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Charlotte Bobcats Arena


utcltjay

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I am throughly surprised by how well they have handled the traffic situation. As you say dubone, it seems to be a non-event.

That's the power of a street grid and all the nearby highways for you. There are bunches of high-capcity roads and freeways through and radiating from uptown, while the old Tyvola arena was accessible from one road: Tyvola. This is why suburban arenas are always a traffic nightmare and never work.

How many people enter and leave uptown Charlotte at rush hour every day? 60,000? 18,000 people from a basketball game is chump change in comparison. And how many of the people going to these games in the evening just stuck around after work?

Not that it's on the radar screen for most people, but the bus station is right next door too. If you don't want to pay for parking, it's a one-seat ride in and out for just about anyone. Light rail will help even more.

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http://charlotte.bizjournals.com/charlotte.../12/story1.html

The Bobcats have hired a new company to pursue naming rights for the arena. The article states what has already seemed clear, that none of the large local corporations are likely.

The Bobcats hope to have a deal by the start of next season. We'll see how successful they are.

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It is ashame that the only way to justify naming rights that expensive is to have advertising value. It would be nice for it to be named for a person, like "Levine" if Family Dollar were to buy the rights. But that just isn't how it works at that level of price tag.

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Very impressive. Only 2500 fewer people than the Hurricanes drew earlier this week in Raleigh against the Ottawa Senators, the team with the best record in the NHL.

Although Ottawa is currently considered the best team, it not like they have a A-list of superstars. (Actually Detroit is probably the better team, but Ottawa is getting more press since they are Canada's darling). Plus, the Ottawa game was not part of any ticket package except the full season 42 game plan. It would be like Toronto basketball team coming into Charlotte n with the best record in basketball on a Tuesday night on no ticket package. No real superstars but good players. Although a good team, many people who bought the 24. 10 and other game plans are going to watch on TV (Canes TV/Radio audience is growing very rapidly after the lockout) instead of humping their 2 middle schooler down to the RBC at $55 a piece plus $40 bucks worth of parking , food and couple of brews for good ole DAD.

And yes, this is after a year lock-out where corporate tickets were hard to sell (Corporate sponsors all stayed with the Canes plus they picked up several others (Lenovo was a big sponsor pick-up and CarQuest has joined back in---both local HQed companies) With a decent year and a play-off run, next year, the base ticket sales (all packages) will improve greatly, especially the 42 game corporate seats which were a hard sell after the lock-out.

A bit different from "a kids get in free" game and the best tickets are less than $20. Of course, a bit difference in the game and talent. Right now, the Canes are 24th in attendance and they change in and out with Chicago (at 23rd) depending on the home stand that just happened. That is ahead of some cities with Hockey teams for more than 40 years (St Louis, Chicago, Pittsburgh, etc)

I noticed that the Bobcats were 20th in attendance in the NBA. Good, but like Hockey, after a couple of years of bad seasons (and with Hockey--a lock out) and you got some bottom-feeding Western Conference Team coming in on a Monday/Tuesday night, the attendance is not going to shine.

I think the Canes will end up around 20th--22nd, maybe higher, in attendance as the season moves on and gets closer to playoffs. A lot of buzz in the Triangle and the southeast and gets a lot of play on ESPN. Even Barry Melrose says positive things about us and that has taken 7 years to get that from Melrose. I was in Asia and watching the BBC World Sport and the only games they covered from the US of any sport one day were the Canes. Good for Raleigh and the Triangle. (except on the same day the big news was the 1000 person executed in the US and that was also in Raleigh )

I like to tell the story of my brother-in-law was in Moscow working the final papers on a adoption and he had a coat on with a small Canes swirl. He had 3 Muscovites come up to him and say

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  • 1 month later...

About half way through the basketball and hockey seasons, the Bobcats and Checkers are both up in attenance over last year.

The Bobcats have an average attendance of 16,479 through 20 home games which ranks 20th of 30 teams. That is up 12.4% from last years average of 14,431.

The Checkers have an average attendance of 5,505 through 17 games which gives them the 5th highest average in the ECHL's 25 teams. That is up 8.3% from last years 5,048. That should go up some as the Checkers have played very few home games on weekends, but will be playing at the arena over the next four weekends.

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Not directly related to the Arena, but does anyone know if there are plans to develop the two "pork chop" parcels of land adjacent to the Arena (between 5th and 6th), or the lot between Imaginon and Courtside? I'd like to see the surface lots go away...

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You can pretty much rely on the block between Courtside and Imaginon to be stagnant for a while (I sure I hope I am wrong here), but most of that block is owned by La Point Chevrolet, and has been for a long time. They'd rather keep parking revenues going in perpetuity, I'm sure.

Preferred Parking bought the eastern porkchop, and other than some speculation on UP that it could be Furman's next tower, I haven't heard anything.

I'm not sure if the second porkchop has been sold.

Even though there were high hopes for an Arena district, and it has somewhat come about with Courtside, Court6, Imaginon, Ritz, and Epicenter (and maybe the Park) all going up within a block of the Arena. But given how much surface parking there is downtown, there are bound to be blocks of someone's most hated lot that will sit empty.

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20th out of 30 teams for the Bobcats is honestly not bad! Yeah we have a new arena, but the team is no longer new. And quite frankly.... they suck this year!!!

I guess the predictions of sellouts when they moved downtown were pre-mature. On a related note, the city is finding itself with an extra $1 million or so in increased police costs, that it did not have when the areaa was on Tyvola road, for extra policemen to direct traffic. They are unsure what to do about it, but my suggest would be to place the bill into the bobcat's lap. My guess is the taxpayers will absorb this as well.

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Personally, I don't think those police costs will be permanent because it is a bit overkill. I think it is just at the beginning to get people comfortable. Already they have less than they did for the first few events.

I also expect they will get the Bobcats to contribute to it.

That said, I am not sure what the problem is. Any time there is any new generator of economic activity or population, there will be an increase in police cost.

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Is anyone else disappointed with the outdoor lighting scheme for the arena? I thought that it was just construction delays in getting the exterior finished, but the building's been open three months now and it still looks like crap at nighttime.

I like the purplish lights visible driving up Caldwell... but, overall, it does seem less than it could be. Maybe once the retail is open and has its own signage?

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I like the purplish lights, but they are kind of random to me, in that they aren't the colors for the team. Surely they could have interspersed orange and blue lighting to at least have a meaning to the color. I haven't really scrutized the rest of the lighting, but I can't say I am either impressed or upset about it. But I'm no lighting expert.

I am fairly sure, though, that the skybeams and all that from the original plans were probably scrapped as being superfluous and wasteful. They bring in searchlights for major events anyway, but it isn't like we need all that for a Checkers game.

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  • 2 weeks later...

http://charlotte.bizjournals.com/charlotte.../20/story6.html

Attendance for the Bobcats is now 20th in the NBA. I wish we'd had a better year, but it sure beats being at the bottom of the pack.

I'm really excited at the prospect of lower ticket prices. I think they tried to push it too hard when they moved into the new arena. It is a nice place, but it still is a bad and new team.

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