I had an idea to pitch a 30 for 30 about Atlanta sports called "Championships Are For Other Cities" but after we won a few I think my new focus should be on the Atlanta Spirit Group and what an absolute clusterf*** that was (and I need to get on that because the Thrashers coming back would be the best conclusion/crescendo to the story).
That said, not every ASG member was bad. 9 people should never own a team, but that is another story. Bud, Beau, Seydel, and Gearon were far from inept, evil, incompetent, etc. The problem was largely Belkin and Levenson. When Belkin veto'd the Joe Johnson trade, that was the beginning of the end of the Thrashers because that ultimately culminated in Belkin's buy-out (unexpected expense likely in the order of ~$80-100 million) plus six-years of legal fees that (ongoing, unexpected expense in the millions).
Were the Thrashers losing money at the end? Doubt it, but maybe, maybe a bit (and we can get into how a few sabotaged that - namely Levenson, Foreman, and PESKO). Did a group of owners that didn't really have a lot of money to begin with suddenly face an unexpected buyout and need to get rid of an asset to fund it? Yes, and that was it for the Thrashers.
