Atlanta Hawks’ Cancelled “Magic City” Night

I use a feed reader to curate my online reading and viewing sources. For this reason, I largely avoid the slop and spam which floods the internet’s myriad algorithmic feeds. But, now and then, I still come across an something which causes me to do a double-take: “That cannot possibly be real.” One such case occurred on March 3, 2026, when I came across a report by Dylan Gwinn for Breitbart titled Hawks Plan Promotional Night Dedicated to Famed Atlanta Strip Club, with “Hawks” referring to the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, the franchise with the second-longest extant championship drought behind the Sacramento Kings.

(Before continuing and to spoil the ending, the Hawks’ Magic City night was ultimately nixed by the NBA (we will get to that at the end of the article). I had thought about publishing an article as soon as I read the letter of opposition (which we will also discuss), but I decided to hold off based on my prediction that the strip club promotion would ultimately not transpire.)

I did not do a double-take because I think the NBA as an organization has impeccable morals. I first learned about what a strip club was thanks to various strip club-related incidents involving NBA players in the late 1990s and early 2000s, most prominently involving numerous New York Knicks players and a different Atlanta strip club (the “Gold Club”) in 1998. I could go through several non-strip club incidents related to NBA policies, many of which involve virtue signaling about domestic politics while partnering with the Chinese Communist Party, but let us not distract ourselves. Returning to the Breitbart report and the issue at hand:

‘This collaboration and theme night is very meaningful to me after all the work that we did to put together ‘Magic City: An American Fantasy,” Hawks principal owner, filmmaker, and actor Jami Gertz said. ‘The iconic Atlanta institution has made such an incredible impact on our city and its unique culture.’

Translation: The Hawks planned a strip club appreciation night because the principal owner had partnered with the strip club to make a movie about it.

Rather than relying solely on second-hand accounts, I found the original Atlanta Hawks press-release about the promotion. I list the key points from the hawk’s beak below:

• The promotion was set to take place on March 16, 2026.
• “[T]he Hawks worked with Magic City to bring the ‘best of’ the phenomena for fans in attendance…”
• “The Hawks … have tapped legendary rapper and Atlanta’s own T.I. to perform some of his well-known tracks at halftime presented by Jack Daniels.”
• “Prior to the game, the Hawks’ Principal Owner, filmmaker, and actor Jami Gertz will present a special introduction of the Hawks AF Podcast. Last year, Magic City celebrated 40 years with a five-part STARZ docuseries, ‘Magic City: An American Fantasy’ produced by Gertz alongside GRAMMY® Award-winning music mogul and Atlanta native Jermaine Dupri. The series explores the history, cultural impact, and influence of the Atlanta landmark and features interviews with Big Boi, Killer Mike, T.I. and others and reveals its pivotal role in hip-hop and Black culture. “
• “Magic City Kitchen will serve two versions of their ‘world famous’ lemon pepper wings: Louwill Lemon Pepper BBQ and traditional Lemon Pepper.”
• “As part of this collaboration, the Hawks Shop has teamed up with Magic City to release a limited-edition Peachtree-themed hoodie. Across the front in bold text are the words ‘MAGIC CITY’ in peach and on the sleeves are the Hawks official logo and the Peach logo.”
• “We doin’ this one for the city… Magic City.” -T.I.

Notably, nothing in the press release notes that Magic City is a strip club. While I do not doubt that it may have tasty chicken wings, a strip club is a strip club. Back in 2024, I wrote an article questioning whether former Twitter could truly re-brand to X. In that article, I used an example that should be on-point here: Playboy. Some years ago, Playboy made news when it dropped nudity. Surely it would work. “I read Playboy for the articles” was practically a meme. Alas, it did not. Is Playboy even a thing anymore?

But lest anyone doubt that Magic City is, in fact, a strip club, I ran a search on DuckDuckGo and the official website (not linked here since this is a family website) comes up as “Magic City- Premier Atlanta Strip Club.”

There are a few other fun points in the official press release. There is the rapper T.I. I will confess that I did not know who T.I. was. I still do not know who he is. Thus, I cannot opine on his artistic output. But I will note that the T.I. performance being sponsored by Jack Daniels is a nice touch, although alcohol ads have been a part of sports for some time. While the Hawks did not acknowledge that Magic City is a strip club (wink-wink, nod-nod), the team did emphasize that the owner’s documentary about it, which the team seems to have been advertising, “reveals [Magic City’s] pivotal role in hip-hop and Black culture.” While I am no conspiracy theorist, I can see that the Hawks were not unaware of the possibility that they could have a “problem” and slipped a preemptive two-part “culture” defense into the press release.

I was also struck by the team selling strip club merchandise with the Hawks logo. Back in the mid-90s, the New Jersey Nets (now the Brooklyn Nets) sought to re-brand as the New Jersey Swamp Dragons (see article part 1, part 2, and my Newsletter Leaf Journal take). This should have happened. They prepared an awesome logo (infinitely better than the sterile Brooklyn Nets logo we have today). But the NBA of the 90s was skeptical of the Swamp Dragons branding. If only someone had told the late commissioner David Stern that in three decades, an NBA franchise would be pushing for merchandise bringing its logo together with a literal strip club.

Not everyone was on board with the plan. Luke Kornet, a backup center for the San Antonio Spurs and former member of the 2023-24 NBA Champion Boston Celtics objected in a March 2, 2026 open letter titled Concerning the Atlanta Hawks. I encourage everyone to read Mr. Kornet’s letter, which is excellent in all respects. Below, I share some of the highlights.

