Featured Image Credit: Ronald Cortes/Getty Images
Topics: Georgia, NBA, Basketball
William Morgan
Plans to host the Atlanta Hawks at one of the city's 'premier strip clubs' have divided basketball fans after a rival player argued the event would make the NBA 'complicit' in the 'objectification and mistreatment of women in our society.'
Magic City is probably the most well-known strip club in the whole of Georgia, with the good and bad of Atlanta's rap scene, as well as several athletes, spotted frequenting the adult entertainment venue in its 40-year history.
But San Antonio Spurs center Luke Kornet has blasted the Hawks for recently announcing a special promo event at Magic City, which the NBA team said would 'celebrate the city’s iconic cultural institution,' March 16, ahead of a game against Orlando Magic.
While the strip club has hosted huge names like Drake, Lil Yachty, Migos, and even Michael Jordan, Kornet shared his anger that associating with Magic City 'would reflect poorly on us as an NBA community', arguing that such venues contribute to the objectification and mistreatment of women.
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The Hawks' upcoming 'Magic City Monday' event will not just be a jaunt down to a strip club, but an event that celebrates the institution that was featured in a Starz docuseries last year, where big names from Georgia's music scene like Killer Mike and TI shared its cultural impact.
Instead of having their players and staff at Magic City itself, the Hawks will be bringing a slice of the strip club to the city's State Farm Arena, with a live recording of the Hawks AF Podcast discussing the venue's impact on Atlanta's cultural scene.
TI has even been booked by the team to perform at the event's Jack Daniels-funded halftime show. So it will be more like a discussion about Magic Mike, than a clothes-ripping strip show.
But this collaboration between a major basketball team and a strip club has upset Catholic player Kornet, who wrote a lengthy blog post about how it was completely inappropriate for the sport, per People reports.
He said: "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"
Kornet added: "The celebration of a strip club is not conduct aligned with that vision."
But NBA fans were divided on whether it was appropriate for the Hawks to host an event at a strip club, with one Reddit user pointing out that the organization was no stranger to encouraging vices, saying that 'It should fit right in with all of the alcohol, pill and gambling ads.'
Others, however, thought it was a bizarre choice for
This is an absolutely insane promo to have, I’m not usually a pearl clutcher but that’s a lot lol
Another added: "Celebrating a freaking strip club at a 6pm basketball game seems insane and yet this is actually happening."
But then again, if you can host a UFC tournament on the South Lawn of the White House, as will happen in June, it might be fair to say that the bar in sports has been forever lowered.