The Seattle Hawks? Why the Atlanta Hawks should not relocate
Let’s get an important but little-known fact out in the open when looking at what’s next for the Atlanta Hawks:
The Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association currently have the second-longest playoff appearances streak in the entire league.
The longest, you may ask? Spoiler alert: The Spurs.
Others in the category of longest current playoff appearances: the Heat, Bulls and Thunder. When you throw the Hawks toward the top of that list, it’s like doing one of those which-of-things-are-not-like-the-others exercises.
San Antonio, to no surprise, has appeared in the playoffs for 17 consecutive seasons. The Hawks are second with seven years straight of making the postseason.
Anyone who says they’re not surprised is just lying.
Anyway, I digress.
Let’s talk about a very real reality: The Seattle Hawks.
RECAPPING THE LAST FEW DAYS
Atlanta’s team has taken a PR nosedive this week during an otherwise quiet period for most NBA franchises, prompting some to wonder whether the organization will relocate to another city now that owner Bruce Levenson decided over the weekend to sell the Hawks franchise he purchased in 2003.
“My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a significant season ticket base” -Bruce Levenson, Hawks team owner
For those who have been on vacation the last few days, here’s in a nutshell what’s been made public since this weekend: Levenson self-reported an email this year that he sent in 2012 to general manager Danny Ferry in which he wondered how the organization could attract more white fans to games.
“My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a significant season ticket base,” Levenson wrote to Ferry. He also wondered whether “white cheerleaders” would help bring more white people to games and he complained that the “kiss cam was too black.”
He subsequently self-reported the e-mail.
Why? Because he was probably afraid that an investigation launched this summer by Hawks minority owners would perhaps reveal his own email to Ferry; the GM made comments to the ownership group in June when Atlanta had decided to pursue then-free agent Luol Deng. In those comments, Ferry had said that Deng, who was born in South Sudan, “has a little African in him, not in a bad way, but he’s like a guy who would have a nice store out front but sell you counterfeit stuff out of the back.”
Ferry then went on to describe Deng as “a two-faced liar and cheat,” according to the letter, which has been cited in media reports, that a minority owner sent to Levenson back in June.
The minority owners felt that Ferry’s comment was inappropriate and wanted to dig deeper, and thus an investigation was born.
The decision this weekend of Levenson to sell the team came after he self-reported the email. Ferry, for his part, has been dealt with internally by the franchise.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE HAWKS?
So now we have another Donald Sterling-esque situation; a team owner is selling his franchise because of racially charged comments he made.
And we’re left to wonder, as we would do with any team that’s up for sale: Will the Hawks stay in Atlanta or will they be purchased by a group that will relocate the team to another city?
It’s not entirely far-fetched to think that we could see the Hawks in Seattle at some point.
If that did happen, I can’t remember the last time a city will have had basically the same mascot for two major pro sports teams.
Fans in Seattle have been clamoring for an NBA team ever since the Sonics bolted for Oklahoma City in 2008 and became the Thunder, and I’m sure they’ll make themselves heard once the bidding process begins for the Hawks.
Chris Hansen, the billionaire who headed up the group that sought to bring the Kings to town, has shown the financial flexibility and private backing to lure an NBA team with promises of a new arena. There’s plenty of other mega-rich executives all around the country who would love to bring an NBA team to their city.
Why won’t it happen?
First off, the Hawks have been in Atlanta since 1969. It’s going to take more than a dimwit owner on his way out to relocate a franchise that’s been a staple of the city for nearly five decades. There’s clearly something wrong with some of the front-office executives in Atlanta, but that’s being dealt with in a swift manner.
As far as the Hawks are concerned as a team, and with respect to Atlanta as a viable NBA market, there’s a lot of promise.
The team has a bright, young future with a core of Paul Millsap, Jeff Teague and Al Horford. Their roster is on the rise, and there will be a lot of pushback from well-connected, die-hard Atlanta fans who want to stop groups from trying to uproot an exciting team out of Atlanta. There’s that postseason appearances streak that’s got to be encouraging for fans in Atlanta, and Philips Arena opened in 1999, so it’s a bit early to argue that that the team should be moving to a brand new arena in another part of the country.
Moving away from Atlanta will likely be a downgrade for the team from many standpoints: Atlanta is a top-10 TV market for ratings, the city is home to the headquarters of Turner and NBA TV, and team officials — if paired with a sharp PR firm — could use this whole disaster as a teachable moment to grow their fanbase and ultimately make it the diverse crowd that Levenson thought had been lacking.
Lastly, the NBA has shown a pattern. More often than not, when a team is up for sale, the franchise stays put. In the last year or so, we’ve seen this precedent with the Kings, Bucks and Clippers.
The Sterling issue is still ongoing. You could argue that Levenson’s decision to voluntarily sell the team in light of a self-reported email is a direct consequence of the mess that unfolded with the Clippers this spring. After all, Sterling himself threatened to investigate other team owners who he believed had made racist remarks.
The answer to the question of what’s next for the Hawks isn’t entirely clear. One thing is for sure: the solution to most team controversies isn’t to relocate the franchise.
If that were the case, sad to say, the map of NBA cities would be a game of musical chairs in which nobody really wins.