• “In its press release the Hawks failed to acknowledge that this place is, as the business itself boasts, ‘Atlanta’s premier strip club.’ Given this fact, I would like to respectfully ask that the Atlanta Hawks cancel this promotional night with Magic City.”
• “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.”
• “I and others throughout the league were surprised by and object to the Hawks’ decision. We desire to provide an environment where fans of all ages can safely come and enjoy the game of basketball and where we can celebrate the history and culture of communities in good conscience. The celebration of a strip club is not conduct aligned with that vision.”

Mr. Kornet was short and to the point. He correctly highlighted that the Hawks had pole-danced around the fact that Magic City is a strip club. I would add that regardless of any other virtues the Hawks try to assign to it, a strip club is a strip club. Mr. Kornet noted correctly that the NBA as a league should not officially promote strip clubs so as to avoid “being complicit in the potential objectification and mistreatment of women…” Strip clubs do, at a minimum, objectify women. I also noted positively the fact that Mr. Kornet did not trip over himself to separate his critique from prostitution or “sex work” generally. In an unquoted passage from the article, he explicitly set that issue aside while noting that many women in the “this space” are treated poorly, and the NBA should simply not make strip clubs a part of official promotions. Finally, Mr. Kornet hit on a point that one would hope even the many strip club customers in the NBA could agree with. NBA games should be family-friendly. The halftime show should not be something that would cause parents to not want to bring their children to a game. Strip club enjoyers have to show proof of age to get into a strip club (at least I hope). There is no need to promote these venues to families and children.

(Digression: The NBA and other sports leagues promote other things that are not family-friendly, most prominently gambling these days. That is to say the Hawk’s ill-fated strip club night is not the only problem in the NBA, but one need not list every problem to seek to preempt one.)

Luke Kornet’s letter was endorsed by Golden State Warriors center Al Horford, who was Mr. Kornet’s teammate on the 2023-24 champion Celtics and who spent his first nine NBA seasons with the Hawks from 2007-08 through 2015-16. But one reason I respected Mr. Kornet was because I expected that he would hear some disagreement – perhaps even from some strip-club enjoyers in the NBA – for his reasoned take. To ensure that all sides are represented, I present some eloquent dissenting options on the issue of whether NBA teams should be in the business of promoting strip clubs.

First, we have Killer Mike, who is apparently a rapper:

‘Al Horford, we never f—ed with you anyway,’ Mike said. ‘We don’t f— with Luke (Kornet). Luke should stay in San Antonio and concern himself with San Antonio business,’ Killer Mike told, according to TMZ Sports.

Thank you for the insight, Mr. Killer Mike. I will note that the same article which covers the learned musings of Mr. Killer Mike includes a more reasonable take from Mr. Jayy Wick, who is apparently also an Atlanta-based rapper. Mr. Jayy Wick defended Magic City and other strip clubs as “part of the culture of Atlanta,” but he nevertheless took the position that he Hawks should not market nightlife to children. I would hope that most strip club patrons could agree with that position.

Next we have Mr. Horford’s teammate, Draymond Green, a four-time champion and one of the great defensive players of the modern era. Mr. Green may well have been a five-time champion had he not rendered himself unavailable for game five of the 2016 NBA Finals, which his Warriors lost before losing the series in seven games, by whacking LeBron James in the crotch in game four. But I digress. Mr. Green respectfully disagreed with Mr. Kornet’s position:

I don’t know if you’ve ever been, but if you see it in action, it’s actually a form of art, that some choose to indulge in and some choose not to indulge in…[Cardi B is] selling out stadiums and her background would be that. I don’t think Cardi B has esteem issues. So, I think that’s actually a negative vantage point on these women that are in this line of work; that because they choose this line of work that they have esteem issues.

While I would love to engage with Mr. Green’s position, that would require me to diagram it. Because I do not have all day, I am going to move on to former Atlanta Hawks point guard and one-time All Star Jeff Teague, who also disagreed with Mr. Kornet and his own former teammate, Mr. Horford:

It’s a culture thing. It’s bigger than women … It’s a staple in the city. It’s grown way past the dancers and all that s—t. It’s the food, the environment, people go there to make deals.

Mr. Teague’s position is easier to follow than Mr. Green’s, and by extension easier to argue against. Messrs. Kornet and Horford did not take a position on whether the strip club is a “culture thing,” a “staple in the city,” a place with good food, or a place where people “make deals.” They argued that the Atlanta Hawks should not promote strip clubs during NBA games. Neither Mr. Kornet nor Mr. Horford called for Magic City to be shut down or for Mr. Teague to not visit the club for dinner and deal-making. Here again I would cite to Mr. Jayy Wick, who appears to be (as presented in the one article I read, at least) in the pro-Magic City camp but against promoting it in the middle of an NBA game.

Fortunately, reason prevailed, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver intervened to cancel the Hawks’ Magic City night. The Commissioner explained to ESPN:

‘When we became aware of the Atlanta Hawks’ scheduled promotion, we reached out to Hawks leadership to better understand their plans and rationale,’ NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. ‘While we appreciate the team’s 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 would like to believe that the NBA would have eventually intervened even without Mr. Kornet’s well-reasoned letter, but credit must go to Mr. Kornet for stepping into the arena.