Dear Sports Fan,
I read an article the other day that said the Charlotte Bobcats was changing their name to the Charlotte Hornets. What’s up with that? Why are they changing their name?
Thanks,
Tommy
Dear Tommy,
It’s true, the Charlotte area professional basketball team is changing their name from the Bobcats to the Hornets. They are doing this in part because the name, which has a history in the Charlotte area dating back to the Revolutionary War, has recently become available, but it’s also because they haven’t built a very reputable brand for themselves as the Bobcats.
In 1985 the National Basketball Association decided to add four new teams to its league. Charlotte eventually became the home to one of those four teams and in the fall of 1988 the team started its first season as the Hornets. They played there for fourteen years until 2002 when following what sounds like some really ugly politics between the city of Charlotte and the unsavory owner of the Hornets, the team moved to New Orleans. In one of the great “it’s not you, it’s me… or in this case your horrible owner,” the NBA immediately said that they would locate one of their next expansion teams in Charlotte. This team started in 2004 and became the Charlotte Bobcats. The original team kept its name and its colors when it moved to New Orleans and has played as the New Orleans Hornets for the last five years. This year, the team officially announced that they were going to change their name to the New Orleans Pelicans! (Pelicans have become a symbol of the city since the oil spill in 2010.) This change, of course, meant that the Hornets name was available again and after weeks of rumor, the Charlotte team officially petitioned the league for the name back.
Both of the teams have not won very much in their recent history. The Bobcats (soon to be the Hornets again) have only ever had one season when they won more games than they lost. This was also the one year that they made the playoffs but they did not win a single playoff game. Ouch. The Pelicans (recently the Hornets) have done a little better since moving to New Orleans than their replacement in Charlotte but not by much. They have made the playoffs five times and even won a playoff series once, in 2007-2008. In the past two years though they have won fewer than 30 games out of 82 each season. Both teams are looking to re-brand their team and what better way to do it than with a new name and colors? In Charlotte, the team will be trying to “galvanize our fan base by unifying our loyal Bobcats fans with those who have strong memories of our city’s NBA predecessor.” In New Orleans, the team is “excited to start a new era in Louisiana basketball history.”
One wonders what would happen if all the NBA teams that have moved had done this. Maybe the team in New Orleans would be happy with its old name, the Jazz that now belongs to the team in Utah. The LA Lakers would have to send their name back to Minnesota (the land of ten thousand lakes) who I’m guessing would be happy to shed the name Timberwolves. Philadelphia would be able to choose between their current name, the 76ers or their original name, the Warriors, now used by the team in “Golden State” or Northern California. Memphis would probably be happy to stop confusing people by having a team called the Grizzlies which was originally located in Vancouver.
So where does that leave us? If you ask some animal experts, like this New Orleans radio station did, everything is okay — both animals are well equipped to inspire basketball teams:
Atherton pointed out the pelican’s ability to ward off enemies and intimidate rivals with its sharp beak tooth and aggressive wing flapping. Lemann made a case for the hornet as an excellent mascot, for its fierce, stinging defensive reputation.
Thanks for the question,
Ezra Fischer