and league officials as Silver discussed the league's options.

Although no punishment decision had been reached, Levenson chose to sell the team on his own, several sources told ESPN. Convinced the email was going to become public eventually, Levenson believed there would be damage done to the team's business if he stayed on as controlling owner and informed Silver that he intended to sell.

In the wake of the announcement, the Hawks reached out to their players to explain the developments. In general, sources said, the players were upset by Levenson's comments. He was well-liked by players and around the league as a whole.

Even as the investigation progressed during the summer, Levenson discussed his optimism for the upcoming season with friends and associates and gave no indication that he planned to sell the team in the short term, sources said.

It will be the NBA, not Levenson, that takes the lead on the sale, which could move reasonably quickly. There was strong interest in the Milwaukee Bucks, who sold for $550 million earlier this year, and multiple bids for the Clippers, who ultimately sold for $2 billion this summer.

There are several deep-pocketed groups that have made their interest in buying a team known to the NBA, making it likely that a controlling interest in the Hawks will have high demand.

The team has made the playoffs in each of the past seven seasons, the longest current streak in the Eastern Conference and second-longest in the NBA behind the San Antonio Spurs' 17. The team is in position to have more than $30 million in salary-cap space next summer.

However, the Hawks finished 28th in attendance last season.

They have a lease with Philips Arena that runs through the 2017-18 season.

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/114866...ths-making

Post: #60

The remark:

Quote:The trigger of events that led to the toppling of Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson began with general manager Danny Ferry referring to free agent Luol Deng as still having "some African in him" on an organizational conference call, league sources with direct knowledge of the probe told Yahoo Sports.

"He's still a young guy overall," Ferry said, league sources with direct knowledge of the probe told Yahoo. “He's a good guy overall. But he's not perfect. He's got some African in him. And I don't say that in a bad way."

Deng, considered one of the highest character players in the NBA, was born in the Sudan.

The call with the ownership group had been set up to inform them of free-agent options on the market in July.

Ferry met with the Hawks coaches and players on Sunday and disclosed those comments with an apology, sources told Yahoo Sports.

Ferry reached out to Deng and Deng's agent, Ron Shade, on Monday, Shade told Yahoo Sports. Ferry hadn't yet spoken to Deng, but he did talk to Shade, a Chicago-based agent. "I have no reaction, but we've spoken," Shade told Yahoo.

Hawks CEO Steve Koonin told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Ferry had received an undisclosed punishment, but would remain as GM.

The disparaging racial reference to Deng triggered at least one team owner on the call to pursue an independent investigation into how the organization operated in regard to race. The search uncovered the 2012 email that Levenson sent to Ferry and two minority owners that ultimately led to Levenson's decision, under pressure, to sell his stake in the Hawks.

Ferry was on the phone with seven Hawks owners and was reading off a report prepared for him based upon a network of information sources from around the league.

Commissioner Adam Silver met with a senior committee of owners late last week in New York, and NBA investigators outlined the findings on the probe in Atlanta, sources told Yahoo Sports. The NBA and Hawks officials helped convince Levenson to sell his majority share of the Hawks.

Ferry and Deng both played basketball at Duke University. Deng signed a free-agent deal with the Miami Heat this offseason. Atlanta did discuss a deal with him, but hadn't come close to meeting his contractual demands.

Atlanta hired Ferry as its general manager in 2012. He had served as an assistant GM twice in San Antonio, and was the GM of the Cleveland Cavaliers for five years. There had never previously been a suggestion that he had been insensitive or intolerant on issues of race.

https://sports.yahoo.com/news/sources--g...01096.html

Post: #61

With revenue sharing and a big new TV contract coming up, the NBA is turning into a healthy business for any team in even the worst markets. What I don't get is that Levenson is one of seven partners that comprise "Atlanta Spirit" albeit as the majority owner in the divided stakes along with Michael Gearon Jr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Spirit

Does this mean a new majority owner operates outside the Spirit landscape? I think that would be the best thing moving forward. There aren't too many black business-people with the equity to purchase the team outright, although Oprah is an obvious choice. I associate her more with Chicago though.

Robert Johnson, who created BET, owned the Charlotte Bobcats for a time until Jordan bought in, so he might be another candidate, especially with the new financial structure of the league.

Magic Johnson is an LA staple, so I don't see him jumping into the fray. It should be interesting. Milwaukee is a very small market so the Hawks could easily be valued at $750 million or more.

An article from the AJC about potential buyers already lining up - http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/atlanta-hawks...ers-hawks/

Edit: Just saw the new article jariel posted. I've only ever heard good things about Deng, dude is a class act. That's awful stuff.

Post: #62

Knew this was coming...

