THE ATHLETIC DATE: 05/17/2021 Hawks CEO Steve Koonin 1-on-1: Exceeding expectations, playoffs, streaming wars, fan experience & full arenas By: Chris Kirschner https://theathletic.com/2595357/2021/05/18/hawks-ceo-steve-koonin-1-on-1-exceeding-expectations- playoffs-streaming-wars-fan-experience-full-arenas/ The Hawks are back in the playoffs for the first time since the 2016-2017 season. Atlanta quickly pivoted from a perennial playoff team to a rebuilding franchise that was going to build from the ground up. It led to Mike Budenholzer no longer wanting to be the head coach and transitioning to a developmental coach who was there for the darkest days in the Sixers’ rebuilding process, Lloyd Pierce. Before the Hawks hired Travis Schlenk as the person who was going to construct this team to get back to the playoffs, he met with Hawks CEO Steve Koonin and COO Thad Sheely at Kevin Rathbun Steak to discuss his plan on how he was going to bring the organization back to relevance. According to Koonin, since that dinner, Schlenk has delivered on everything he said he was going to do. The Athletic spoke with Koonin ahead of the Hawks’ playoff matchup against the Knicks to discuss the team meeting and exceeding expectations, the fan experience in the middle of a pandemic, the overall health of the franchise and much more. Below is our conversation with Koonin, which has been lightly edited for clarity. Be honest with me, before the start of the season, did you plan for the cost of a banner on the budget for the 2021 year? If you’re talking about winning the Southeast Division, I did not see that as part of our future. What I was hoping for was we would make the playoffs; I was excited about the play-in tournament because I think it gave you the chance to have more meaningful games going down the stretch, but I did not see us being tied for the fourth-best record in the East — not in my wildest dreams. Would you say anyone in the front office expected to be this high in the standings? I can’t speak for everyone’s wildest dreams, but I would say that I think we’ve exceeded all of the expectations we had internally. What has surprised you the most with how this team has performed this season? Is it the record or something else that you didn’t see coming with this group? I think the way it turned around. We’re 27-11 (under Nate McMillan). That’s a (71 percent) winning percentage, which extrapolated over a normal season is (58) wins. I didn’t know there would be math in this conversation, but that’s extraordinary. That winning percentage is extraordinary. I didn’t see that coming. And then you compound that with the injuries we were plagued with, it’s just been an incredible blessing and a testament to all of the hard work these people put in and the coaches have put in. I think if it wasn’t for the Knicks, this would be the biggest story in the NBA. I don’t think many people, myself included, expected the Hawks to be tied record-wise for the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. I thought they might have had an outside chance to get the sixth seed, but I thought they’d be in the Play-In Tournament and potentially get the seventh seed. I didn’t expect this. What would you say was the mood amongst the ownership group in the first half of the season when this team was struggling? It’s interesting because we were never really together as a group, so I can’t give you a great judge. Tony had a vision for playoffs. The “P-word” the last couple of years was not mentioned within the building. We were not going to put pressure and jinx and do that for our team. Our past two seasons, it was obviously not a playoff team. What I admire about Travis is when we had dinner before he was hired and announced, he laid out this plan with precision — what year, what needed to be done, flexibility with contracts, taking in bad contracts, getting as many draft choices. He had a formula — I wouldn’t call it an algorithm because it wasn’t that complex, but he had a formula that he followed almost to the day and almost to the tee. It’s worked. He, unequivocally, had a vision and a plan and executed on it. When it came to fruition under leadership from Nate, now everyone can see it. This is fast for a rebuild, especially a strip down to the studs rebuild. He knew what he wanted and articulated it, so we never were surprised in this process. We went back in the draft lottery two years in a row, and went higher in the draft than we were slotted. A few ping pong balls bounce differently, and we might be having a different conversation. The way things have turned out — (Schlenk) scripted and I couldn’t have scripted it any better. How would you assess Tony’s current mood about the state of the franchise? Tony Ressler is an incredibly disciplined business person who understands what it takes to be successful and the steps you have to take and the investments you have to make and the pieces that have to fall together in the big part of the equation, which is some luck. I think Tony feels very good with where the franchise is today, and I think he believes we’ve just begun. I certainly don’t want to put words in his mouth, but I think he thinks this is step one on a very, very, very wonderful journey. We’re not doing this to make the playoffs annually. We could have stayed with the team from 2017 and done that. We’re doing this to win a championship. With this season being much different than any other season since you joined the league, what have you learned about the fan experience in this kind of season that you can apply to future ones when things are back to normal? What I learned from Steph Curry is he talked about how important the fans are to the game. When you go to a game in the arena, it’s just very different. The architecture of sports involves fans. It’s a really important piece. That’s why we’re working so hard to figure out what we can do safely. First of all, safety for players, employees and fans is paramount, but, my goodness gracious, sports without fans is not great. It’s not what it’s designed to be. What I do really appreciate is how fans have stuck in there with us. We created three season ticket packages with 11 games each for season ticket holders. We wanted to keep that engagement. A lot of people asked, ‘Well, why did you have fans at all?’ It’s so important to keep that connectivity between a team, the city and fans. I think we were cautious. We called the plan, ‘Crawl, walk, run.” I still don’t think we’ll be running until we can fill the building, but we’ve had no incidents or outbreaks from the building. The first two people we tested with our protocols both tested positive for COVID — the first two fans. We had one test positive before they entered the building last week. It’s been an incredibly difficult year. Plexiglas is just everywhere in the building; I’ll be glad when I don’t see Plexiglas everywhere in the building. One of the genius things about sports is the ability to high-five the stranger next to you. I hope that comes back, and with the vaccine, it should. It’s very exciting to get through the season intact from a COVID perspective, but we really miss fans. When going into a season like this one, what would you say has surprised you in terms of the fan response and engagement to everything that is going on? There’s several metrics that I look at, rather than relying on anecdotal evidence. TV ratings are up 19 percent, in a world where TV ratings are really not going well. Our merchandise sales have been phenomenal this year. The MLK jerseys were a giant hit. Our social media channels have all seen significant increases. All of the brand health metrics have been great. What I think is so unique about this season is I think the Hawks brand and the social justice component and the service to the community component and us being relevant and present outside of the game of basketball combined with a team that is really fun to watch and is successful has put us in an incredible position for the future. You mentioned TV ratings, so I will ask you this: A lot of fans have complained to me over the past year about the inability to watch games on different streaming services. I don’t know how involved you or teams can be in this process, but have you heard from fans who aren’t able to watch games because of this? Unfortunately, and it’s far out of our control, but when you subscribe to a virtual multi-channel video provider, they sell on price. One of the ways they try to keep the price low is limiting professional sports, which are expensive.