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Not sure how many of you have been following the Atlanta Hawks shitfest the last few hours but the email finally leaked.
In short Danny Ferry got caught saying offensive remarks about Luol Deng on a conference call with owners. One reacted and wrote an email to Bruce Levenson, the controlling owner. Found here: http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/news/documents/2014/09/08/Gearon_letter.pdf
Now, before this came out (minutes ago) Levenson had resigned over the weekend. Why? A Hawks internal investigation turned up a 2012 email Levenson wrote about white fans not wanting to attend games because of too many black fans. The league got aware of the incoming storm and Levenson decided to sell his shares. (Note- he wanted to sell them even from last year). His remarks in the email aren;t THAT bad imo and not really racist, just ridiculous notions. Anyway you'll be hearing more about this very soon. The Levenson stuff can be found easily at the moment.
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I actually don't think his notions are that ridiculous. He is basically saying that the "Demo" which is apparently rich-ish 30-50 year old men has a significant number of people who harbor racist thoughts, or are just uncomfortable in a black-dominated venue.
I'm not really well versed in the goings on of Atlanta, but those assertions would be factually correct if you were talking about the 3 major cities I have lived in (Pittsburgh, Chicago, Washington DC).
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It's a tough call for me. I can see where Levenson was coming from with some of his demographic talk, but some of it's pretty bad (Southern whites not wanting to be in a minority). Perhaps it's a well intended email that took a bad turn, and it's certainly not Sterling, but it's still bad.
Somewhat related: is it so hard to use proper capitalization and punctuation when discussing important matter with your employees regarding your multi-billion dollar business?
On September 09 2014 13:40 cLutZ wrote:
I actually don't think his notions are that ridiculous. He is basically saying that the "Demo" which is apparently rich-ish 30-50 year old men has a significant number of people who harbor racist thoughts, or are just uncomfortable in a black-dominated venue.
I'm not really well versed in the goings on of Atlanta, but those assertions would be factually correct if you were talking about the 3 major cities I have lived in (Pittsburgh, Chicago, Washington DC).
I believe he's correct about that demographic having more money, but I believe Atlanta is a statistical anomaly, with 52% of the city's population being black, if I recall correctly.
EDIT: 54% as of the 2010 census. For reference, Pittsburgh is 26%.
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United States22883 Posts
I think the worst was his comment about lack of father-son fans among attendees. There's just no way you would know that given the info stadiums currently collect.
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Yeah. There was some legitimate business talk (I would believe that if he claimed that white males in their 20s-30s are the biggest spenders) but some of the shit he said about how there was too much hip-hop and the father-son thing was not acceptable to say really
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He wasn't attributing father-son fans to black people, he was merely making an observation of his clientele. The only time he directly compares black and white people are when he states that black fans don't cheer as loudly during intros as white fans. That's really the only sentence that tingled my P.C. senses.
I don't have a problem with the general sentiment of his email. It looks like he's just trying to attract more customers with more disposable income, every business wants this. If you want a more mixed crowd, you need attractions that are enjoyable for mixed demographics. He's saying their attractions (besides the game) cater to one demographic, citing his observations of the attractions that cater to that one demographic.
Tbh, I think he was looking for a way out, and this one's as good as any to get out of the game.
Dan Ferry on the other hand, was way out of bounds.
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It is questionable to suggest that hip-hop is targeted only at black fans though, because while the music is predominantly made by black people I know quite a few white people, even older white people (looked back at the email and it said 35-55) that like hip-hop.
He didn't explicitly say that the father-son thing was about black people but come on:
— 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.
Every other statement in his list is about how there are too many black people/they are catering too much towards black people. It's unlikely that the father-son comment is the only thing on his list not about black people when that's what the whole list was about.
Saying that white fans might potentially be scared away by a ton of black fans is questionable as well.
I don't think that he had ill intentions in his email but I do think that there's a lot of racial stereotyping going on.
