Hawks owner Bruce Levenson to sell team following email that claims black fans ‘scared away the whites’

Atlanta Hawks majority owner Bruce Levenson today announced plans to sell the professional basketball franchise following a racist email that he sent team officials two years ago.

In August 2012, the Hawks majority owner wrote an “inappropriate and offensive” email to General Manager Danny Ferry, plus co-owners Ed Peskowitz and Todd Foreman, that stereotyped the team’s fanbase along racial lines. Among other characterizations, Levenson suggested that white fans were afraid of black fans, arena entertainment didn’t cater enough to white season-ticket holders, and low merchandise sales could be attributed to a lack of disposable income among black fans. And, yes, he even bemoaned that the Philips Arena kiss cam was “too black.”

We’ve included Levenson’s full email after the jump, but here’s an excerpt:

My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a signficant season ticket base. Please dont get me wrong. There was nothing threatening going on in the arean back then. i never felt uncomfortable, but i think southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority. On fan sites i would read comments about how dangerous it is around philips yet in our 9 years, i don’t know of a mugging or even a pick pocket incident. This was just racist garbage. When I hear some people saying the arena is in the wrong place I think it is code for there are too many blacks at the games.

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 tixs demo. i have also balked when every fan picked out of crowd to shoot shots in some time out contest is black. I have even bitched that the kiss cam is too black.

Gradually things have changed. My unscientific guess is that our crowd is 40 pct black now, still four to five times all other teams. And my further guess is that 40 pct still feels like 70 pet to some whites at our games. Our bars are still overwhelmingly black.

This is obviously a sensitive topic, but sadly i think it is far and way the number one reason our season ticket base is so low.

Levenson, who has owned a majority interest in the Hawks for the past decade, will hand over team operations to Hawks CEO Steve Koonin as the team gets placed on the market. The owner’s decision comes five months after recordings of Los Angeles Clippers Owner Donald Sterling making racist remarks resulted in a lifetime NBA ban, a maximum fine of $2.5 million, and the forced sale of the basketball franchise. Levenson said he was “truly embarrassed” by the email and had voluntarily reported himself to the NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for his remarks.

“If you’re angry about what I wrote, you should be. I’m angry at myself, too,” Levenson said in the statement. “It was inflammatory nonsense. We all may have subtle biases and preconceptions when it comes to race, but my role as a leader is to challenge them, not to validate or accommodate those who might hold them. I have said repeatedly that the NBA should have zero tolerance for racism, and I strongly believe that to be true. That is why I voluntarily reported my inappropriate e-mail to the NBA.”

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Levenson’s remarks were “entirely unacceptable” and stood in contrast to the league’s principles. Silver said he first learned about the email two months ago and subsequently launched an independent investigation into the comments. The investigation was still pending last night when Levenson informed the commissioner about his decision.

“He shared with me how truly remorseful he is for using those hurtful words and how apologetic he is to the entire NBA family - fans, players, team employees, business partners and fellow team owners - for having diverted attention away from our game,” Silver said in a statement.

Mayor Kasim Reed lambasted Levenson for the email but pledged support for the team as it searched for new owners.

“The published remarks made by Atlanta Hawks Controlling Owner Bruce Levenson are reprehensible and offensive,” Reed tells CL in a statement. “The statements do not represent the City of Atlanta’s history of diversity and inclusion, and we will be clear and deliberate in denouncing and repudiating them. I applaud the NBA’s efforts to enforce a no-tolerance policy of discrimination. As a city, we will continue to stand behind the Atlanta Hawks organization as they work to find new ownership that reflects the values and ideals of a city that is too busy to hate.”

We’ve reached out to the Hawks for additional information, including what happens next for the team and what the sale could means for the Hawks’ future in Atlanta.

The full email sent by Levenson is pasted after the jump.

? ? ?
From: Bruce Levenson
To: Ferry, Danny
CC: Foreman, Todd (ucg.com); Peskowitz, Ed (ucg.com)
Sent: 8/25/2012 11:47:02 PM
Subject: Re: Business/Game ops

1. from day one i have been impressed with the friendliness and professionalism of the arena staff —
food vendors, ushers, ticket takers, etc. in our early years when i would bring folks from dc they were
blown away by the contrast between abe pollin’s arena and philips. some of this is attributable to
southern hospital and manners but bob and his staff do a good job of training. To this day, I can not get
the ushers to call me Bruce yet they insist on me calling them by their first names.

