Mayor Kasim Reed held a press conference this afternoon and said there were six prospective buyers for the Atlanta Hawks in the wake of the racist email controversy. Reed declined to name the six, but said the NBA has hired an investment firm to vet the prospective buyers.
Reed said the city had a “vital interest” in the future of the Hawks as owners of Philips Arena and wants to make sure the new owners will keep the Hawks in Atlanta.
Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson said he will sell his controlling interest in the NBA team after admitting to sending the emails. In a statement, Levenson admitted to making racist remarks when contemplating how to bring a more diverse crowd to the basketball games. Levenson wrote: “In trying to address those issues, I wrote an e-mail two years ago that was inappropriate and offensive. I trivialized our fans by making clichéd assumptions about their interests (i.e. hip hop vs. country, white vs. black cheerleaders, etc.) and by stereotyping their perceptions of one another (i.e. that white fans might be afraid of our black fans). By focusing on race, I also sent the unintentional and hurtful message that our white fans are more valuable than our black fans.”
Former Hawks star Dominique Wilkins was at Reed’s press conference, but didn’t say if he was one of the six potential buyers.
