{"id":651304,"date":"2026-03-10T18:08:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T18:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/651304\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T18:08:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T18:08:18","slug":"nba-cancels-atlanta-hawks-event-with-magic-city-as-leagues-push-to-attract-female-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/651304\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA cancels Atlanta Hawks event with Magic City as leagues push to attract female fans"},"content":{"rendered":"

For months\u2014years, even\u2014we\u2019ve been hearing about professional sports\u2019 efforts to cultivate the female fan<\/a>. There are merch collaborations with Abercrombie<\/a>, new fashion brands like Off Season<\/a>, efforts to make NFL game day more appealing for the \u201cmillennial mom,\u201d and even Hallmark movies<\/a>. Most of that is happening in the NFL, but still\u2014the value of the female fan has started to catch on in other sports too. <\/p>\n

Or has it? Case in point: An NBA team just tried to host an event with a strip club<\/a>. A few weeks ago, the Atlanta Hawks announced plans for a \u201ctheme night\u201d celebrating Magic City, a famed strip club in Atlanta. The night was planned for when the Hawks were playing the Orlando Magic. The Hawks are owned by Tony Ressler and Jami Gertz; Gertz, an actress and filmmaker, was an executive producer of the five-part Starz docuseries Magic City: An American Fantasy. \u201cThe iconic Atlanta institution has made such an incredible impact on our city and its unique culture,\u201d she said in a statement<\/a> when the theme night was announced.<\/p>\n

But for those who haven\u2019t seen the documentary and aren\u2019t familiar with Atlanta culture, the plan did not land well. San Antonio Spurs player Luke Kornet was among the first to speak out. \u201cThe NBA should desire to protect and esteem women, many of whom work diligently every day to make this the best basketball league in the world,\u201d he wrote in a Medium post<\/a>. \u201cWe should promote an atmosphere that is protective and respectful of the daughters, wives, sisters, mothers, and partners that we know and love. Allowing this night to go forward without protest would reflect poorly on us as an NBA community, specifically in being complicit in the potential objectification and mistreatment of women in our society.\u201d <\/p>\n

And so the league got involved. \u201cWhen we became aware of the Atlanta Hawks\u2019 scheduled promotion, we reached out to Hawks leadership to better understand their plans and rationale,\u201d NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cWhile we appreciate the team\u2019s perspective and their desire to move forward, we have heard significant concerns from a broad array of league stakeholders, including fans, partners and employees. I believe canceling this promotion is the right decision for the broader NBA community.\u201d The Hawks said in a statement that they were \u201cvery disappointed\u201d but \u201cfully [understood]\u201d the decision. <\/p>\n

The reaction has been mixed. Some fans agreed with Kornet that the promotion was disrespectful; others thought the reaction was overblown (the promotion involved selling lemon pepper wings and a hoodie, not actual stripping). Some called out the NBA for stepping in here, but still promoting other arguably more harmful partnership deals, like sports betting. <\/p>\n

Within Atlanta, Magic City is well known, but it was easy for this promotion to reflect badly on the broader league. The team should celebrate its city, absolutely\u2014but maybe not with a strip club.<\/p>\n

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com<\/a><\/p>\n

The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune\u2019s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Subscribe here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES<\/p>\n

Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab scores an Nvidia investment.\u00a0After a period of tumult<\/a> for the startup, it’s signed a multiyear partnership with Nvidia<\/a> to deploy at least one gigawatt of chops to train and serve its frontier AI models. The two companies will collaborate to design AI training and serving systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Five players defected from Iran’s women’s soccer team. The operation took place after Iran\u2019s final match of the Asian Women\u2019s Cup against the Philippines in Australia. Australian government representatives informed players of their options earlier in the week. The women had been called “wartime traitors” on Iran state TV and seemingly threatened with repercussions on their return to the country after failing to sing the national anthem in their opening Asian Cup match,\u00a0The Athletic\u00a0reports<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Alexander brothers are found guilty.\u00a0Oren, Alon, and Tal Alexander\u2014known before this as successful luxury real estate brokers\u2014were convicted<\/a> of sex trafficking after a five-week trial in Manhattan. Eleven women testified that they were sexually assaulted by one or more of the brothers. Their lawyers say they plan to appeal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kalshi’s Luana Lopes Lara covers\u00a0Inc.’s female founders issue.\u00a0Lopes Lara was recently crowned<\/a> the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire after building the prediction market. I met with her recently at Kalshi’s NYC offices, so stay tuned for more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A European AI startup closed a record deal\u2014and brought on Sheryl Sandberg.\u00a0The former Meta exec joined the board<\/a> of Nscale, which just raised $2 billion, a record deal of its kind for Europe. Sandberg’s former Facebook colleague Nick Clegg, also ex-U.K. deputy prime minister, is joining the board alongside her. Nscale is an AI cloud provider backed by Nvidia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ON MY RADAR<\/p>\n

The surprising way breast cancer screenings could reveal heart disease\u00a0Washington Post<\/a><\/p>\n

Life after acquisition with Dr. Barbara Sturm\u00a0Vogue Business<\/a><\/p>\n

Nina Park, the woman on many celebrities’ lips\u00a0NYT<\/a><\/p>\n

PARTING WORDS<\/p>\n

“It has been such a gift and got me through so many things. I\u2019m just better busy.”<\/p>\n

\u2014 Michelle Pfieffer on her return to acting. She’s in two TV series this spring<\/a>, her first major TV roles since the 1970s.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For months\u2014years, even\u2014we\u2019ve been hearing about professional sports\u2019 efforts to cultivate the female fan. There are merch collaborations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3776],"tags":[676,208,3874,7,8437,677,19722,19723,6,84195,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-651304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-hawks","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-hawks","10":"tag-atlantahawks","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-career","13":"tag-hawks","14":"tag-most-powerful-women","15":"tag-mpw-daily","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-no-copyright","18":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116206220489883390","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}