2. the non-premium area food is better than most arenas, though that is not saying much. i think there
is room for improvement and creativity. Levy is our food vendor so we don’t have much control but they
have been good partners. i have wished we had some inconic offereing like boog’s barbeque at the
baseball stadium in balt.

3. our new restaurant, red, just opened so too early for me to give you my thoughts.

4. Regarding game ops, i need to start with some background. for the first couple of years we owned the
team, i didn’t much focus on game ops. then one day a light bulb went off. when digging into why our
season ticket base is so small, i was told it is because we can’t get 35-55 white males and corporations to
buy season tixs and they are the primary demo for season tickets around the league. when i pushed
further, folks generally shrugged their shoulders. then i start looking around our arena during games
and notice the following:

— it’s 70 pct black
— the cheerleaders are black
— the music is hip hop
— at the bars it’s 90 pct black
— there are few fathers and sons at the games
— we are doing after game concerts to attract more fans and the concerts are either hip hop or gospel.Then i start looking around at other arenas. It is completely different. Even DC with its affluent black
community never has more than 15 pct black audience.

Before we bought the hawks and for those couple years immediately after in an effort to make the
arena look full (at the nba’s urging) thousands and thousands of tickets were being giving away,
predominantly in the black community, adding to the overwhelming black audience.

My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent
black fans to build a signficant season ticket base. Please dont get me wrong. There was nothing
threatening going on in the arean back then. i never felt uncomfortable, but i think southern whites
simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority. On fan sites i
would read comments about how dangerous it is around philips yet in our 9 years, i don’t know of a
mugging or even a pick pocket incident. This was just racist garbage. When I hear some people saying
the arena is in the wrong place I think it is code for there are too many blacks at the games.

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 tixs demo. i have also balked when every fan picked out of
crowd to shoot shots in some time out contest is black. I have even bitched that the kiss cam is too
black.

Gradually things have changed. My unscientific guess is that our crowd is 40 pct black now, still four to
five times all other teams. And my further guess is that 40 pct still feels like 70 pet to some whites at our
games. Our bars are still overwhelmingly black.

This is obviously a sensitive topic, but sadly i think it is far and way the number one reason our season
ticket base is so low.

And many of our black fans don’t have the spendable income which explains why our f&b and
merchandise sales are so low. At all white thrasher games sales were nearly triple what they are at
hawks games (the extra intermission explains some of that but not all).

Regardless of what time a game starts, we have the latest arriving crowd in the league. It often looks
and sounds empty when the team takes the floor.In the past two years, we have created a section of rowdy college students that has been a big plus. And
we do a lot of very clever stuff during time outs to entertain the crowd. Our kiss cam is better done than
any in the league.

We have all the same halftime acts that other arenas have but i question whether they make sense.
people are on their cell phones during half time. i wonder if flashing on the scoreboard “$2 off on hot
dogs during halftime tonight” just as the half ends would be a better use of our halftime dollars and
make the fans happier.

We do all the usual giveways and the fans are usually their loudest when our spirit crew takes the floor
to give away t-shirts. It pisses me off that they will yell louder for a t-shirt then for our players.

Our player intro is flat. We manufacture a lot of noise but because of the late arriving crowd and the fact
that a lot of blacks dont seem to go as crazy cheering (another one of my theories) as whites, it is not
great. Even when we have just returned from winnng four straight on the road, i am one of the few
people in the arena standing and cheering when our team takes the floor. Bob has kicked around ideas
like having the starters coming down aisles rather than off the bench during intros. Sounds cool but may
highlight all the empty seats at the start of games.

Not enough of our fans wear hawks jerseys to games. i have just begun to push for ideas like discount
food lines for folks wearing jerseys, special entrances, etc. I think we need a committed and perhaps
incentivized fan club. We need to realize atl is simply different than every other city. Just adopting nba
best practices is not enough. we have to create our own.

I am rambling and could probably go on forever. If you have any specific areas you would like my
thoughts on, let me know.

Best,
Bruce

ps — I have cc’d todd and ed so they can chime in with additional or different thoughts.
Sent from my iPad