“Too black” is not a statistic either.
Maybe they could have ginned up more attention/controversy by hitching themselves to the Braves dubious connotations, and floating the rumor that the Hawks weren’t named after a bird but that it was short for “Tomahawks.”
It turns out there’s even more to the story – now with even more racism! – and general manager Danny Ferry is being asked to resign or be fired for HIS racist statement.
From what’s being said on the local news here, Ferry’s comment – which was said out loud in a meeting – predated the discovery of the Levenson memo.
It was Ferry’s comments in this scouting meeting that started an NBA investigation into the Hawks. And that’s when Levenson reported the memo to the NBA. Guess he figured it would come out anyway.
I’ve heard at least one news report that said the NBA felt Ferry should be fired/forced to resign, a view that is shared by Hawks co-owner Steve Koonin and most everyone else I’ve heard on this subject.
Don’t think Levenson decided to sing a song out of the Donald Sterling hymnbook; that’s not how this works. In the wake of incidents involving people in the public eye such as Paula Deen, most everyone knows (or should know) that anything said or done that is race-based and could be considered derogatory is going to be considered A Very Bad Thing and you will be punished for it.
Not to repeat too much of the other thread, but if he had talked only about money and not about race he wouldn’t be in this situation right now. Depending on what he said people might be arguing that his comments were racially tinged, but since he made it clear he was talking about black people, it’s a no-go. In the email Levenson says other teams have a crowd that is maybe 10-15%, and theirs is 40% black (down from 70%). It certainly sounds like he wants to get their fanbase to match that because they’ll make more money that way.
The actual city of Atlanta is less than 10% of the population of metro Atlanta, and not overwhelming African-American (It’s 55% Black/35% white). Metro Atlanta is reversed (55% white/35% black).
Is that racist?
I’m not trying to be obtuse, but I honestly equate racism with some kind of animus towards the race in question. I’m not feeling that in the e-mail.
Replace race with age and this is de rigueur for marketing types. “Our arena is filled with 20 somethings, other arenas are filled with 50 somethings and they have more money to spend. Stop playing music for 20 somethings, stop showing nothing but 20 somethings on every screen, and start doing something to attract the older fan.”
And that means his comments were racial, not racist. The fact is that, unfortunately, there is an economic difference between the races. Using that fact to attract people with fatter wallets to any venue is hardly racist. As someone upthread pointed out, the color he’s concerned with is green.
I don’t want to be too hard on you, but, well, duh. If you replace race with age, it’s no longer racist. “We want to capture the 18-34 demographic” is not offensive. “We want to capture the white demographic” is.
ETA: I don’t think we have to be quite so strict in defining racism. There’s no animus in “Asians are good at math”, but it’s still racist.
There is an economic difference between rich and poor. Any difference between races is unimportant if all you are interested in is green.
Magellan01, do you think it’s OK to discriminate against blacks as long as you are doing it to make more money?
Yes. He’s the owner of a mostly black team in a mostly black league in an area with a larger-than-average black population, and he’s talking about swapping out black fans for white fans who don’t really like being around black people.
That’s one type of racism, but it’s not the only type.
You are the only person who believes this is a meaningful distinction, you stupid, useless, disgusting, tedious bigot.
Why isn’t it? Why is one particular demographic offensive and others are not? Is it still OK to target Men 18-34, or is that sexist?
The Lakers traded for Jeremy Lin and there were a bunch of stories about how that would help them tap into the towns huge Asian demographic. Are they just racists for wanting to increase appeal with this demographic?
The Hawks weren’t playing hip-hop during time outs because it was the next song that came up on their iPod. They were targeting a particular demographic, why is it not offensive to put on music to appeal to one race based demographic, but it is offensive to change the music to appeal to a different race based demographic?
Sometimes business is just business.
Actually anyone with common sense can tell that there is a difference between remarks that have to do with race and remarks that are racist.
You seem a little testy lately - is the chip on your shoulder getting heavy?
Regards,
Shodan
OK, change that sentence to “You two are…”
You know what, I take that back. magellan01 seems to think this is really significant. I doubt you do; you’re just assuming it’s a thing because the liberals must be wrong. Still, you did a great job proving your credentials as a racist in the Game Room thread. Wanna double down?
Every NBA team is mostly black, and Metro Atlanta isn’t significantly different than NYC or Chicago in demographics. They actually have a higher % of white residents than NYC and Chicago. Why shouldn’t he want the demographics of his audience to match theirs?
It’s not even a statement that he doesn’t want their business, he just wants more business from a group he feels isn’t appreciating his product.
That doesn’t appear to be true. Metro NYC and metro Atlanta have similar percentages of white people (61% to 55%), but Atlanta has a much larger percentage of black people (32% to 16%). Assuming Levenson’s guesstimates are right, the demographics of Hawks crowds seem pretty similar to the demographics of the area the team is in. But he’s not happy with that.
You are correct that there are some broader issues as well - the people who can afford to go to NBA games don’t quite look like the people who play in the league and they don’t match the overall fanbase - and that’s an interesting issue and complex issue. I talked about it a little in the other thread: in the NBA, you have (mostly) black players making lots of money for (mostly) white owners; the fan base is racially mixed but the ownership and management are mostly white. At times the league doesn’t know how to talk to or about the people it’s paying and making money from. That goes far beyond Levenson, and no, I don’t think it’s great if they all price out black fans silently while he’s the bad guy just for saying it flat-out. But he’s also talking about playing into people’s prejudices here and makes some nasty comments himself. That’s a problem even if he’s only doing it because he wants to make more money.
He would be well within his rights to try to expand his audience, but much of this email suggests he wants to replace part of his audience with a different one. And if you were a black customer I don’t think you would feel he wanted your business.
I’m sorry for repeating myself, but I thought this was worth mentioning: in this thread and the Game Room thread we’ve talked about Levenson’s claim that all the Hawks cheerleaders are black. For the record, they are not all black, and they never have been. Not even close. I think that mistake should provide a little more insight into Levenson.
Yeah, that really does, thanks for the information. I just assumed he was telling the truth regarding the cheerleaders being all black.
At this point I’d question his claim regarding all the people on the kids cam being black and the same for people chosen for the free throws.
Well, again, he didn’t say everyone on the kiss cam was black. He said that too many of them were black, and again, that nebulous wording implies something ugly. He did say that sometimes all the shooting contest participants were black, and if the crowd is 40% black it seems like that shouldn’t be a problem too often.
This is what I came in here to say. People who keep quoting the 70% number as the percentage of black fans attending and saying it perfectly represents Atlanta are twisting the fact that NO sports team in Atlanta wants to draw it’s fans from within the city limits of Atlanta. The Atlanta metro area dwarfs the actual city of Atlanta in both size, population, and disposable income to spend on optional stuff like freaking NBA tickets and jersey!
I work in Midtown Atlanta, and have been to dozens and dozens of events at Phillips Arena, Turner Field, and the Georgia Dome. I have never felt uncomfortable. But I know, seriously, KNOW, because we’ve talked about, many people on my street in the burbs who will NOT go downtown. They live in the burbs, work in the burbs, shop in the burbs, you get the idea. To them, downtown Atlanta is a cancerous hellhole of mammoth proportions. I think in their head it’s a lawless badlands straight out of an apocalypse movie.
Those are the people Levinson was saying he wanted at the games.
And now comes the part where you try to convince us that those people’s views have nothing to do with race. Levenson felt that it did, and that’s also my experience.