Year in Review and Next Steps

One other consideration: orange give away t-shirts.

I know they're probably more expensive. However, a lot of teams are establishing a single color for all fans to wear during important games (ie playoffs). We're in a unique position to establish orange as our color.

Wearing orange could help create solidarity and unity amongst fans, plus add to the experience of attending a game. It's the kind of little tradition that helps people with marginal interest in the game normally (house wives, children, etc.) get more into the game.

eww i cant agree with orange making a comeback. get rid of it... and give away blue ones instead. blue with orange wouldnt be bad maybe.

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Originally Posted by Mustachio

eww i cant agree with orange making a comeback. get rid of it... and give away blue ones instead. blue with orange wouldnt be bad maybe.

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Mustachio, I tend to hate wearing orange and 95% of all my shirts are blue or are based on some blue based pattern.

That being said, orange is what would separate us best from other teams. Plus, a giant coliseum of orange would energize the team more than a giant wash of dark blue. Even though I wouldn't normally wear the color orange, I would definitely do it if we had a big game and that became the thing to do.

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Originally Posted by dnbman

Mustachio, I tend to hate wearing orange and 95% of all my shirts are blue or are based on some blue based pattern.

That being said, orange is what would separate us best from other teams. Plus, a giant coliseum of orange would energize the team more than a giant wash of dark blue. Even though I wouldn't normally wear the color orange, I would definitely do it if we had a big game and that became the thing to do.

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I agree, 'Orange-outs' would be awesome.

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Originally Posted by Michael Thompson

First off, thank you for welcoming me into your community. I'm sure there were some raised eyebrows at first, but hopefully I've answered your questions openly and honestly and given you some idea as to the direction and thinking of the organization on a variety of topics. I thought I would take a moment to re-vist a thread we started back in January, I believe, about the things you would like to see the organization change that could in turn help us build a bigger fan base. This is not so much an exercise in checking off items on the list, but more a remider of the great ideas you guys had that we as an organization haven't had a chance to evaluate and/or act on yet.

By sheer volume, the television situation appeared to be issue number one back then. While we have obviously taken enormous strides to improve our carriage throughout the region thanks to Time Warner Cable, FSN South and MyTV12, there are still a few kinks in the new system (Upstate SC, outside of Wilmington, etc) that we're working on now. As soon as I hear more I will post here on the board.

Issue number two appeared to be what we call internally "experential marketing" - the way you as fans experience our brand (game presentation, events and promotions, interactive opportunities, etc). This is a pretty broad category with a lot of different feedback ranging from the noise level in the Arena to player accessability to the dance team. In addressing your concerns, I can tell you that in the offseason, teams review every facet of their business - including all the things you've alluded to. There will be post mortems on our game presentation, player appearance program and dance team performance among many. Those reviews typically take place starting now, with the rest of the summer spent preparing for next season and beyond. Just like our players, we spend the offseason trying to improve as well.

Issue number three was the website. We've had a lot of discussion subsequent to the re-launch. Now that you've had it for a few months, what are your thoughts? Getting used to it? Like the emphasis on video? Is it meeting our goal of making Bobcats.com the most comprehensive source of news about the team? Let me know.

Then there were a number of issues that had one or two comments covering an extremely broad range of topics from the supposed "arena boycott" (of which I've never seen any evidence, but I love Mayor Pro Tem Burgess' response to that question: "The Arena is here, it's wonderful, get over it!") to the supposed "Hornets hangover" and antipathy towards the NBA. After a season like this, with 8 50-win teams in the West, a resurgence of the franchises in Boston, Philly, Atlanta and New Orleans, a phenomenal All-Star week, the tightest MVP race in years, a ratings bonanza across the board (nationally, regionally and locally), a new record for hits to NBA.com, and the emergence of the game's soon-to-be leading stars (Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, Deron Williams, etc) who are all terrific guys off the court as well, I find it hard to believe that the whole world is excited about the NBA again - except for this market. Maybe it will take a playoff run by the Bobcats to turn things around. Which leads to the final issue. . .

