Magic City down on Forsyth Street had such an outsize impact on the city across nearly four decades that Atlanta Magazine once published an oral history of the place. A host of women performers, past and present, and local luminaries from various fields spoke at length about the strip joint’s significance in their lives.
“The only club in America where you can go on Monday night and stand beside a millionaire,” said Jermaine Dupri, the record producer and rapper, “the biggest thief in Atlanta, the biggest drug dealer in Atlanta, the police, and one of the biggest rappers or R&B artists in the world – all in the same room. That’s unheard of.”
Next Monday night’s game between the Atlanta Hawks and Orlando City at State Farm Arena was supposed to celebrate Magic City as an “iconic cultural institution”. The pregame podcast was to focus on a recent television documentary about the illustrious history of stripping at the venue, limited edition hoodies bearing the twin logos of the strip club and the basketball team were to be sold, and two different kinds of Magic’s world-famous lemon pepper chicken wings would be on offer. Because nothing draws people to the charms of the stripper pole like finger-lickin’ poultry at $75 a basket.
“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,” wrote Luke Kornet, the San Antonio Spurs centre, calling for the Hawks to cancel the collaboration. “Regardless of how a woman finds her way into the adult entertainment industry, many in this space experience abuse, harassment, and violence to which they should never be subjected.”
Kornet was the only current player to vehemently object to the event, although Stephen A Smith, ESPN’s resident bloviator-in-chief and somebody who has frequented the club in the past, also expressed concerns about the questionable optics of such an association, especially when the NBA is about to sign a lengthy media rights deal worth $77 billion. On the other side of the argument, the Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green couldn’t understand the kerfuffle because he reckons stripping is “actually a form of art, that some choose to indulge in and some choose not to indulge in”.
This league was once so fearful of its public-facing appearance it imposed a strict dress code on players arriving at games, prohibiting gear such as oversized T-shirts and Timberland boots. Yet here it was, supposedly proud to shill on behalf of a nude revue with a knack for generating headlines for the wrong reasons, including two dancers being tortured to death in a cold case that remains unsolved.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver. Photograph: Ryan Sirius Sun/Getty Images
NBA commissioner Adam Silver. Photograph: Ryan Sirius Sun/Getty Images
Following too much negative national coverage, including an unintentionally hilarious clarification that there would be no nudity during the pregame show, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced last Monday that the Hawks-Magic City event was cancelled. Making “the right decision for the broader NBA community”, he silenced some critics but only enraged others. Many in Georgia and beyond are irate that suits at head office in New York don’t seem to understand that around Atlanta, Magic City is regarded as much more than some sleazy strip club. Not least through its long-standing connection to the thriving local music scene.
“And what you have to understand about Atlanta, this is part of their culture,” said Paul Pierce, one-time Boston Celtics great. “This is part of their DNA as a city. This is a predominantly black city. And some of the things that we are accustomed to when we go to Atlanta are that people go to the clubs, people go to certain restaurants, like Atlanta is known as a city for adult entertainment. And this is just one of the most prestigious adult entertainment clubs that they have, not only in Atlanta, but probably known throughout the United States.”
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When the NBA played out its lockdown season in the strictly controlled environment of “the Bubble” at Disney World, Orlando, in 2020, Los Angeles Clippers’ Lou Williams was given leave to return to Atlanta when his grandfather died. The wake ended at 6pm at which point he repaired to Magic City, a breach of league protocol. After he claimed to have gone there for food rather than the pleasures of the flesh, the club named the “LouWill lemon pepper BBQ wings” in his honour.
Since the early 1990s, professional athletes, whether playing for Atlanta teams or visiting for a game, have been invariably drawn to the venue. Witness Pacman Jones, the former NFL cornerback, lauding its “good food and eye candy” on Julian Edelman’s Games with Names podcast earlier this year. In defending the establishment during this current brouhaha, Pierce made a very pointed reference to the fact that the NBA has ongoing relationships with way more offensive outfits than Magic City.
Over the past decade, the league and just about every club have willingly taken the sports betting dollar, and gambling on games is blighting far more lives, especially young ones, across the US each day than stripping. Many players and teams also have contracts worth $10 billion collectively with Chinese companies infamous for horrific work conditions. Not to mention that Silver himself has proudly presided over having annual preseason games in Abu Dhabi, that renowned hub of human rights, and setting up an NBA-branded training academy there.
Sportswashing good, making it rain very bad, apparently.