Hawks to be Sold After Revelation of Racist E-Mail by Owner

http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2014/9/7/6120091/bruce-levenson-email-danny-ferry-atlanta-hawks-owner

Danny Ferry also to be punished.

 

if you don't treat any of them like humans, you can't be racist

viva assets!

 

They haven't really been good either. They had a similar run in the 90s behind Steve Smith & Mookie Blaylock. They've pretty much been mediocre as a franchise since the merger. Is there another team that existed at the time that has yet to make a conference finals?

They were at least exciting in the 80s with Nique.

The Hawks traded Pau Gasol for Shareef Abdur-Rahim (and then promised to refund season ticket holders if they didn't make the playoffs).

They took Marvin Williams over Chris Paul, despite needing a PG, and that being Paul's preferred destination.

They've made some good moves, but they've screwed up in acquiring a superstar, which is what the city needs.

 

Controlling interest does not mean Majority, Levenson does not hold more than 50% of all shares, he's considered the controlling owner because he has built a relationship with Peskowitz to control more than 50% of shares.

However a new owner of his shares would have no prior relationship with any of the other owners, therefore, his shareholding would not be a controlling owner.

 

I didn't think it was racist at all.

 

He didn't have to report anything. The guy is looking to cash in on a multi-billion dollar sell, that's all there is to it.

 

I'm mostly struck at how unprofessional his customer segmentation is because it seems to have only 3 categories: blacks, affluent blacks, and whites. Customer segmentation is common, and it isn't even necessarily illegitimate to have racial demographics to go with it. But, segmentation should be based in deeper data than customers' race. How much discretionary income they have, some behavioral analytics on how and why they value the Hawks' products, customer perceptions of the club and whatnot. Instead of shooting from the hip on 'I bet white people don't buy season tickets because of all the black people at games' he should have spent a few million dollars on a consultant to answer some questions like 'Which customers do we want?', 'What experience do those customers want?', and 'What experience do they think they're getting now?' It just seems to me like he's done some very lazy market analysis. The curiosity he had was good, but he didn't do anything to answer the questions he had except walk around the arena.

I'm actually much more interested in this supposedly racist statement in a scouting report that got Ferry in trouble. I don't understand why race would come up in a scouting report.

 

You can be racist against humans.

 

This dude is getting leveraged and was just trying to get ahead of the scandal. Smart move if you ask me.

If you look at some of the things that NBA teams do to cater to corporate season ticket holders, at the detriment of other fans, I don't think this email is that surprising. I hate going to Rockets games and seeing everybody in the upper bowl in their seats at tipoff while the corporate crowd in the lower bowl are hanging out in the lounge. I hate that so much prime seating was lost for luxury suites. I hate that corporate fans don't wear jerseys or even act interested in the games. Basically, anything that increases the corporate status of NBA games hurts real fans. Any money that's gained and not spent directly on better players is putting the business before the team and its fans. But then again, what are you going to do as a mid-market team? Profit is not guaranteed in the unbalanced NBA, so you're forced to sell out here and there.

This owner is talking about his business to his business colleagues regarding how to sell out and make more money. He sees a big demographic difference with the people who comes to his games and the demographics of more profitable organizations. He wants to cater to a different demographic. He's insensitive and he stereotypes his fan base, but if that's racist then everyone is a racist and the term racist is meaningless.

Concluding that because he's looking to sell out and hurt his fans that he's racist just because these fans are predominately black seems pretty problematic to me. Is diversity only a goal if it helps minorities?

 

So by appealing to a racist white demographic, while ignoring all other avenues of increasing revenue, that's smart business? Isn't Atlanta mostly african american?

 

Glad you thought about it.

Agreed on it being bad business acumen, it basically just threw out observations or theories without any real attempt to give a quanitative basis. Then again this is probably 1 of 1000's of e-mails he has had.

Atlanta is a prosperous city, not anything near Houston.

Cuban + winning.

If Atlanta wants to right their ship, they need to win more and get an elite young player. To an extent they have just had bad luck.

 

white people that don't like hip hop are now racists

 

? Weren't we talking about whether it is easier Levenson to sale now, as some conspiracy saying he purposely revealed the email. I thought I was responding to you say that.

You said he's been trying to sale since 2012, but needs to convince other minority owners. I'm saying he could have sold his shares anytime he wanted to, as long as the new buyer passes his/her owner exam by the league, as is always the case.

 

Maybe he's trying to avoid a $2m fine. Besides, looks like Ferry comment is what prompted an investigation that led to the owner's email. The owner didn't report it; it was already found. He just owned up to it.

He isn't going to get close to the Clipper's price. First, he doesn't have 100% ownership like Sterling, and two, ATL is not as valuable as LAC

And third, he could have sold before. I don't understand this idea that his share are suddenly more valuable now that he's being forced to sale? How does that make sense.

 

It isn't a good comparison.

The Pistons do not play in Detroit.

They play in Auburn Hills which is one of the most affluent suburbs in the county. Auburn Hills is surrounded by other like suburbs that are affluent and primarily white. Essentially many of the whites and wealthy blacks fled Detroit starting in the 70's and moved to places like Auburn Hills.

Most people in Detroit proper cannot afford to attend the Pistons games.

I am not arguing that the owner of the Hawks was right about his "theories". The Hawks have struggled for many reasons, and the idea that a city that is 50% black has too many black fans is stupid. The idea that a city that is 50% black keeps white people from going to the Hawks games is stupid, because if it was such an issue, there wouldn't be white people living in Atlanta.

Also, fans in the mid west and north east are just more rabid IMO than in the south and the west coast.

 

He is a minority owner, he just happens to have the biggest minority of shares, but without other shareholders, he does not have controlling interest.

So his shares are quite difficult to sell, since he is not selling the team per se, but a minority share in an ownership group that has proven to be unpopular and dysfunctional.

 

So let me get this right.

Danny Ferry did NOT write the scouting report, he did not draft a racist e-mail. He is being punished because a scout drafted a scouting report and gave it to Danny Ferry. Danny Ferry then read the scouting report to the Hawks brass and did not edit out or omit the racial comment.

I am not sure that is really fair...

What about the scout that made the remark? What did the scouting report say?

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Yahoo Sources: On call with team owners, Atlanta GM Danny Ferry said Luol Deng still had &quot;some African in him.&quot; <a href="http://t.co/KNSBrpKZ42">http://t.co/KNSBrpKZ42</a></p>&mdash; Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/WojYahooNBA/status/509016857064378368">September 8, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

Yes, but Silver is not forcing the team to sell. He is only forcing Levenson to sell his controlling interest. So, I don't see how his shares are all of a sudden easier to sell. Silver is not making everyone sell.

LAC got $2b because Sterling owned 100%. Selling Levenson's controlling interest is very different, as you stated.