Hawks’ promotion with a strip club just makes sense if you know Atlanta

ATLANTA — When the Atlanta Hawks announced a promotional night in conjunction with an adult establishment, it initially didn’t cause much of a stir.

And as someone who has lived here for 13 years, I laughed and moved on with my day. Magic City Night for a game against the Orlando Magic? Makes all the sense in the world. Honestly, surprised they hadn’t been doing it annually. After all, they’re just promoting lemon pepper wings, right? (Wink-wink.)

Advertisement

It’s one of those things where, if you’re from Atlanta, you get the joke. I would guess that while the vast majority of locals have never been to Magic City (me included), it would be rare to live in Atlanta without understanding its significance as a landmark (for better or worse). It’s more than just the infamous strip club every city’s residents can name, it’s the kind of place that has been lionized (again, for better or worse) in pop culture and celebrated (sometimes earnestly) for the quality of their chicken wings thanks in large part to former Hawk Lou Williams.

It’s distinctly Atlanta. And most people like the distinct things about their city, even if outsiders don’t get it. In other words, it’s a promotion meant exclusively for Hawks fans. An inside joke. If you know, you know.

Then social media got ahold of it. And the discourse on all sides went straight into the sewer.

When the Hawks decided to green light this project, they almost certainly did not expect that a blog post from a Western Conference center would spark a huge backlash, a backlash to the backlash, all kinds of awkward conversations about what constitutes culture in a place like Atlanta and bunch of annoying whataboutism over where the NBA draws the line.

Luke Kornet probably didn’t realize what he stepped into, either, when he asked the Hawks to cancel the promotion because it would “reflect poorly on us as an NBA community, specifically in being complicit in the potential objectification and mistreatment of women in our society.”

Advertisement

But now that the horse is way out of the barn, at least give Kornet credit for this: He made me, and probably…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/hawks-promotion-with-a-strip-club-just-makes-sense-if-you-know-atlanta-230236827.html

Author : Dan Wolken

Publish date : 2026-03-04 23:02:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.