Says here that the Bobcats — and by extension the city of Charlotte — are turning to high-powered booking agency AEG to land more musical acts for the Uptown Arena. Don’t you believe it.

There is the small matter of there not being acts out there who can fill the $265 million building. It simply is not true that Charlotte has missed out on shows since the building opened a scant three years ago. Besides, were we not told by city leaders that having a new building would automatically prevent such a thing from happening?

New bookers cannot create acts out of thin air for the 19,000-seat arena. There are tours that want the 10,000-seat venues, as Matchbox 20 did last night and the Foo Fighters before them. Both played Cricket Arena, not Uptown.

Then there are scheduling conflicts. Charlotte has a ton of sports events this spring Uptown and always 41 home NBA games, plus Checkers hockey. That necessarily squeezes out concerts. Arena management has made that choice, including taking four days in April to host Bob Johnson’s pet event, the Charlotte Jumpers Classic. The horse show will draw virtually no one and fills up dates that, say, AEG client Bon Jovi might otherwise play instead.

Speaking of acts Charlotte might conceivably be missing, Def Leppard and Blue Man Group look to be the only Uptown Arena tier acts by-passing the Queen City in the near future. AEG client and Super Bowl halftime act Tom Petty is already booked into the Verizon Amphitheater. Uptown will get Bruce Springsteen, who will miss playing Raleigh.

Realistically, we are talking a handful of dates a year that Charlotte might pick up with AEG. Unless we start poaching dates from the city-run Cricket Arena, and wouldn’t that be a hoot?

There is also the issue of actual ticket sales and building management. Stevie Wonder played to a half-empty building several weeks ago, a fact which did not go unnoticed in touring circles. The Bobcats also have a policy of turning off the credit card point of sale kiosks for at least some shows, no doubt depending on what the tour act is willing to pay for the building. It has always been unclear just how efficiently the building has been run and as long as no one associated with the city seems to care, I guess it will remain that way.

The bottomline is that a new booking agent is not going to suddenly fix the Arena. The concept of the building as a money-maker was flawed from the outset. Unless it has an NBA owner as its major tenant who is willing to subsidize any operating losses, we have a simmering problem that is not going away.

Bonus Observation: The Uptown paper of record account does not even mention that Van Halen kicked off its first tour in 20 years in Charlotte — an event that drew huge world-wide pub and a sellout crowd — and exactly zero lasting impact. But it does relate this: The arena hosted events on only 144 days in 2007, down from 178 the previous year and short of the 200-plus dates the Bobcats want. They won’t get there in 2008 either.

Bonus Question: I checked out the presale for Jerry Seinfeld tix at Ovens and couldn’t believe the prices. A total of $71 a pop for balcony seats. Evidently anything closer is $86. For a comedy show. Big production values there.

Anyone else shocked by those numbers? Who is paying that?