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/114884...anta-hawks

Post: #63

This just gets more and more laughable. "He's got some African in him," said in regard to a player who was born in Africa.

How the fuck is that racist in a league that is over 80% black? Obviously he's not referring to his skin color, since the same remark would apply to the vast majority of players in the league in that case. He's referring to his personal characteristics and habits, which have an African influence since he was born and raised through childhood in Africa.

The most insane thing is it wasn't even the owner who said this, it was the GM. But the owner's remarks in the email were found by the law firm investigating the GM's remarks. What a complete and utter joke this story is. It just represents the PC insanity that continues to overwhelm our culture. I particularly gagged at this:

Quote: "This is wrong. This should not be said. It's not appropriate in any world but not a post-Sterling world."

The utter cowardice and sheep-like thinking of whoever said this is truly appalling. Apparently lacking their own brain, they just decide what to think and do based on dictates from the media. And this is how the progressives slowly tighten the noose of political correctness. Each victory builds off the last. With each scalp they take, the bar of what is politically correct shifts further toward the progressive ideal. So what was allowable to say prior to Sterling may no longer be said. And in the near future there will be another case that will further limit the ability of anyone in American public life to make even innocuous statements on race. Within a decade, it will probably be a professionally ruinous offense to even mention black people (or other victim groups) in anything less than the most glowing terms. To speak of a victim class without unbridled and enthusiastic endorsement will be seen as racist, because, they will ask, if you aren't a racist, why aren't you saying nice things about them? Only a racist would talk about a victim group without emphasizing their intrinsic goodness.

Post: #64

I don't see any "racism" here..

I certainly don't see anyone being denied there legal rights because of their race.

No one was fired from there job because of race, no one was denied education because of race, no one was denied health care because of race, no one was imprisoned because of their race.

The only issue is that very few white people attend Atlanta Hawks games..

Hawks game are largely attended by blacks.. The owner would like to attract more whites to his games..

That's all I can see here..

---

The real issue is money.

The owner wants to attract more season ticket holders, more corporate sponsors, and a wealthier "demographic" into his business.

Green is the most important color:

(09-07-2014 12:22 PM)jariel Wrote:  I don't get mad at the owners though, I look at the players, who are mostly uneducated and uncouth jackasses.

How do you know this..?

How do you know that most NBA players are "uneducated" and "uncouth"?

Have you spent time around a lot of NBA players?

I have.

They were no less "educated" than any other group of guys that I have been around. Though, their education is sometimes just in different areas of life.

And, they were just as well mannered as any other group of guys that I have been around.

I have also met some assholes who played in the NBA. I also know assholes who are teachers, lawyers, accountants, and government officials.

I'm curious to hear your experience of being around NBA players and how you came to form your opinion of them being "uneducated" and "uncouth".

Quote:when racial grievance mongering is trumping basics economics and business sense, there is no future for anyone.

I still think we have a future.

I say this because our nation survived the abolishing of slavery.

We have seen much worse "racial grievance mongering" which trumped basic economics and business sense.

Slaves were free labor.

We gave up free labor for the sake of "morality".

From a business or economic standpoint, free labor makes a lot of sense.

Yet, we did away with slavery in order to make ourselves feel more moral or "civilized".

Racial ethics became more important than business.

Our nation continued to advance.

But, it did take a brutal war to go in this direction.

My point is that we do have a future. To suggest that we don't is short sighted, in my opinion. It may be different from the future we want or the future we envision, but, the future is coming and I'm sure some of us will really enjoy it. Of course, others will long for yesteryears.

---

Forced political correctness is a joke.

Post: #65

^^^

I always like Giovonny's posts. They're easy to read, because he puts spaces between key sentences. This makes a big difference.

He always tries to strike a positive note, also.

Sometimes, optimism is the best tonic.

Post: #66

(09-08-2014 12:59 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  I don't see any "racism" here..

I certainly don't see anyone being denied there legal rights because of their race.

No one was fired from there job because of race, no one was denied education because of race, no one was denied health care because of race, no one was imprisoned because of their race.

So racism and prejudice only exist if you're being denied your legal rights?

I mean guys saying they don't see racism, well it's hard to identify with something you've never experienced, but I can't say homelessness doesn't exist because my house is dope, nor can I say starvation isn't real because I had duck bacon for breakfast.

When other groups of people behave in ways that can be construed as prejudice, it's called out immediately, when people like Levenson do it, it's immediately mitigated and rationalized.

Post: #67

He obviously wants out because ATL is a crime ridden shithole.

Thats not a racist email, thats a guy saying screw this and trying to get his money to go elsewhere.

Seems obvious.