And many of our black fans don’t have the spendable income which explains why our f&b and merchandise sales are so low
He's assuming that black people going to the games have less money to spend than white people. That shouldn't seem not questionable to you.
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just gotta say that danny ferry is in deep shit, i'm sure there are a lot of two faced athletes (aaron hernandez), etc, but his wording seemed to have been the poorest it could've been, and the fact that he brought race into it is like, the clearest indication of racism as there is in today's society. If the tape comes out, and I'm hoping it does, the NBA's gonna have a sterling thing all over again.
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On September 09 2014 16:27 DystopiaX wrote:It is questionable to suggest that hip-hop is targeted only at black fans though, because while the music is predominantly made by black people I know quite a few white people, even older white people (looked back at the email and it said 35-55) that like hip-hop. He didn't explicitly say that the father-son thing was about black people but come on: Show nested quote +— 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.
Every other statement in his list is about how there are too many black people/they are catering too much towards black people. It's unlikely that the father-son comment is the only thing on his list not about black people when that's what the whole list was about. Saying that white fans might potentially be scared away by a ton of black fans is questionable as well. I don't think that he had ill intentions in his email but I do think that there's a lot of racial stereotyping going on. Show nested quote +And many of our black fans don’t have the spendable income which explains why our f&b and merchandise sales are so low He's assuming that black people going to the games have less money to spend than white people. That shouldn't seem not questionable to you.
Well doesnt white people on average have 20 times more wealth than black people in the us?
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United States22883 Posts
On September 09 2014 15:57 seiferoth10 wrote:
He wasn't attributing father-son fans to black people, he was merely making an observation of his clientele.
This isn't something stadiums really have data on given their current collection methods. He was making an extremely subjective "eye test."
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Well he likely is just making a statistical analysis based off what he reads. Most statistics aren't exactly in the favour of black people.
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Team USA can't shoot. 10/33 right now against Slovenia, only leading because of 15 offensive rebounds. Shot selection isn't even THAT bad, just plenty of missed layups.
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On September 10 2014 04:31 andrewlt wrote:
Team USA can't shoot. 10/33 right now against Slovenia, only leading because of 15 offensive rebounds. Shot selection isn't even THAT bad, just plenty of missed layups.
the pace of the team always seems to pick up the slack in 2nd half... what the hell @ box score lol
its exciting to actually watch this team because of how young and athletic they are
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Adios Slovenia, it was nice seeinya.
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On September 09 2014 16:27 DystopiaX wrote:It is questionable to suggest that hip-hop is targeted only at black fans though, because while the music is predominantly made by black people I know quite a few white people, even older white people (looked back at the email and it said 35-55) that like hip-hop. He didn't explicitly say that the father-son thing was about black people but come on: Show nested quote +— 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.
Every other statement in his list is about how there are too many black people/they are catering too much towards black people. It's unlikely that the father-son comment is the only thing on his list not about black people when that's what the whole list was about. Saying that white fans might potentially be scared away by a ton of black fans is questionable as well. I don't think that he had ill intentions in his email but I do think that there's a lot of racial stereotyping going on. Show nested quote +And many of our black fans don’t have the spendable income which explains why our f&b and merchandise sales are so low He's assuming that black people going to the games have less money to spend than white people. That shouldn't seem not questionable to you.
i wonder if he just did a control f and replace all "black" to "poor" it would have been better..
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US will always just end up winning the longer the game goes on... unless they're vs Spain, who has something of a chance
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I think Spain doesn't have much of a chance either but we'll see. USA has at least the top 6 players in the tournament.
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United States3678 Posts
Spain needed Pau to carry like he did when they almost beat LBJ & squad during that Olympics run when he was beasting.
I heard/read it was a good game though. France has even less of a chance vs the US though. Spain at least had the skilled big guys to challenge the US defensively.
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Mark my word, Rudy Gobert is the next big thing aka the second coming of Tyson Chandler aka a 7 foot Ben Wallace
And Pau carried like a beast, rest of spain couldn't keep up with French Denfence
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EPT
