After near sale, Hawks owners ready for new season

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After near sale, Hawks owners ready for new season
December 26, 2011
By Tim Tucker
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

What might have been the first season of the Alex Meruelo era instead will be the eighth season of the Atlanta Spirit regime.


The Hawks will open their lockout-delayed season on Tuesday after a turbulent off-season in which the Spirit ownership group agreed to sell the team to Meruelo, a Los Angeles businessman, and then had the deal fall apart.

That leaves the would-be sellers back in the owners' seats.

"I'm very pleased with where things ended up," Michael Gearon Jr., a member of the ownership group, said in a recent interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "We are excited about the start of the season."

Gearon attributed the attempt to sell the Hawks to the "draining" experiences of a five-year legal battle with former part-owner Steve Belkin and this year's sale and relocation of the Thrashers, the hockey team that was purchased along with the Hawks in 2004.

But when the Meruelo deal collapsed in the NBA approval process last month, the ownership group -– led by Bruce Levenson, a Maryland businessman who serves as the Hawks' NBA governor, and Gearon, a lifelong Atlantan –- announced it was removing the for-sale sign from the basketball franchise.

"At the beginning of the summer . . . I was just drained and exhausted," Gearon said. "I was emotionally spent. I thought maybe a new face [as owner] might make a difference. By being able to step back over the summer, [I was able to] get recharged, get energized again."

Gearon said the owners no longer have investment bankers seeking a buyer for the Hawks. "We just told them, ‘Stop everything," he said.

"If somebody comes and offers you something, you never know, but [selling] is not what my goal is, no," he added.

Gearon said owning one team will be more manageable than owning two, and that settling the legal disputes with Belkin last year and law firm King & Spalding this fall will help emotionally. And he is guardedly hopeful that the NBA's new collective bargaining agreement and revenue-sharing arrangement will prove advantageous to the Hawks, who say they have lost money for years.

"It is too early to determine what impact the new CBA will have on us," Gearon said. "From the Hawk perspective, the final CBA isn't what we expected. However, in the long term, we hope it meets the goals outlined by the commissioner where all teams can compete equally without one having an unfair advantage."

The Hawks are expected to receive revenue-sharing funds under the new deal –- they did not previously –- but how much is unclear.

As a new season dawns, Gearon vigorously defends the ownership group's track record, both in terms of its on-court results and financial commitment. He notes that the Hawks reached the second round of the playoffs in each of the past three seasons and had the eighth highest payroll in the 30-team league last season.

"You measure a team on its results; how are we doing vs. the league?" Gearon said. "There are three teams the last three years that have advanced past the first round of the playoffs: the Lakers -- everybody loves the Lakers –- and the Celtics and the Atlanta Hawks. It's just those three.

"What's frustrating . . . is how we've been viewed regardless of the success we've had. I look at things where people say, ‘Well, the Hawks' owners are cheap.' That's something I hear constantly, whether it's written or radio guys. Yet, when you look at the facts . . . this year we will probably have one of the top five payrolls in the NBA. It will be right around $70 million."

That is about the same as last season, well above the NBA salary cap of $58 million and slightly below the threshold of about $70.5 million that triggers the NBA's luxury tax, which all but a few teams avoid paying.

"I will tell you that if we are at the trade deadline and we think we are missing that piece that we think will take us over the top, we [would pay the tax]," Gearon said.

After stipulating that he is an avid supporter of the Falcons and Braves, Gearon compared those teams' payrolls and recent postseason records to the Hawks'. He noted that the Hawks' payroll last season ranked higher among NBA teams than the Braves' or Falcons' payrolls ranked in their sports and pointed out that the Hawks have won three playoff series since the Falcons last won a playoff game (2004) or the Braves last won a playoff series (2001).

"I hope [the Falcons] win the Super Bowl because I'm an Atlantan and a huge fan of every team here," Gearon said. "[But] we are, over the last six-seven years, by our record, the most successful team in Atlanta."

The ownership group is known more for its bitter battle with Belkin and its failure to keep the Thrashers in Atlanta.

Gearon said Hawks revenue has been growing annually in recent years, although not fast enough. The key, he said, is attracting more casual fans to Philips Arena.

"Part of it is changing the perception of us," he said, referring to the owners. "How do you grow [revenue]? By getting the fair-weather fan [to] realize, one, we care; two, we are willing to spend money; and, three, look at our success."

The owners will try to rebrand themselves in part by abandoning the Atlanta Spirit name, which was adopted when the group came together to buy the Hawks, Thrashers and arena rights.

"I've never liked that name," Gearon said.