Fri17

2009 Charlotte Bobcats training camp will be held in Charlotte

Posted by on Apr 17, 2009 in Bob Johnson | 0 comments

A quick note from KCBD.com

In an effort to cut costs, the Charlotte Bobcats likely will hold next season’s training camp at their own practice facility and not field a summer league team.

Coach Larry Brown says Friday that the weeklong training camp will probably move from UNC Wilmington to the team’s practice court at Time Warner Cable Arena. The Bobcats likely won’t have a team in the Las Vegas summer league as they did a year ago.

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Wed24

AN IDEA FOR BOB JOHNSON

Posted by on Sep 24, 2008 in Bob Johnson | 0 comments

Note: ** This was written prior to the Carl Landry signing  

Okay, maybe Ziggy is right. There really is NOTHING going on in Bobcats Universe right now. So, with so much time to think about the team and no games to watch or news to read (the Donell Taylor signing wasn’t exactly BIG news) I have all these crazy ideas going around in my head and most of them are just that- crazy. However, every once in a while I’ll have one that I think is actually a good one. Here is the latest one: If Bob Johnson isn’t happy with the teams popularity (or lack there of) in and around Charlotte then this is what he should do: Instead of having training camp in Wilmington and playing all of the home preseason games in Charlotte, the team should have training camp in Columbia, SC at the USC campus and play one preseason game in Raleigh at the RBC Center.

Why? This is why: Wilmington is 195 miles from Charlotte and has a population of 75,00 and a metro population of 275,000. Columbia is only an hour and a half from Charlotte (about 95 miles away) and has a poulation of 125,000 and a metro area of 716,000. If Johnson wants to expand the fan base throughout the region then it makes logical sense. The fact that Wilmington is MJ’s hometown isn’t enough of a reason to ignore the Columbia market. The team should try to be not just Charlotte’s NBA team but the NBA team of both Carolinas. The Panthers have Carolina in their name and they have training camp in Spartensburg, SC every year so why shouldn’t the Bobcats follow suit? The USC campus is very nice and alot of NBA teams go to a college nearby (ex. Houston Rockets have their’s at the University of Texas in Austin).

Why does a preseason game in Raleigh make sense? The same logic applies. The Raleigh-Durahm metro area is the secong largest in the state and the RBC Center is an NBA type of arena. The NBA and NHL have similar standards for their arenas so it makes more sense than say the Dean Smith Center. Increasing your exposure throughout the reigon is something most NBA teams do. The Magic play a preseason game in Tampa every year and the Lakers are actually hosting the Bobcats this year in Anaheim and San Diego!

I’m sure Johnson will be fine financially without me giving him advice. Afterall, he did sell BET for 3 billion dollars. I’m just sayin’ he might want to think about this one.

