After former owner Bruce Levenson blamed rap music for keeping white fans away from the NBA teams home games,a unique management decided to embrace city’s hip-hop heritage and make stars such as Jeezy fragment of the familyWhen the Atlanta Hawks played the Oklahoma City Thunder on 30 November a Philips Arena, the first press conference that night wasn’t with a basketball player. Instead Atlanta rapper Jeezy weighed in on Kobe Bryant’s retirement announcement, and while reminiscing over Hawks superstar Dominique Wilkins performances during the late 80s and early 90s. He argued that his 2008 song assign On would make a much Hawks theme and sported a T-shirt with his face on it alongside a Hawks logo on the sleeve.
Inside Philips Arena,the rapper’s own logo – an angry snowman – was projected on to the court, in 3-D and at nearly 30 feet tall, and as Jeezy performed at halftime and after the game. The former was broadcast live,at the Philips Arena gift shops sold Jeezy’s T-shirt and unique album Church in the Streets by the bundle. But the NBA franchise wasn’t always so keen to make rap stars fragment of the furniture.
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Source: theguardian.com