Bruce Levenson Email

The BBQ Pit
21

Hell no, I’ve never done such a thing. I have a better marriage than that. We’re honest with each other and admit when we’re actually wrong, we don’t patronize each other. What a horrible way to treat a spouse.

Oh bullshit on all of the above. “How can we broaden our appeal?” is a legitimate question. “How can we get more white people? Let’s play ‘white people’ music, stop letting black people come on the court to make free throws, and get some white cheerleaders,” is fucking racist. That you don’t see that makes you a complete moron.

No. No, no, no, no, and fucking NO. What the bloody FUCK does the race of the attendees matter? “Are we filling the stadium, maximizing profits in our bars, and selling as many season tickets as possible” has fuckall to do with race, and it’s just sickening to read people saying it does.

22

I’m sorry that it sickens you, but it’s reality. There are advertising firms that specialize in marketing towards specific races, and large corporations hire them all the time. The NBA, in particular, puts a lot of effort into marketing specifically towards Hispanics, Asians, and Blacks.

23

Stop letting black people make free throws? Where did you get that from?
And I’d also like to know what is wrong with having diversity on the cheer leading team.

24

IIRC, the Hawks were up for sale a couple of years ago and pretty much had no takers. Why? Because like most sports teams in Atlanta, the Hawks are losers. Again, like most sports teams in Atlanta, they’re great choke artists; they can get a little ways down that road – just enough to break some hearts – and then they fail.

Atlanta fans are not like, say, Cubs fans. They don’t give a shit for “we’ll get 'em next year.” They want to see winning stuff right damn now and they’ll stay away until they get it. You have to be a college football team to get forgiven for failure around here.

When they were up for sale last time, Hawks management did kinda sorta float a “gee, we might have to sell the team to somebody out of town, wouldn’t that be awful” trial balloon and there was not a lot of uproar over it. If memory serves the mayor of Atlanta called their bluff on it and that was that.

I can see why Hawks management is not feeling the love. Cobb County is getting ready to stick their taxpayers with a mountain of debt to build a new stadium to move the Atlanta Braves to the 'burbs. The City of Atlanta gave away the store to keep the Falcons from going out of town – the new stadium will be exactly downtown where most nobody wants to go. Also we can look forward to having (yet another) major league soccer team in the ATL in the next couple of years, tax breaks, incentives, etc. out the butt for that.

There’s really nothing in the Santa government bag for the Hawks.

While the email shows a huge amount of Bad Thinking Out Loud, it’s pretty clear that he wanted more season ticket buyers most of all … they’d sell tickets to pink and purple polka-dotted three-headed space aliens if they had folding money. The prevailing color here is actually green, though Mr. Managing Partner was a complete ass in how he said it. I’m hearing him called a lot of things as well, with “Jew bastard” at the top of the list. Yep, Atlanta, the city too busy to hate.

This may actually help him sell his interest in the Hawks, as some Great Emancipator can come along now and take the team off his hands, be a big hero to everybody for stepping up.

25

That’s from the memo; when people were chosen from the audience to participate in contests, it was always black people. It was also pointed out that when they did the “Kiss Cam” (the Jumbotron shows couples kissing and etc on the screen) there were never any white couples.

26

A rich Caucasian is being accused of racism! Whitesplainers, assemble!

Yup. Nauseating.

Zero. Here’s what actually happened. Anyway if Levenson is such a brilliant businessman that he said something bigoted in 2012 so he could use it to sell his stake in the team in 2014, he’s pretty smart - but if he’s so smart, why are the Hawks are terrible and why do they always lose money? (Sports conspiracy theories are the stupidest.)

I agree that things like location and TV deals are a major factor in the value of a team, but… one reason they are not valuable and are losing money is that people don’t come to their games because the team is not competitive. For about seven years their ceiling has been fourth- or fifth-best in the conference, and that was an improvement after they missed the playoffs every year for eight years. That’s not going to get people to flock to games. Oh, and there’s another problem: their ownership team is a joke. They really suck.

27

Is illiteracy becoming an epidemic here? It’s in the fucking email. He freaks out over the fact that the freethrow people are black, and says they shouldn’t be. If your going to start having more white guys making the shots, you’re necessarily going to have to discriminate against black people making the shots.

