📍 Atlanta, Georgia
🏀 Home of the Atlanta Hawks

Arriving in the Peach State in the late 1960s on the heels of the Braves and Falcons, the Atlanta Hawks have played an integral role in helping shape the city’s sports landscape. The team is also a storied NBA organization in its own right, providing some of the best entertainment the ATL has to offer for more than a half-century. The Hawks have played primarily at two different venues since landing in Atlanta, circling their prey throughout the winter sports season in the infamously undeveloped Gulch area.

The Atlanta Hawks are one of the league’s most historic franchises, with roots dating back to 1946. Playing first in the National Basketball League as the Buffalo Bisons and then in Moline, Illinois as the Blackhawks, the team was a founding member of the NBA when it was born out of a league merger in 1949. After a rebranding followed by a brief stint in Milwaukee, the Hawks spent 13 years in St. Louis. There, they’d become a perennial playoff contender, winning the NBA Championship in 1958.

Just ten years later, the team relocated one final time to downtown Atlanta. The Hawks took up residence at the newly-constructed Omni Coliseum in 1972, also home to the short-lived Atlanta Flames of the NHL until their departure for Calgary in 1980. Due to several design flaws, the coliseum aged much more quickly than originally intended and, by the time the city was awarded a second NHL franchise in the late 1990s, the Omni was no longer suitable. Imploded in 1997, the building was replaced by state-of-the-art Philips Arena just two years later, which opened on the same site as the old waffle iron. The arena has been home to both the Hawks and the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers, until the latter also left for Canada in 2011.

The venue, renamed State Farm Arena in 2018, is notable for the iconic support beams on its south side which spell out the word “ATLANTA” above the main gate. Constantly guarding this entrance is a statue of Dominique Wilkins, one of the best players to ever put on the Atlanta Hawks jersey.

State Farm Arena underwent rigorous renovations during the 2017 and 2018 offseasons, with its NBA tenant at the forefront of the redesign. Basketball sightlines were drastically improved and many new amenities were added, including a gigantic center-hung videoboard. This much-needed overhaul helped put the venue back in contention for league best.

Post-renovations, the arena has come to host a ton of standout concessions, bars and social spaces galore. Several major alcohol brands are on tap at their dedicated booths, including Redmont Vodka, Modelo, Taylor Port and Avion tequila. An entire portion of the lower level concourse is also dedicated to Zac Brown’s Social Club, a collection of bars and food stands operated by the Atlanta-based country music group, and features some displays highlighting the history of the band.

State Farm Arena is full of premium areas as well, such as the Delta Sky360 Club on the floor level. This exclusive space is accentuated with a giant table in the west end zone in the shape of the Hawks logo, giving folks there an interesting spot to watch the game. Most of the suites and luxury boxes are located on the arena’s south side as well, stacked neatly between the upper and lower levels and allowing for fans on the other three sides of the bowl to be situated closer to the action.

The Hawks really do a great job of putting the fans first, providing one of the best gameday experiences in the league. Fancy pyrotechnics above both baskets and smoke machines add drama to player introductions, “A-T-L” chants are incited and streamers rain down after every Hawks win. The “Flight Crew“, a group of folks who patrol sections and work to pump up the fans, help make each game seem even more like a party.

Nary a Hawks fan has left the confines of the Gulch and not been entertained. Through highs and lows, the team has been thrilling their supporters for over fifty years; now, a modernized State Farm Arena ensures the Hawks will stay True to Atlanta for the next fifty.