News that new New Orleans Hornets Tom Benson owner wants to change the team’s name to something besides Hornets has stirred speculation that the Charlotte Bobcats might become the Charlotte Hornets. That’s certainly a nice idea, but there are at least two big issues:
1. There’s a big question of how fast any name change could happen. Rick Bonnell says don’t expect it before 2015. I think even that’s too optimistic if the Charlotte franchise chooses to rebrand itself as the Hornets. I would expect that Benson and/or the NBA to insist on a couple of year break in which no team was called the Hornets to minimize confusion and strengthen brand awareness for both the New Orleans and Charlotte teams’ new names.
2. A name change, whenever it might happen and whether to Hornets, Cougars, or something else, doesn’t in any way reduce the need for the team to put a respectable product on the floor. Right now, the team offers little entertainment value. Unless they get substantially better, the real question is not what they’ll be called in three or five years but rather where they’ll be playing (hint: not in Charlotte).
Bonus observation: Renaming a perpetually crappy team like the Bobcats into the Hornets is kind of an insult to the original NBA Charlotte Hornets, which went to the playoffs seven of their 14 seasons in town and never finish below .500 their 10 seasons here.