I don’t know why you are turning into Chief Pedant over here, but racism is not acceptable even if you think it is based on truth. The fact that it could make you more money is not only not a valid excuse, but makes the whole thing even worse.

The coach wants to try to make more money by enacting racist policies. He is, under his own logic, deliberately courting racists that are uncomfortable around black people. (And, seeing as most white people don’t feel that way, it’s quite likely he’s projecting his own discomfort due to his own racism.) If he didn’t think such ideas were racist, why did he feel the need to say that he didn’t personally feel uncomfortable around black people?

The Southern Strategy was a realistic strategy to get votes from racists. It was based on the truth that racist ideas appealed to a higher number of Southern voters. And it was also fucking racist.

This is another strategy based on courting racists. Even if it’s based on the supposed truth that racist white people are more affluent, it’s still fucking racist.

Deliberately supporting racism is racist.

28

That just leads us back to the diversity question: What’s wrong with diversity?

29

The crowd is diverse. He wants it to be less diverse.

30

There are worse teams in smaller markets that are making money and worth much more.

Sincerely,
-An Orlando Magic fan

31

Nothing’s wrong with diversity but what is diversity here? What should it be?

That memo kind of puts the cart before the horse – you can’t force anyone (whatever their origin) to buy season tickets if there is no compelling reason for them to do so. There’s no equal rights in discretionary spending.

The truth is that there’s not sufficient people of any color to show interest in the team. As Marley reasonably points out, the Hawks suck. As long as they are not winning NBA championships they’re not going to have a lot of takers and that is just a natural fact.

32

I wasn’t talking about the crowd. I was talking about the cheer leading team.
And for some reason, you guys seem to think: “Hey, pick some white people every once in a while for the free throws and the kiss cams” is the same thing as saying: “No more black people”.

THAT"S the diversity I was referring to.

33

I wouldn’t say less diverse. I would say more monied.

34

I really don’t understand what’s so shocking about the fact that in a city that’s overwhelmingly African-American that most of the people attending the games would be black?

35

Yes. Well, again, the Hawks owners suck. And the Magic were at least interesting a couple of years ago since they had one of the best players in the league. The Hawks haven’t won two playoff series in the same year since the early '90s.

That wasn’t clear to me.

Everybody keeps rewriting this email. It’s too bad none of you work for him. Here’s what he really said:

He doesn’t say “you never pick white people.” He said he’s uncomfortable when all the participants in an individual contest are black, and he said the kiss cam is too black. There should be no misinterpreting that statement, but people keep insisting he said something else.

36

I wonder if someone threatened him with something like “you go public or I will.”

Yes, people market specifically to various races, and can do so without being racist. However, it’s one thing to say you want more non-whites, so what can we do to get their interest, and another to say it’s too black for our white customers, especially when it’s acknowledged in the email that his desired customers are racists.

It sounds like he wants to attract men like my BIL who lives just north of Atlanta and hates blacks, although he says he’s not racist. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t openly use the n-word.

Fewer would be upset if his email was about how to attract some more middle age white guys without specifying that it should be done by reducing the number of black attendees, cheerleaders, kiss cam targets, etc.

All this is seriously fucked up in the NBA

37

I wasn’t speaking verbatim. I know what the man said. With out having actual statistics, it’s kind of hard to debate this point. However, if they’re choosing 10 blacks for every one white. There is nothing racist about wanting to even it out a little more.

38

That was the impetus for this particular email but, as Tuba Diva said, the (highly disfunctional since day 1) ownership of the Hawks has been trying for years to sell the team. I firmly believe that Levenson is using this controversy as a potential way out. Hell, it worked a few weeks ago on the west coast, why not here?

39

Right, but that’s not short term performance, which is what I said.

40

I know less than nothing about basketball, but how would this make it easier for him to sell?

IIRC Sterling had a desirable team that he didn’t want to sell, so other people had to bid up the price and put pressure on him so he would sell. Even if what this guy said was racist - it wasn’t - increased pressure on him isn’t going to raise the price. The opposite, in fact - he might be pressured to dump the team at any price.

Regards,
Shodan