Since it was announced that His Airness struck an 11th hour deal to purchase the bobcats from former owner Bob Johnson, I have been wondering to myself if Jordan is the answer for a club that has lost a ton of money, and never made the playoffs.
The problem, as I see it, is Jordan has been the one running the club since 2006. While he has fixed some of the problems concerning the talent level of this club and brought in Larry Brown to help him in that regard. The Bobcats face some issues that other NBA teams do not have.
The first is they are located in the heart of the College basket ball world. While that should be a positive, for the Bobcats that has not been the case. They are in a place where there are many people who love the game of basketball.
However, I don’t like having pro sports teams in College towns. The main issues there is a very large number of the population are only their part of the year. While most College Students are at their schools for a good chunk of the NBA season, college kids by, and large do not have much discretionary income. Why go to a NBA game, when they can go to a College basketball game at a discount?
Now let us move onto the more serious of the two main issues for this club. It seems the Charlotte basketball fans supported the Hornets when they were there, but are not as willing to support the Bobcats.
It seems that the residents of Charlotte have a lot of bad feelings regarding the loss of their Hornets. First, the Hornet owner George Shinn became a pariah by demanding a new stadium for his team at no cost to him or his team. Then a complicated political fight was waged over the construction of the stadium that eventually came to be known as Time Warner Cable Arena (home of the Bobcats). All of which was further complicated by Shinn’s trial for sexual assault.
The effect of all this was an alienated fan base, and that does not seem to have changed. However the Bobcats have never had the pizzazz that the Hornets had when they came to town in the late 1980’s.
The Hornets were one of the first teams to choose Teal as their primary color, and designed uniforms incorporating pinstripes. Their name was an old reference to the Revolutionary War that seemed to connect very well with their fans.
The problem Jordan now faces is his team has none of that. They have an over used animal cliché for a name, boring colors, and no connection with their fan base. These are the things Jordan will have to concentrate on as he begins to rebuild the Bobcats.
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