In case you have not heard, the Bobcats finally sold the naming rights to their arena.After four years of terrible basketball, half-hearted promotions, questionable front office moves (to put it mildly), and non-HD telecasts, the Bobcats selected Time Warner Cable as their arena sponsor. In the immortal words of Mike Gundy, “Makes me wanna puke!”
Actually, the naming decision makes perfect sense, in that it is just another stupid move by Robert Johnson and the Bobcats. I thought the Bobcats had enough problems attracting fans. Why did they go and name the arena after one of the most hated companies in Charlotte? How much more broke can you get than naming your arena after a cable provider that wasn’t providing HD broadcasts to the current fanbase? Even young single women are buying HD televisions now, and the Bobcats can’t even get their games in HD?
The Bobcats should have been aggressively pursuing young professionals in Charlotte as a foundation for ticket sales to come. What is the go-to first purchase of a newly settled, recovering frat star? An HD flat screen TV, of course! Why would these newly transplanted people watch a Charlotte Bobcats road game in crappy regular-definition when they could catch a good team on TNTHD or ESPNHD?
Seriously, it was about time you put the games on a reasonable channel. Channel 14 was a terrible NBA broadcast, and generally a terrible station outside of their informative nightly news broadcasts, which you should check out if you ever get tired of the nonsense that goes on Fox News Charlotte. The Fox Sports deal is the only element of this that makes sense, and it only took you 15 months to complete it? Congratulations, Bob Johnson. It only took me 16 months to get Time Warner to come out and replace my cable box!
Let's recap. The Bobcats developed their own TV station called C-Set, which folded in 2005, shortly after it debuted. Why did this channel fail? Well, it was only offered on Adelphia and not Time Warner, so potential fans were unable to see the inaguaral Oakafor in ’04 campaign. C-Set folded since no one was able to watch the games in the Charlotte area; only fans in Lake Norman were offered Adelphia.
Also, I know for a fact that C-Set interns were asked to punch all-star ballots for Bobcats players, and could vote for anyone else they pleased, as long as it wasn’t a New Orleans Hornet. Instead of tapping the brains of young college students and recent graduates for promotional ideas to increase the popularity of the team, the Bobcats had their interns voting for Primoz Brezec. Don't worry, I will save my player personnel rant for another day.
The Charlotte Observer reported that the Bobcats games will now reach 3.8 million homes instead of the 1.2 million they previously reached as a result of the new TV deal. Common sense says an expansion franchise trying to build a fan base would maximize their home viewership numbers to begin with, but maybe they knew something about their 07-08 playoff prospects the average fan didn’t. One would think the Bobcats learned their lesson from the C-Set disaster. Instead, it took ownership from the C-Set debacle in 2005 to April 2008 to figure out a way to get their broadcasts into 3.8 million homes.
Now, the naming of the stadium is almost as terrible as the service Time Warner provides, but this cannot be changed. At least the Bobcats recognized their broadcast problems, even if it did take them two tries, and corrected the mistake on their second attempt with the upgrade from Channel 14 to Fox Sports Net. I am assuming Fox Sports Net will offer the games in HD, but this is a huge assumption knowing the Bobcats braintrust. At least the games will now reach more potential fans. Lets just pray they don’t have to watch the crappier of the two Lopez twins running down the court next season.
1 comment:
Time Warner sucks more than the Bobcats. At least when the Bobcats say they're playing a game at 7pm, they play at 7pm instead of not showing up until 11pm and you've been sitting there for four hours with only reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond and Victory Garden to watch, all the while oblivious that you could have MORE channels to watch CHEAPER and HD to boot. I finally gave Time Warner the ax after I put in 22 service calls over a period of only three months. And, while I'm ranting, why don't you and Obama get a room.
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