{"id":34928,"date":"2025-07-30T18:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T18:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/34928\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T18:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T18:10:08","slug":"tom-cousins-developer-who-brought-nba-nhl-to-atlanta-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/34928\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Cousins, developer who brought NBA, NHL to Atlanta, dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Rob Johnston and Tom Cousins\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/MFOENCUYJVBRVA4LWKTO2Y3N4E.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"533\"\/>Tom Cousins (r) brought both NBA and NHL teams to Atlanta. Getty Images <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-people-and-pop-culture \">Atlanta real estate tycoon TOM COUSINS &#8212; who brought professional basketball and hockey to the city &#8212; died at 93 yesterday. He had been hospitalized in Florida. Cousins and former Georgia Gov. CARL SANDERS bought the St. Louis Hawks on May 2, 1968, for more than $2M, \u201cbringing the NBA to the Deep South for the first time.\u201d In 1972, he bought an expansion franchise from NHL, naming the team the Flames. Cousins\u2019 stint as a sports team owner \u201cfizzled\u201d after he \u201clost millions\u201d and sold the Hawks to TED TURNER in 1977 and the Flames to a Canadian investor in 1980. Cousins also bought the East Lake Country Club when it went to auction in the early 1990s and later founded the East Lake Foundation (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ajc.com\/news\/2025\/07\/tom-cousins-seminal-atlanta-developer-and-philanthropist-dies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.ajc.com\/news\/2025\/07\/tom-cousins-seminal-atlanta-developer-and-philanthropist-dies\/\">ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 7\/29<\/a>). East Lake Foundation board member and VERSANT CEO MARK LAZARUS said, \u201cTom Cousins was a giant in life and in golf. His inspirational vision for East Lake Golf Club and the East Lake Foundation &#8211; guided by his golf with a purpose mantra &#8211; has transformed the lives of a generation of children and families in the city of Atlanta. Tom\u2019s impact will be felt for decades to come and his incredible contributions to the community through his passion for golf will never be forgotten\u201d (Golf Channel).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Cousins (r) brought both NBA and NHL teams to Atlanta. Getty Images Atlanta real estate tycoon TOM&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-34928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}