Hawks announce YMCA as new official jersey patch sponsor

The Hawks announced a multi-year partnership with the YMCA of Metro Atlanta as its new Official Jersey Patch sponsor on Monday.

Now, the signature ‘Y’ logo will be featured on all Hawks uniforms as well as the College Park Skyhawks, the team’s G League affiliate and the uniforms of Hawks Talon GC, the organization’s NBA 2K League affiliates (Hawks Talon GC).

YMCA of Metro Atlanta has 35 locations across the metro area, including community wellness, early learning, and youth and teen centers that reach more than 250,000 people each year.

It serves families, youth and individuals throughout 12 counties in the metro area, providing necessary programs like early learning, afterschool care, day and overnight camps, teens, safety around water, youth sports and more, to the city’s residents.

Since 2020, the YMCA has provided over one million meals to community members who deal with food insecurity. The Y has also looked to improve healthy equity in communities throughout Atlanta through its partnerships with Morehouse School of Medicine, as well as Good Samaritan Health Center.

Each year, it provides more than $5 million in financial assistance to help those in need access Y programs and services.

Both the Hawks and YMCA will work together on programs centered around improving the well-being and health of the city’s residents with a focus on making youth sports, especially basketball, more accessible. Through sports, Lauren Koontz, president and CEO of the YMCA of Metro Atlanta, looks to help provide some of life’s building blocks to the next generation.

“We are the largest provider of recreational youth sports in metro Atlanta, that’s basketball, soccer, that’s aquatics, the list really goes on,” Koontz, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “For us, we really do use sports as a vehicle to build confidence and character in kids and really help them at a young age, have fun. And so, we believe, it’s a great way to build teamwork, to build resilience, kind of all of those things that people are talking about what kids really need to navigate life.”

Through the partnership, Hawks players, coaching staff and talent will help to promote the Y’s many offerings in youth sports and programming. They’ll also share their stories of how they started their basketball journeys at their local YMCAs.

The partnership will also include supporting the Y in a number of other ways including, urgent community needs, promoting social responsibility and uplifting inclusive communities with strong DEI values. They will use the in-arena experience, as well as its global marketing assets, to launch a series of campaigns to help grow the YMCA’s membership and raise funds to support the Y’s mission.

“This is what a patch partner should be,” Hawks and State Farm Arena CEO Steve Koonin, told the AJC. “Shared vision, growing the sport, community asset. Something that players can relate to, fans can relate to. But all of these places like the Y, they need membership. They need to help drive their business. And that’s what we do. And so we came up with this idea and pitched it to the Y. And they said, ‘Yes.’”

With the announcement, the NBA shared its enthusiasm for the Hawks’ new partnership.

“This partnership with the YMCA of Metro Atlanta is emblematic of the Hawks’ commitment to their community and is a continuation of the league’s longstanding relationship with the YMCA — the organization that was responsible for the very invention of the game of basketball,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement provided by the team. “Generations of young people in the Atlanta area will see lasting benefits from these expanded youth sports programs and other impactful health and wellness initiatives.”

The Hawks partnered with Excel Sports Management to find a new jersey patch partnership and the new uniforms will debut on Tuesday night against the Pacers.