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Fri18

Blogcat’s take 4/18

Posted by on Apr 18, 2008 in Bob Johnson | 0 comments

The Bobcats season ended with a whimper on Wednesday—a literal whimper, that is, as owner Bob Johnson complained about a lack of “support” (or in other words, “money”) from Charlotte businesses.  As always, Johnson’s timing was perfect…ly bizarre.  Just a few days earlier, Johnson had publicly praised the “commitment of the community.”  All of a sudden, however, Johnson was “absolutely concerned,” about the local corporations’ lack of “commitment to be a part of the Bobcats.”  Jeez, talk about a flip-flop!  We might be dealing with multiple personalities here—can somebody get Herschel Walker on the line? 
Johnson also claims to have lost “significant money” on the team so far.  (Note: I’m assuming that at some point in the interview, he eventually expressed disappointment about his team still being lousy after four years and then followed it up with a public pledge to get better on the court, but I didn’t actually see anything about that).  There are a staggering number of questions/interpretations that spring from the “significant money” remark.  Off the top of my head: 
1) What’s a “significant amount” of money for a billionaire?
2)  How is losing a significant amount of money possible when your arena was built for free?
3)  How is it possible after you’ve raised ticket prices for two straight years?
4)  How is it possible when you’re one of just a handful of teams who don’t exceed the salary cap?
5)  How is it possible when you compete in a league with built-in cost controls and revenue sharing?
6)  How is it possible when you just sold the naming rights to your arena?  We don’t know how much money was exchanged in the Time-Warner deal, but the average annual price for naming rights is $3 million.*
But the most interesting question of all is: how would Johnson wish the public to react to these complaints?  The way I see it, there are only two choices: sympathetically (which is sort of unrealistic, considering—forgive me if I’m having a little trouble getting past this particular point—he’s a billionaire) or scornfully (as in, “How incompetent can one be to fail in the impossible-to-fail industry of sports-team ownership?”).  If you’re Johnson, neither of these reactions seems desirable (I guess he’d rather be viewed sympathetically, but that’s not very manly of him, is it?), so what’s his motive?  He’s practically turning himself into a real-life configuration of the pro wrestler-heel, who actively tries to get the crowd to hate him and complains to the refs when they don’t rule in his favor.  But unless he’s about to announce he’s wrestling Mark Cuban in a “Loser-Leaves-the-NBA” Cage Match at SummerSlam, none of this makes sense.
Maybe he’s just bitter.  You know, you go to some of these small town owners in the NBA, and like a lot of small town owners in other leagues, treating their teams as tax write-offs has been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced it.  Instead, the paying fans actually want you to care about the team and make it competitive.  So it’s not surprising then that these owners get bitter, they cling to fan indifference or lack of corporate sponsorships as a way to explain their frustrations.   
Anyway, I’m no billionaire businessman who rules his sports team from afar and is almost never seen in public except to exploit the fan base, but my advice to Johnson would be to get in on the new Foreclosure Prevention Act that’s currently kicking around in Congress and the Senate.  True, his problems don’t have much to do with housing foreclosures, but then again neither do GM’s, Ford’s, or the domestic airlines—yet they’re all lined up for some sweet tax breaks and refunds that will be part of the bill.  Oh wait, Johnson doesn’t actually have to pay any taxes on his arena.  That’s right, not only was it built for him, he pays no property taxes on it.  Is it possible to get breaks or refunds on taxes you don’t pay in the first place?  I’m not even sure if Halliburton can answer that one.  
Hmmm.  Where to go when you’ve already received every possible hand-out?  There’s got to be some sort of loophole out there—right?  Otherwise, the only alternative would be to (shudder) put a better team on the court.  I know, I know, that’s some serious outside-the-box thinking.  But it’s just crazy enough to actually work.      
*Ask.com

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Tue15

Response to Bob Johnson’s comments

Posted by on Apr 15, 2008 in Bob Johnson | 0 comments

BobcatsPlanet member TheBeagle reponds to comments made by Charlotte Bobcats owner Bob Johnson.

 I live about 70-75 miles north of Charlotte.  I only venture to the Queen City to see the Cats and go to the Heroes ComicCon once every few years and to see Panthers playoff games (which averages to one game a century!).  I’m totally ignorant of the politics, its populace, its populace’s politics, etc.  Therefore my input about the relationship between Charlotte and its sports comes only from assumptions and inferences.

1.  Like most all of the South, it cherishes its college sports more dearly than pro teams.

2.  There is still massive enmity with the NBA about what went down with the Hornets…and probably always will be.

3.  Generally speaking, racism is definitely still prevelant in the area, and having a team managed by a signifcant number of blacks makes the team a lightning rod for controversy….BUT these morons have no effect on the team in reality;  I find it hard to believe that any racist would have ever been interested in the NBA in the first place, so they were likely never Hornets fans either, and if so, they are fans I’d soon as not have.  These braindead jacklegs, though, are in the minority, and like all hate mongers, they only only their mouths to spew venom (and give each other the occasional BJ…..sorry had to get that in there Tongue ) so take all that you read/hear with a grain of salt…I know I do.

4.  With a contending team, and respectable media coverage, both local and national, I doubt there will be a problem getting 19.2K into the arena on a consistent basis.

