After about two weeks of fan takes and planetwide publicity, the NBA pulled the plug on the Atlanta Hawks’ Magic City Night scheduled for March 16.

From the minute the Hawks announced a promotion with a strip club (and its chicken wings and music) as the headliner, people around the league, as well as PR specialists, asked, “Whaaaat?”

The Hawks announced in late February they would celebrate Atlanta’s famed Magic City during a game. No, naked dancers weren’t part of planned activities, but it was always going to be hard to separate the adult entertainment part from its promoted cultural roots and food. Magic City has been a place where rappers launched careers and lemon-pepper chicken wings became as popular as The Varsity’s burgers. (OK, not that popular.)

Having lived in Atlanta, I giggled knowing its history, then wasn’t sure if it was real. Was this just a fan-grab for 15 minutes of fame? What next, a Mons Venus monument near the neighboring Orlando Magic? (IYKYK.)

Where does it end?

It so happens at the NBA commissioner’s desk. Two weeks after the Hawks’ promotion was announced and the event grabbed a few million dollars’ worth of publicity, Adam Silver put the kibosh on the predictably controversial event.

“When we became aware of the Atlanta Hawks’ scheduled promotion, we reached out to the Hawks leadership to better understand their plans and rationale,” Silver said in a statement. (See Silver’s full statement below.)

You can look at the panned promotion in PR terms in two ways:

1)    Do something SO different that people won’t forget you. ✅Mission accomplished.

2)    Butttttt … check messaging priorities when you promote an event that’s tied to a strip club — unless you’re in the adult entertainment business. For an NBA game, though? Nah.

The Hawks were disappointed the event was canceled, but did they really expect the NBA to stay silent about it? No matter how it was positioned, Magic City Night wasn’t going to happen without controversy. 

Not all publicity is good publicity, but the Hawks and Magic City got a boatload.

In the end, Magic City and the Atlanta Hawks got a truckload of exposure. Sweatshirts created for the night will likely sell in the club or on an off-the-path website in a heartbeat (probably quadrupling their value); wings of some sort will still be served and T.I. will still perform at halftime the night the original promotion was planned.

Bottom Line

This was a mixed bag of publicity. But know that anything that takes word gymnastics to explain is doomed. (Oh, the double entendres I double-thought as I wrote this newsletter.)

Is this the worst sports promo?

You could say it was a pick-your-poison position for the NBA. After all, the league promotes other elements some of the general public consider unfit for family-friendly sports. The bottom line is, Silver did what I think most league leaders would do.

👇🏼 (ONE MORE ON HOOPS)👇🏼

BAM WOW

Maybe you heard the sonic boom in South Florida, March 10 — the 83 points heard around the world.

When sports talk show host Dan Patrick asked Miami Heat broadcaster Jason Jackson about coach Erik Spoelstra not taking Bam Adebayo out of the game against the Washington Wizards to protect Kobe Bryant’s historical second-place scoring record, Jackson replied, “It’s sports. It’s just sports.”

I texted Jax and told him he might have never uttered such prescient words. As always, he kept it real. Jackson didn’t downplay the headliner. He didn’t downplay Kobe’s fans for being disappointed. And when asked about his game call, he said, “It was glorious.”

Meaningful sports publicity in a nutshell.

Motto: Embrace the moment; now, on to the next game.

©2026 Gail Sideman; gpublicity.com; SIDEbar

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