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If the bobcats are marketed better... i think more players would be inclined to join them.... but i dont see much marketing power in this team... atleast not yet... MJ needs to do something about this.
What do you guys think?

You are dead on, I would start by getting other teams announcers to stop calling us the Hornets. Maybe Nelly can wear Cats gear in his next video

we have 3 high profile owners and 2 are too proud to self-promote the team. it blew my mind when bob johnson said MJ would expect to be paid for promotional appearances on behalf of the team. even james worthy recent called MJ out and said he needed to step up and be more involved with the team, especially for a promotional standpoint. but hey, they are the ones losing money, not me.

hopefully we will see a difference next season with the games on foxsports.

in the end, marketing in the NBA is now done at a player level and not a team level. until the bobcats get a mega-marketing star, things wont change too much, even as we start winning more games.

fatlever wrote:we have 3 high profile owners and 2 are too proud to self-promote the team. it blew my mind when bob johnson said MJ would expect to be paid for promotional appearances on behalf of the team. even james worthy recent called MJ out and said he needed to step up and be more involved with the team, especially for a promotional standpoint. but hey, they are the ones losing money, not me.

hopefully we will see a difference next season with the games on foxsports.

in the end, marketing in the NBA is now done at a player level and not a team level. until the bobcats get a mega-marketing star, things wont change too much, even as we start winning more games.

Did he actually say that? I thought he was just making a point that MJ's time was valuable...that he got a lot of money for public appearances and it wasn't appropriate to expect him to spend a lot of time marketing for the team instead.

Maybe you can assume that's what he meant, but I didn't take it quite that way.

Exhibit 1,000,000 in the case that MJ is a world-class douche-bag....

spectre_ wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



Did he actually say that? I thought he was just making a point that MJ's time was valuable...that he got a lot of money for public appearances and it wasn't appropriate to expect him to spend a lot of time marketing for the team instead.

Maybe you can assume that's what he meant, but I didn't take it quite that way.

the quote wasnt directly from jordan, but rather from bob johnson about jordan.

heres the meat of it

Where's Michael?

He was at last week's announcement about renaming the arena after Time Warner Cable and signing a new TV deal with Fox Sports Net. But the most famous player in NBA history has mostly kept a low profile as a Bobcats executive and minority owner.

When people ask majority owner Bob Johnson why -- and they often do -- he says that Jordan appears at events at Johnson's request but otherwise prefers to focus on basketball operations.

Helping with marketing and promotions cuts into Jordan's personal time, Johnson said, and "Michael, in his mind, divides his business from his personal."

"He does not see the connect between what he does in basketball operations with his visibility and presence," Johnson said.

For Jordan's personal time to be used for business, Johnson added, Jordan likely would want to be paid. As Jordan might put it, Johnson said, "I don't wear Hanes underwear for nothing."

to me, that is just shocking and pretty much sums up MJ as a whole. he is part owner of the team and as an owner you would like to think that he would be willing to do whatever it took (within reason) to see the team succeed. i dont think anyone is wanting MJ to dress up in a rufus costume and walk around the parking lot as the NASCAR race handing out bobcats stickers. but when you are the single most marketable person on the planet, not named tiger, and you own part of a business which is losing money and needing customers, wouldnt you roll up your sleeves and be willing to engage the community a little more. there's a 1000 things MJ could do to help promote the team, that i would not consider "beneath him" etc... the reality is, MJ would rather be playing golf.


here's what james worthy had to say...
http://www.gastongazette.com/news/worth ... _team.html

"(Hiring) Larry Brown was a great move by Michael," said Worthy, who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., in 2003. "Because Larry understands the totality of what needs to take place."

But Worthy thinks Jordan, the team's part owner, needs to become more engaged with the local community.

"You've got to win first," Worthy said. "More importantly, you have to engage the community. I haven't been here enough to know, but what I'm hearing is that there needs to be more presence in the community. More face value. People want Michael out there.

"In the operation of basketball, your No. 1 priority is to engage with the community. I'm not saying overly engage. I know Michael gets $50,000-60,000 per hour to speak. (But) I think that, in this particular position he's in, that might have to be waived in order to engage the Bobcats fans."

seems to me that james gets it and MJ does not. too bad worthy isnt the one with a truckload of extra cash to blow on investing on an nba team. i'll even forget about the hookers for james.

just further proof that i was right to always love worthy and despise mj.

Wow...had no idea you always despised Jordan.

Yeah, you're right; Johnson did put it into that context. No doubt Jordan set out the rules for what he'd do when he bought his share of the team and it's obvious he only wanted to focus on the operations. Maybe he put that "price" on Johnson in order to discourage being used in "dog and pony shows".

Good or bad (and I do agree it'd do a lot of good for the team if he was more engaged) it appears the Bobcats is just another investment and small part time job for him...sort of like doing those Hanes commercials.

Wonder if he owns stock in Hanes?

my god, MJ used to due freaking food lion commericals here in charlotte 20 years ago, where he would shoot canteloupes into grocery bags. those commercials were filmed here in charlotte by a friend of mine's father. how about those ridiculous hot dog commericals? he cant be that against dog and pony shows.

OK... i guess i didnt always despise MJ. like most UNC fans i was a fan, but i got off the MJ wagon around 1987ish. worthy was always my favorite tarheel though. i even liked perkins and kenny smith better.

just off the top of my head here's a few things MJ could do that would "engage" the community or build some buzz about the bobcats.

1. start a celeb golf tourny in charlotte
2. "start your engines" at the NASCAR race
3. address the crowd at opening night of the bobcats game.
4. buy a panthers suite and go to a few games
5. go to the lottery draft on behalf of the bobcats
6. come on wfnz once a month
7. create some scholarships for some of the local schools

etc..... how hard can it be?

sure, he doesnt have to do these things. he can sit back and chill and let everything unfold as it may. maybe all it will take is putting a playoff team on the floor and BAM! the arena sells out for 5 straight years.

its sad that charlotte doesnt jump all over the bobcats regardless. but you know what, for whatever reasons, charlotte has not embraced the franchise. as an owner what do you do? sit back and do nothing? go to the paper and bitch about money? go on the radio and threaten to move the team to louisville? or roll up your sleeves and get to work winning over fans and businesses one by one?

OMG i found it.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wx6BtzOwkSg - OK, so it was a head of lettuce not a canteloupe. its still HI-LARIOUS.

mj: "i dont wanna be a dog and pony show... wah, wah, wah...."

fatlever's rebuttal: two words, TOO LATE!

welcome to "Michael Jordan's Hot Dog and Pony Show" featuring HOT DOGS! mmmmmm dee-licious

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kyQzHxXRlUc