5.  We live in a rude and hostile world, yet ironically, people have as much of a need as ever to feel a sense of belonging and to be a part of a group.  I think this figures into the response the Bobcats have recieved; basically, instead of being a part of something new and giving it a chance, they’d rather subvert together and hate on the NBA because that’s what everyone else is doing.  I could be wrong about this, but I really get this impression when I listen to the occasional sports talk radio, notably Primetime on WFNZ, and the pleebs that call in and trash anything that’s not college or football related for no reason.  I guess think of it as “mob mentality.”  Obviously, these people can be easily swayed because when it becomes trendy to talk about the NBA and the Bobcats, these same people will be the ones saying they were on the “bandwagon” from day one.

6.  Bob needs to chill out and realize there’s a brutal economy out there right now.  A billionaire whining about losing money to a fanbase that is mostly middle class comes off in poor taste.  Like one of the interviewees indicates in the article, a winning team will bring about more interest in both casual fans and potential investors.  

7.  As long as MJ gives equal time to his business as he does his personal, I have no problem with him remaining in cognito.  Now, if he were majority owner, or even the titled GM, I’d expect to see more of him in Charlotte, but he’s in charge of basketball operations, not media relations, not community relations.  I know I’m in the minority on this, but I don’t see how he has any obligation to Charlotte outside of putting a winning team on the court; just let him do his job.

8.  Last point.  I don’t understand why there is the concern about attendance thus far in the team’s history.  I think it would’ve been terribly naive to think that you take a winning team out of a city and dump another expansion team in its place that you’d get sell out crowds automatically.  The NBA is nothing new to the area, so there is no novelty in it (a la the Oklahoma City experiment).  I’m impressed with 24th out of 30, to be honest, especially considering the disappointment this season has been.  Hell, there’s 6 teams with worse attendance, and there’s 7 teams with a worse record than us, as of now, so I think that’s acceptable. 

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Wed06

Idle Hands Now Devlin’s Workshop

Posted by on Jun 6, 2007 in Bob Johnson | 0 comments

I regret to inform you that televised Bobcats games (at least, those 30% or so they bother to broadcast) will no longer feature Matt Devlin on play-by-play.  This comes as a tremendous blow to those of us who’ve suffered through the last three seasons, in which Matt’s relentless cheerfulness and game show host haircut were the only things we could count on.  That mischievous grin, that playful banter…Ingratitude is more strong than traitor’s arms, and this was the unkindest cut of all.  
 
USA Today writes that Devlin’s firing was “another shake-up for the struggling franchise,” although I’m not sure why any of the Bobcats’ problems would be considered Matt’s fault.  Unless management thinks Matt’s been so mesmerizing on play-by-play that fans were intentionally staying home just to listen to him.  Or maybe Coach Bickerstaff suspects Matt’s been secretly sending Sean May orders of Krispy Kremes, knowing full-well that Sean would be no match for their powers of tastiness.  I don’t know, but to me this reeks of scapegoating.  Matt’s a private in this Abu Ghraib.
 
So I was feeling so bummed out about Matt’s pink slip that I decided to write a song to cheer myself up.  I have fun with music from time to time.  For instance, once in college—just for kicks—I sent an email to my father about how I was feeling all depressed, and that I’d written a poem I wanted him to read that described my feelings.  Except then I just cut-and-pasted the lyrics to “The Unforgiven” by Metallica.  This was not a good idea as it turned out, because of course my father wouldn’t know who Metallica was if James Hetfield walked up to him and set his hair on fire. 
So my father got all terrified that I was suicidal (not to mention confused, especially by lines like, “The old man then prepares to die regretfully/That old man here is me,” considering I was only about 20 at the time).  What ended up happening is my poor father, now scared out of his mind that his only son was on the verge of blowing his brains out hundreds of miles away from home, yelled for the rest of the family to gather around the computer, and then recited my poem in what I imagined to be a quivering, panic-stricken voice.  Fortunately, my younger sister was there, and about two lines into the “poem” she said, “Wait a second, he didn’t write that.”  Needless to say, my father was kind of pissed once it was revealed to him that my poem was nothing more than a ridiculous power ballad by a bunch of burnt-out metalheads.  It was a pretty mean thing to do, I suppose, and I felt so bad about it that it took me nearly two years before I could tell that story to others without falling out of my chair.
 
