It takes incredible amounts of wealth to successfully purchase an NBA team, no matter how ‘small market’ some teams are. Most NBA owners are ludicrously rich businessmen and women who have built a career by always making the most shrewd deal available. The Atlanta Hawks are no different, having a billionaire owner themselves. However, they are different, with the public face of their ownership being none other than ’80s heartthrob Jami Gertz.
Advertisement
Gertz, best known for her roles in ‘The Lost Boys’ and 1996’s ‘Twister’, is the wife of Hawks’ Governor Tony Ressler. The couple has a long and complicated history with team ownership and the Hawks weren’t even their first choice while trying to buy a team.
Ressler and Gertz’ failed ownership attempt
Donald Sterling’s infamous leaked racist messages forced him to sell the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014. Ressler, along with partner and former NBA legend Grant Hill, was in prime position to buy the team. However, current owner and ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer beat the duo to the punch.
By some turn of fate, they’d get another chance to buy an NBA team, after Atlanta Hawks’ owner Bruce Levenson was also found to be using racist comments in an email to an NBA official. This time, Hill and Ressler would not be denied, and in a $720 million deal, they finally purchased the Hawks in 2015.
Ressler, an infamous media recluse, has only ever made brief and mandatory camera appearances in his 9 years as owner. He leaves the media-related stuff to his wife, and she dove into the role with renewed gusto after her career as an actor slowed down.
Gertz is the face of the Atlanta Hawks’ ownership group
For a woman who spent a large majority of her life in front of a camera, being the face of the team’s ownership group came naturally to Gertz. She can bring light into a room, and that, combined with her effortless charisma, makes for a very strong combination.
In a 2018 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Gertz acknowledged how strange her situation in life was. After all, it’s not every day that an actress from the ’80s ends up the owner of an NBA team. It works out perfectly for her, as she still gets to be in front of the camera and work her signature charm on press members and NBA officials instead of hard-headed producers and eccentric directors.
It also allows her husband to work behind the scenes in peace, and not get caught up in the drama that comes with owning a team. In his own words,
“I think it’s fair to say that she makes a better impression on our fan base than any of us in the organization. I’m very active on the business and player personnel decision-making. But Jami steps in when it comes to so many parts of the business that I did not appreciate or have any experience in.”
Nothing captured his point better than when he described a pep talk Gertz gave to employees in 2018 when the Hawks renovated their arena. She explained to nearly 1500 new employees the importance of fan culture and how to ensure that match-going fans felt a connection with the team. In Ressler’s albeit biased opinion, “She made that point beautifully to 1,500 people. She’s great at that.”
Jami Gertz has left acting behind to focus on the Hawks full-time
Gertz’s love affair with the silver screen slowed down in the 2010s. Roles dried up and phones began to ring less. However, she understood the fact, saying, “You reach an age, and you slow down, and the jobs are a little hard to come by.”
She instead poured her time into a production company, which did not pan out all that well. Gertz “tried for five years and was not very successful,” and so she moved on from that as well.
After the Hawks acquisition, Gertz and her husband did a lot of work while in LA, but that wasn’t ideal. After all, it is difficult to manage a team when you live nearly 2200 miles away. And so, after their youngest son went to Georgetown College in 2017, Ressler and Gertz moved to Georgia full-time.
A lot can be said about Gertz’s social presence. After the move, Disney CEO Bob Iger said, “We’d prefer Jami and her husband Tony to spend all of their time in L.A., but we are excited about their stewardship of the Hawks.”
But just because she moved away from Hollywood doesn’t mean she doesn’t occasionally get the chance to pursue her first love – acting. In 2022, she appeared in Amazon’s ‘I Want You Back’. She also had a role in a 2020 documentary called ‘The Last Blockbuster’.
