Posted on 09/08/2014 8:57:25 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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
He may not be a racist in his heart, but legally he walked into big time. The theme of his piece, which is that “We need to accommodate and hire African Americans less because that makes more profitable white customers uncomfortable” was literally the only argument that was made against the proposed, and eventual, civil rights laws applicable to the private sector in the 1950s and 1960s. No company was saying “we don’t want African Americans at the front of our buses or at our soda counters because we don’t like African Americans.”
This guy sounds like a very prudent fellow. I won’t go to any event where the crowd is 70% black. Considering the incidence of gang violence and criminality in the black community, plus the current anti-white climate, there’s not a chance that I would expose my family to this kind of event. I’ll stick to Hockey.”””
What were the demographics that led to the permanent closure of Hollywood Park horse racing track after over 70 years of operations????
It wasn’t because of a sudden influx of Amish.
I lived in So Cal until May of 1993. I already would NOT go to Hollywood Park because of the danger-—even in daylight hours.
So much for Eric Holder’s wish for “frank conversations about the racial matters.” Levenson is just the latest to be shocked for grabbing that live wire.
Mike & Mike’s (detestable) Greenie went so far as to call Levenson’s email to be far worse than anything Sterling ever said. Seems obvious the fix is in and the drums will beat until the sale is complete.
It was not racist, if anything it was derogatory to “southen whites” although even that was more a summation of most groups not liking to be felt as a minority group.
Exactly. Facts or facts except to liberals who live striving for nirvana or utopia or something outside of everyone’s reach without medication. They are the closet racists that see racism in every thing. I am ready for the liberals to get a good, permanent but(t) kicking.
So he hired a marketing firm that gave him some demographic numbers. Don’t the liberal media and Democrat politicians do the same thing?
A little context might help. Who is Levenson?
I heard Greenie wringing his hands of this story this morning. He's really jumped (been pushed?) aboard the PC bandwagon lately, almost to the point of me turning the show off. He rushes to immediate judgements on certain topics, favoring people like Michael Sam, and making excuses when he has to include the word "Redskins," when describing the football team from Washington.
Observations aren’t “racist”. Data isn’t “racist” either.
This is what it’s come to for the white man. This is white “guilt” at it’s finest.
RE: Who is Levenson?
The owner of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks who “outed” himself for being “racist” ( note the quotes ) because of the above e-mail he sent over 2 years ago.
Thanks.
It was not derogatory to Southern whites. He merely stated the facts. If you go into mostly black areas in Atlanta you are constantly accosted for handouts, or worse. The NWAs have no manners and no respect for anyone, not even their own. The saddest thing is that there are many, many gentle, hardworking blacks trying their hardest to do well for their families, and they have to suffer because the whites flee. This man needs to raise the bull$h!t flad and refuse to play along. I wonder what else they have on him?
My point: The 50's and 60's and what went on with race in America does not seem to be a point of reference for most lawyers today.
Today's opinions have more to do with What's "politically correct" as opposed to what is the law.
I firmly believe when someone IMPLICATES himself, as Levenson did, there has to be a reason. Usually we hear the facade reason. That's the one that appeases the public and makes you look as good as possible depending on circumstances, but normally has nothing to do with the REAL reason.
In this case I'm sticking with what "Enterprise" stated. Translation: I have a losing team and I need 2 billion dollars. It sounds as if Levenson is willing to crucify HIMSELF two years after the fact because there might just be an extra buck in it. Don't be naive. It happens often and most people are too busy to even care or have a clue.
RE: I have a losing team and I need 2 billion dollars
This is a losing bet for him. I don’t think there is any more multi-billionaires who will part their money like Steve Ballmer will.
Besides Ballmer got himself a WINNING TEAM.
Who’s going to part with billions to buy himself a so-so team?
Agreed. The man was stating facts, but the race baiters don’t care about facts.
Could be. From what I have seen over the years, wealthy liberals are willing to do far worse, such as funding abortions for the poor, beating down wages through excessive immigration, and excusing all manner of predatory and destructive public policies.
There was young polish bartender bought a bar in the black community that was making money hand over fist. He was after the American dream and dreamed of wealth and success.
Six months later he couldn’t give away a beer. So he looked around and saw all his waitresses were polish... the ‘music’ was by a “Guy Lombardo” type band and the dances were polka...
He thought and thought and decided if he wanted to make money as a black bar he would have to appeal to black citizens. At that point he realized he was a dumb racist and sold the bar...
The reality of life is that when SOMEONE with BIG MONEY buys a sports franchise they literally believe THEIR MONEY and THEIR OWNERSHIP is going to turn that franchise into a WINNER.
A good example would be Mark Cuban who bought the Dallas Mavericks back when. It took awhile but he DID eventually WIN an NBA Championship and is looking for more.
TRUTH: It's the new hate speech.
REWRITE REQUEST:
I’d love to see this email be re-written by swapping the races, showing an owner concerned about low minority participation rates. I think it would be a stark portrayal of how non-racist this really is.
It would be interesting for the Black community to comment that they have no problem with the email and if he wants to sell the team, just pay the taxes like anybody else and forget the “forced sale” nonsense.
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