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1. NBA left a bad taste in our mouth with the George Shinn/Hornets debacle.
2. The arena vote. The people voted against it, but we built it anyway. The city basically bowed down to Johnson, built the arena the way he and the NBA wanted so that it wouldn't have enough seats to host the ACC tournament or any big college events.
3. The general decline in the NBA's popularity.
4. Johnson is kind of an absentee owner and has never really made much effort to reach out to the community here.
The man is a terrible owner, apart from naming the team after himself, he also sent them out on the road for their final four or five games of the season, so his daughter could ride horses. Who the hell does that?. Oh yeah, and he kicked the Checkers out too. Seems kind of selfish doesn't it?
Larry Bird should have been picked to run the team.
No they are, but they were forced to play at their practice facility for their home playoff games during that Horse event that Johnson's daughter is involved in.
Wondering about perception vs reality.
We were told that the running of the Arena has nothing to do with the running of the Bobcats. The Arena has a company that trys to bring in events. That type of scheduling is done 2 years out no? When I say we, I mean as a season ticket holder wondering why we have so many of the final games on the road. And when season tix holders wanted to know why CIAA had precedence over the Bobcats in Feb.
Also, wasn't the tournament here last year? I went to some event with North Carolina won. Maybe that was the NCAA tourney. Wouldn't that be bigger than the ACC?
Also, you're not serious about naming the team after himself are you?
I thought they were continuing the Cat theme -- Panthers, Bobcats, Lynx... I know I read somewhere that it was Bobcats or Flight (as in aviation)
Again, I'm wondering, because it really seems that sometimes perception wins even though the reality may be very different
Thanks Coped for trying to give some "local" light.
Baybrook and Coped, I think to a certain extent you are both correct in your theories.
Bottom-line is if they get to the playoffs, there won't be an empty seat in the building.......everyone 'loves' a winner.
Many people were, some still are, bitter over the way the Hornets departed and Bobcats arrived in Charlotte. The city loved the Hornets and consistently set NBA attendance records. However Owner George Shinn became a PR disaster.
Quote:
While the Hornets continued to put a competitive team on the court, the team's attendance fell dramatically, in large part because Shinn was now a pariah in the city.[3] For much of the early part of the 21st century, the Hornets ranked at or near the bottom of the league in attendance, a marked contrast to their first years in the league.
Shinn had become increasingly discontented with the Coliseum, which had a limited number of luxury boxes. He finally issued an ultimatum: unless the city built a new arena at no cost to him, the Hornets would leave town. The city initially refused, leading Shinn to consider moving the team to either Norfolk, Louisville, St. Louis, or Memphis, of which only St. Louis is a larger media market than Charlotte.
Finally, a new arena in Uptown (what would eventually become the Charlotte Bobcats Arena, later the Time Warner Cable Arena) was included in a non-binding referendum for a larger arts-related package, and Shinn withdrew his application to move the team. Polls showed the referendum on its way to passage. However, just days before the referendum, Mayor Pat McCrory vetoed a living wage ordinance. The veto prompted many of the city's black ministers to oppose the referendum; they felt it was immoral for the city to build a new arena when city employees could not afford to make a living.[4]
After the failed referendum, city leaders then devised a way to build a new arena in a way that did not require voter support, but let it be known that they would not even consider building it unless Shinn sold the team. While even the NBA acknowledged that Shinn had alienated fans, league officials felt such a demand would anger owners.[5] The city council refused to remove the statement, leading the Hornets to seriously consider a move to New Orleans. Although New Orleans was a smaller television market, a deal was quickly made to play at the New Orleans Arena, next door to the Louisiana Superdome. Before the Hornets were eliminated from the playoffs, the NBA approved the deal. As part of a deal with the city, the NBA promised that Charlotte would get a new team, which took the court two years later as the Charlotte Bobcats.
In a 2008 interview with the Charlotte Observer, Shinn (who has not returned to Charlotte since the Hornets moved) admitted that the "bad judgment I made in my life" played a role in the Hornets' departure. He also said that if he had it to do all over again, he would not have withdrawn from the public after the sexual assault trial.
Wikipedia - Hornets
Quote:
After being hugely popular in Charlotte when the Hornets came into existence, so popular he was approached to run for governor, Shinn fell out of favor a decade later after being sued in a sexual assault case.
A jury rejected the sexual assault claim in December 1999, but he admitted in court to having two sexual relationships outside his marriage. The trial was broadcast nationwide on Court TV and drew some of the cable network's highest ratings at the time. Shinn later divorced and has since remarried.
The fallout from the sexual assault issue was immense, and Shinn withdrew from the public.
“I had been making speeches all over, and I never charged a dime. I quit doing it. I quit talking to the press. It was the stupidest thing I could have done,” Shinn said.
“People (in Charlotte) love basketball … Had I wised up early and gotten out in the community like now, we'd probably still be there.”
When Charlotte-area voters rejected a new arena proposal, Shinn and former ownership partner Ray Wooldridge moved the team to New Orleans. Wooldridge sold his stake in the franchise several years ago.
1. NBA left a bad taste in our mouth with the George Shinn/Hornets debacle.
2. The arena vote. The people voted against it, but we built it anyway. The city basically bowed down to Johnson, built the arena the way he and the NBA wanted so that it wouldn't have enough seats to host the ACC tournament or any big college events.
3. The general decline in the NBA's popularity.
4. Johnson is kind of an absentee owner and has never really made much effort to reach out to the community here.
+1000
Back in the day Hornet's games where the greatest thing in town.
Yet today I have zero interest in the Bobcats.
Other than a few franchises, the NBA is just dying.
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