sirshannon.com

I was a Hornets fan. I still have a ticket stub from the first season somewhere. I was a fan when they had to paint over the starting line-up mural uptown. Even after the second time. Even when they gave up on keeping a line-up for more than a year and just put up a huge Hugo. Even after George Shinn set record-breakingly high contracts and traded those same players at a loss later. But eventually these things added up to be more than I could forgive. And then George decided that he was more important than Michael Jordan (who wanted to be here as much as we wanted him to be) and stopped that deal from happening. And then, after blowing so much money that he could no longer make a profit in the arena we built for him, George decided he wanted a new, smaller arena uptown. And then I joined the masses in telling him goodbye and good riddance. The Hornets set attendance records when they were terrible; Charlotte never fell out of love with our team until the owner forced us to hate him. We couldn’t make him leave without taking the Hornets with him, so he had to let them go. But Charlotteans knew we would have a new team in short order.
Jordan was tied to the Wizards so he couldn’t have the new team here. The NBA wanted a black owner and Robert Johnson wanted an NBA team. The NBA probably didn’t have too much trouble with the decision.
When the Hornets left, they took a large chunk of Charlotte with them. The team colors are Charlotte’s colors. The name is one married to the 200+ year history of the area. The mascot’s name is that of a hurricane that hit Charlotte in the late 80’s. The Hornets took all that away from us, just as the Jazz did to New Orleans when they left. It isn’t right but it par for the course. Oh well, whatever it takes to get Shinn out of Charlotte is fine with me.
So now he have a new team, with a new arena uptown involuntarily paid for in large part by our tax dollars. The team color is a bright orange, which is a bit “young” for my tastes but fits the city perfectly: it is the color of traffic cones and construction. Charlotte has so much of that, especially uptown, that I thought the new team should be called the Charlotte Cranes because it is so hard to find a view of uptown without a crane (or five) in the way. The Cranes wasn’t even on the short list of names, unfortunately. Instead, we went with a nice ego-stroking name for Charlotte’s basketball savior: Bob’s Cats (or Bobcats for short).
Not the best name in the world but the name and logo are fitting compliments for the Carolina Panthers. Not my favorite color in the world but it will do.
And I guess I can ignore the fact that our tax dollars are paying for the arena even though the better sections of the arena and concessions will be offlimits to me (those exclusive perks are there to draw in the higher-dollar fans so the team can make money with fewer seats).
And I guess I will get over the fact that I am paying for the arena even though Bob could have handled the funding himself (and will be handling the profits himself).
And I will excuse the fact that the traffic jams caused by arena traffic will no longer be secluded to the Tyvola Road/I-77 area but will now be smack dab in the middle of our small congested uptown.
And I will forgive our Mayor for thinking the Bobcats (now with Nelly as a partner) were going to be some symbol of Charlotte’s morals and values.
But I don’t think I can forgive Bob’s decision to require me to subscribe to Time Warner Digital Cable in order to watch the games. Bob’s Cats have a sports network and it is only on Digital:

The network’s first affiliate is Time Warner Cable and C-SET will be initially distributed as a digital basic channel on all Time Warner Cable systems throughout North and South Carolina. Time Warner Cable, the region’s dominant cable system operator, covers 60% of the total 2.7 million cable households in the Carolinas and currently reaches approximately 600,000 subscribers with its digital basic service. Negotiations are ongoing with other distributors in the two states.
C-SET - Carolinas Sports Entertainment Television - About C-SET

Living in Asheville? No Cats for you!
Have a satellite? No Cats for you!
Have cable but don’t want to pay the extra $30-$40 a month for digital? No Cats for you!

So my taxes are paying for this team and I can’t watch the games without getting digital cable? The first season has barely started and I think I may already be ready for Bob’s Cats to leave. I can’t think of a single reason why I should pull for this team other than they aren’t the Hornets.

I think I have found a team in Texas to pull for but I would much rather pull for the one with the arena 2 miles from here instead of 2 time zones.

Others have similar opinions, as seen in this forum. I have yet to hear someone say C-SET is anything other than a bad idea (at best) or a slap in our faces. If you have a different opinion, please share it. I really want to like Bob’s Cats.