The Hawks play their home-opener on Saturday, and CEO Steven Koonin said a pregame concert featuring rapper T.I., along with other improvements to the team's gameday experience, will result in an audience that is "much younger, much louder and different than what you've seen before" at a Hawks game, according to Steve Hummer of the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION. Koonin added, "It's not a corporate crowd." Saturday's game against the Pacers marks the team's "first real game" since Managing Partner Bruce Levenson's racially charged comments in a September e-mail. The game will be played in front of a sell-out crowd, which "will be treated to a futuristic system projecting 3-D images upon a new-look court, a bigger sound all around." Koonin said of the Hawks' fan base, "The elusive mini-vans filled with families coming down to the game -- I don’t believe that’s ever going to be our audience. It hasn’t been for 40 years. The NBA (fan base) is the youngest of all sports. The average age for the NBA is 20 years younger than baseball. So, why am I going to target somebody 50 years old, in the suburbs, when the viewership -- which I can get with precision -- says who we need to be targeting? And we’re targeting African Americans and Millennials, 21 to 35 year olds." Koonin added, "I want young urban professionals in Atlanta saying, 'We got to go to the Hawks game, then we can go out to the clubs.' I want it to be the epicenter of social life in Atlanta -- that's what it was in the '80s." Hummer notes Koonin did not attend the team's season opener in Toronto because he was "in Atlanta interviewing candidates for a newly created position, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer" (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 10/31).
DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL: In Atlanta, Phil Hudson reported the Hawks have reached a long-term TV rights deal with SportSouth "for an undisclosed sum." The Fox-owned RSN "will remain the exclusive regional television partner" of the team and "will produce all locally available regular season games." The net also "will televise three preseason games, select Hawks playoff games and produce 10 hours of Hawks-themed original programming each season." During the '14-15 season, 75 regular-season Hawks games "will be on SportSouth" (BIZJOURNALS.com, 10/30).