ANYWAY, this song is I believe what the kids today refer to as a “mash-up.”  One of the best songs ever written—right below “American Pie,” in my opinion—was “Hot in Herre” by Nelly.  I can’t listen to that song to this day without getting practically misty eyed over that glorious spring/summer of 2002.  I’d been thinking of a way to make a parody of that tune, when what do I see is coming up on AMC?  Ben-Hur.  Bingo.  This little exercise gave me a whole new appreciation for the work of "Weird Al" Yankovic, because I could only make the chorus sound like the actual "Hot in Herre" lyrics, while he can do it for all the verses and the chorus–the man's a genius. 
Also, this one might have a limited audience, as I’m guessing most people who are familiar with Nelly are probably not fans of Charlton Heston movies, and vice versa.  But anyway, Matt Devlin, this one’s for you, and if you can’t catch a gig with any other teams out there, at least there are always game shows (in particular, I’d like to see someone revive Press Your Luck, as I imagine modern day digital technology would vastly improve those animated “Wammy” sequences):
 
“Hot in Ben-Hur”
Messala, my boyhood friend
Said we’d be brothers until the end
And it’s no problem that I’m a Jew
“For we Romans like you for you”
They’ll never treat me like a knave
And the last thing they’d want is me enslaved
Now he must leave and see other lands
But we’ll be close no matter how much Rome expands
Messala’s back, says “you’re still a Jew, I see
Sorry, old pal, it’s off to the galley”
 
CHORUS 1
The galley’s hot, Ben-Hur
Best take off all your clothes
I am so rowed-out, I want to take these chains off
 
Starved and abused, but I refuse to submit
 This strange man with long hair just won’t let me quit
He tends to my needs, overlooks my vice
Guess that’s why my story’s subtitled “A Tale of the Christ”
Now I’m back, strong and proud, revenge all I see
Messala, you’re a dead man, to hell with “love thine enemy”
This movie’s so odd, it’s only fitting, I guess
To settle our differences on chariots
 
CHORUS 2
This arena’s hot, Ben-Hur
So take off down the course
My temper got so hot, I wanna run Messala over
 
Done with Messala, but still feel irate
Now I’ve gotta deal with that clown, Pontius Pilate
And if that’s not enough, what’s this I see:
Mom and sis have contracted leprosy
I want more revenge, but they say let them be
They’ve been listening to that Nazareth hippie
Too big for his britches, Pilate demands
A crown of thorns for him, and nails in his hands
But wait, I know him!  It’s He who saves
And too late I see his message: “forgiveness pays”
 
CHORUS 3
Jesus is hot, Ben-Hur
So take him off the cross
It is raining so hard, but the leprosy wore off
{moscomment} 

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Sun24

Is Bob Johnson the Grinch?

Posted by on Dec 24, 2006 in Bob Johnson | 0 comments

The Charlotte Observer reported today thaCharlotte Bobcats majority owner Bob Johnson has blocked the attempts of minority owner Felix Sabtas to donate his shares of the team to charity.

 

 

 

Snippet from the Observer 

Charlotte Bobcats managing partner Bob Johnson has blocked minority owner Felix Sabates' effort to contribute his share of the team to charity.

Sabates wants to give his Bobcats stock, which he values at about $1.34 million, to the foundation that supports Carolinas HealthCare System. Sabates sits on the board of that system.

"I was surprised Bob wouldn't approve this, considering it's a donation," Sabates told the Observer in an interview Friday.

Link to full article  

I'm all for making sound business decisions and doing whats best for the future of your company,  but in this case the benefits of the positive press that he and the Bobcats would receive (which is badly needed) would outweigh any negatives of allowing this charitable donation.

{moscomment} 

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