"Coaching change/win more" games seems to be the most universally hailed cure to all of the above ills, based on the number of active threads devoted to this topic. There's no question that winning does that for an organization. The Hornets aren't doing anything new from a game presentation/dance team/website/television standpoint that has suddenly captured the imagination fans in New Orleans and given them 9 consecutive sellouts. But doing all of those things well in the first place, long before they had a division championship team, makes everything standout when the team starts winning. Internally, we call it being "50 win ready". And the great thing about the NBA is, putting a 50 win team on the floor can happen very, very quickly. That means we have to get ready right now.

With Coach Brown on the sidelines, great young talent whose potential will really have a chance to come out and a few players on the verge of becoming All-Stars, we should be on our way a level we haven't experienced yet. What else, as an organization, should we be looking at to get ready for success on the court?

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1 - I'm really happy and excited that the team got the TV situation solved, good job to everybody who was involved in doing that it's just too bad that we kept the team away from millions of people for 4 seasons but the bright side is they'll start seeing us right when we're gonna be getting good.

2 - I have a problem with in-game atmosphere. I believe that the PA announcer is WAY TOO LOUD. There is no reason for him to be screaming like that and sometimes he's just way too hyper and excited. I understand that's his job, to pump up the crowd but to be honest the crowd gets more pumped up when free shirts are thrown into the stands than any time the PA screams something. It's uncomfortable to listen to and just sort of gaudy. I'm also of the opinion that the reason why you come to basketball games is to see the basketball because after all that's the show that you paid the money for; saying that, I'm not a big fan of all the extra stuff going on before, during and after games. To me, a lot of that stuff is very corny and actually brings the whole experience down but I definitely see the purpose of it and I doubt it will ever leave. I mean I don't know this but do they have clowns walking around on stilts and random people singing in the concourse at say Knicks/Lakers/Bulls/Celtics games because for some reason that seems unlikely to me.

3 - I was critical of the website at first but now I love it, it's a tremendous improvement and I love all the videos, the more of them the better.

wasn't there a study that brighter colors have a larger psychological effect on people? i think that's the reason the heat have the whole white tshirt thing going, i think a sea of bright orange would effect the opposing team more than dark blue... plus i mean white isn't a staple of the heat uniforms...so i mean if we have orange in the crowd that doesn't mean our uni's have to be orange

"Color"-outs only look good if it's a sell-out and if everyone in the arena puts the shirt on.

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Originally Posted by Alex

"Color"-outs only look good if it's a sell-out and if everyone in the arena puts the shirt on.

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Yeah, I don't think we should try for a color-out every game. However, if the free t-shirts they gave away were orange instead of gray or white, more people would have orange shirts for the bigger games.

However, if it did become the norm to wear orange during games, the color-out would take care of itself.

On Alex's point about the random stuff going on at games: that kind of stuff is pretty crucial for the folks who come to games that aren't big fans of the game/team. My wife hates sports but really enjoyed the games she went to because of things like the camera views on the jumbo-tron, the dramatic entrance, the games during time-outs. I think it's corny too, but it's undeniable that it generates interest for the casual fan or the folks who are just along for the ride with a real fan. I don't mind it as long as it doesn't take away from the game, like last night's fire ring debacle in New Orleans!

I try to wear my (cheap!) orange Bobcats tee shirt to games as often as I can. I take a lot of pride in it.

I agree with Dnbman. The external "festival" atmosphere is important for the casual fan, so the music, clowns, dancers and all is very nice.

But as Alex mentioned there are two components of this that remain....one which I'm sure won't change....but the other definitely should.

First, the blatant commercialism of the events.....is kind of embarrassing after a while, but hell if you took that away you might have to decrease players salaries or worse yet increase ticket prices. At least we're not the "Lowe's Tee Shirt Give Away Charlotte Bobcats" and Emeka Okafor isn't our "Harris Teeter Starting Center!" DON'T USE THAT IDEA!

Second though, as has been often mentioned...the volume of the PA is outrageous. I'm not sure why you guys don't see this. It goes on virtually non-stop all game. Its so loud that you can not carry on any form of conversation with the person next to you unless you yell directly into their ear. That plus for season tickets holders that DO go to a lot of games, YOU are damaging our hearing. You've got to deal with this, you're killing games out there.

When there's only 10,000 or 12,000 people in the stands....TURN THE DAMN THING DOWN! :hypo:

rather than turn the PA guy down. Just get a guy who does a better job than the current PA. Id like someone a little smoother. this current PA sounds like its his first time doing this kind of gig