Jariel - I love your posts usually but every white person has experiences racism in some way, and especially in Atlanta where black people are something like 80% of the population and use that leverage to make up for every perceived transgression against black people in history.

White people don't have a monopoly on racism, black people use it just as much.

Post: #68

http://www.nba.com/hawks/staff/bruce-levenson-bio

Post: #69

What do you think was said the in the meetings leading up to the "dress code" rule where players are now forced to wear suits if they sit on the bench and are not on the active list due to injury....If those notes ever get leaked they whole NBA board would probably get fired...

Post: #70

That e-mail's not racist.

I'm done with the media. First cable news poisoned discourse for ratings, now internet clickbait SJW shit has become a staple of major news organizations and all the little lemmings hop on board to get their dopamine kicks they would've gotten from old school religion in a positive way years ago.

I'm also done with the Racial Justice Warriors and the Social Justice Warriors. Knock the chip off your shoulder and don't bitch about how bad you have it. If you live in the US you have it good compared to the vast majority of the planet. Period.

So stop whining and kindly..

Post: #71

(09-08-2014 01:06 PM)jariel Wrote:  So racism and prejudice only exist if you're being denied your legal rights?

Great question!

I was just thinking about that myself.. I will try to answer..

A man, in America, can have racist or prejudice thoughts, there is no law against that.

But, from a legal standpoint, "racism" occurs when he turns those thoughts into action. In order for me to call someone a "racist", he has to deny another man's basic legal rights due to race.

If he does NOT deny another man's legal rights based on race, I can't call him a "racist". I might say that he talks like a racist and has racist thoughts, but, without an actual occurrence of racism against another person, I don't call a man "racist"

I don't believe in "thought crimes".

I do believe in protecting the basic legal rights of other people.

Again, in this case, I don't see where anyone was denied their legal rights.

This is only my opinion, I could be wrong.

*****

Also, if you can, please answer my previous question to you:

How do you know that most NBA players are "uneducated" and "uncouth"?

Have you spent time around a lot of NBA players?

Post: #72

(09-08-2014 12:50 PM)scorpion Wrote:  This just gets more and more laughable. "He's got some African in him," said in regard to a player who was born in Africa.

Quote:The Chronicle made an egregious error in the Feb. 12, 2004, edition by allowing the lead paragraph of the Duke-Virginia men's basketball game story, "Resilient Blue Devils slam UVa in second half," to include the sentence, "Luol Deng went up strong with his orangutan arms, like he always does." Although the author, Matt Sullivan, myself and the other editors working on the paper Wednesday night did not intend to invoke any racial stereotypes, we understand how many in our readership were deeply offended by the phrase and its inherent implications. Sullivan and the editors who copyedited the story should have recognized the incredibly poor choice of words and changed it immediately.

http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/20...izes-error

Post: #73

The liberal and progressive group in power is the driving force behind these things

Post: #74

(09-08-2014 01:10 PM)Fisto Wrote:  Jariel - I love your posts usually but every white person has experiences racism in some way, and especially in Atlanta where black people are something like 80% of the population and use that leverage to make up for every perceived transgression against black people in history.

Fisto, this is an interesting statement because I'd like to know what you consider to be an example of a perceived transgression.

I think it's a serious issue when people try to dismiss things that have actually happened to people, like as if they just conjured these things up in their minds while they were at home with nothing else better to do.

This particular community has a number of what may be considered as legitimately perceived transgressions.

Atlanta was home to large race riot at the turn of the 20th century because the media decided to report false stories of black men raping white women.

That riot completely changed the dynamics of the entire city and the relationships between its inhabitants.

Things have actually happened.

We may not have experienced them, so they may not be real to us, but it doesn't change the fact that they are real.

Post: #75

(09-08-2014 01:36 PM)jariel Wrote:  

(09-08-2014 01:10 PM)Fisto Wrote:  Jariel - I love your posts usually but every white person has experiences racism in some way, and especially in Atlanta where black people are something like 80% of the population and use that leverage to make up for every perceived transgression against black people in history.

Fisto, this is an interesting statement because I'd like to know what you consider to be an example of a perceived transgression.

I think it's a serious issue when people try to dismiss things that have actually happened to people, like as if they just conjured these things up in their minds while they were at home with nothing else better to do.



We may not have experienced them, so they may not be real to us, but it doesn't change the fact that they are real.

Few people in that city today that are black have dealt with anything like your example.

White people there on the other hand can look forward to being bullied, intimidated, denied service in fast food restaurants, harassed, threatened, assaulted etc etc.

Because they are white.

The black people actually DOING these things haven't experienced what you're referring to and the white people they are doing these things to did nothing to them.

edit - It also sounds like you are defending these racist actions against white people.