The Hive Is (Not) Alive

Hornet Mania · Post #1 » by **Hornet Mania** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 3:38 pm

Not sure if this should go in an OT thread or something, but I wanted to hear everyone's opinions about the sad state of our home court and more specifically the utter lack of enthusiasm from the crowd on most nights. I've seen Liver Pooty mention this before, and he's dead on about the crowd being an absolute disgrace.

The Hornets crowds have been just as bad as the ones at Panther games, and I'm afraid the Charlotte sports scene has degraded into yuppies who didn't come to cheer. Some background: I used to work at Bank of America stadium as an usher from 03-06. The first year I worked in the upper deck, fans went crazy every game, maybe even a little too drunk and rowdy at times, but you couldn't hear them on broadcasts because they were so far from the action. From my second year on I was promoted to the 100 level and that was the most entitled wine and cheese bunch you can possibly imagine. I literally had a lady in her Sunday best attire come up to me and ask if I could quiet down an unruly man. I of course agreed, but when I went to investigate that man's behavior he was yelling "DEFENSE" (CLAP CLAP) over and over in between shouts of "C'mon Julius!" It was effing ridiculous, but compared to the majority of folks in his section he was indeed disturbing the peace. These are folks that paid a butt load of cash for those seats, so I guess they can do whatever they want, but as someone who took a job at the stadium just so I could attend the games (which I could not afford otherwise) it always got under my skin that people treated it like a community social instead of being active and engaged with the fortunes of "their" team.

I fear the ticket pricing at TWC has doomed the Hornets to a similar fate. I investigated buying a ticket for a friend for the home opener (so I could then have the swag sent to me overseas to return the favor) and saw the ticket prices for the upper deck were $40. That is simply too much for the type of fan that will bring the noise. Last night I was shocked at how dead the crowd was, even when the team went on that nice run and got up 20+. Everyone just seemed to clap politely. And when crunch time came around Orlando had zero intimidation factor from the crowd, the best I saw was a bunch of folks standing and clasping their hands together hoping for the best. That just won't cut it. The Hive was part of what made the Charlotte Hornets iconic, not only regionally but around the league. On the Orlando broadcast last night the announcers took a moment to reminisce about how "special" it was to play in that sort of atmosphere, I was embarrassed that the telling silence afterward stood for "yeah...but we can't drum up anything nice to say about tonight's crowd". I know the team performing better would help but the sign of a great crowd isn't cheering when things are going good, it's imploring your team to rise up again when things are going badly and letting them know that 15k+ people have their back. As someone halfway around the globe who can't attend the games it frustrates the heck out of me when I hear no chants, no cheers, no claps, from my TV during home games.

tl:dr, I know, but it's something I've thought about the last few games and had to get it off my chest.

KembaWalker · Post #2 » by **KembaWalker** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 4:31 pm

team has given them nothing to cheer for.

MasterIchiro · Post #3 » by **MasterIchiro** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 4:32 pm

That's all sports. Team marketing divisions target the cash-rich demographic and price accordingly. Live entertainment is becoming a luxury for a more exclusive and less passionate on-the-whole group of fans.

The Hartford Whalers ice hockey team used to charge $5 for tickets. Their 80's teams had decent talent but never anything compared to the Edmonton Oilers or New York Islanders. But the Hartford Civic Center was PACKED and ROWDY. Fights broke out between fans during games, especially for rivalries like the Boston Bruins - Hartford Whalers rivalry. This is the kind of stuff you just don't see anymore, anywhere unless it's professional soccer outside the U.S. Slowly but surely ownership clamped down on those fans and pressure to make games "family-friendly" increased in all sports. Ticket prices rose and when fans continued to buy, marketing divisions raised prices further seeing profits but leaving larger and larger groups of fans behind. Then they moved the team after chasing away the fans. They became the Carolina Hurricanes.

Now the Hornets have enough fans at high prices to meet their target profit projections but what I wonder is, couldn't you reach the same profit if you increased the amount of fans at lower prices to a target number, where noise and buzz extend beyond the arena and can't be tallied directly at the gate on a spread sheet yet the extra value appears outside the arena in merchandise purchases, TV and radio ratings increases, brand name awareness outside the city, etc?

Somewhere out there a pro-team will figure out this issue. And lure fans back incrementally with lower prices and freeze prices at a certain point to keep the crowd numbers up.

What you have left is a smaller, richer, quieter crowd and all teams are feeling this across all sports.

Let us examine an extreme case to highlight the trends. The Yankees built a new stadium. The new one has some seats that are $2500 - $5000 PER GAME. There are 162 games in a season and 81 of them at home. 81 x $5000 = $405,000. You actually have a slice of fans who drop 6 figures per year on games. This is the Wall Street crowd. Regular season games used to take on a playoff atmosphere. Now it's more like a country club so the team has to spend more of its profits to lure more fans who are willing to overpay as long as the team wins.

Just drop the F'n prices and you don't have to win all the time to keep fans.

Our society as a whole doesn't know how to capitalize on the working classes because we resent them and disrespect them. We left them out in live sports because we don't consider their needs or the potential value of their numbers. We view them as isolated individuals and as individuals they can't give us enough of what we demand.

All you need to do is look at our income gap to figure out how our culture is self-obsessed. It's about the individual and his/her own selfish purpose. It's not about the interconnectedness or the community of people. Our self-centered, anti-social mindset manifests in all aspects of our culture.

Liver_Pooty · Post #4 » by **Liver_Pooty** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 4:48 pm

I found it hilarious how a lot of people thought that a simple name change would make the atmosphere like it was in the late 80s and 90s.

Sorry, but thats not the case, at all.

Sweet looking jerseys though.

Hornet Mania · Post #5 » by **Hornet Mania** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 5:25 pm

I think you're dead-on about ticket prices being a major culprit, Ichiro. My family used to see 2-3 games a year at the Coliseum in the late-90s as a special treat. There are six of us, and the nosebleed seats were $7 a pop for contests against crappy teams (at that time) like Golden State or New Jersey. It was still about $50 overall factoring in parking fees, even without any food, but it was a great time and something even a family that wasn't wealthy could afford to do on occasion. It made lifelong fans out of us as well, the Charlotte Hornets have gotten and continue to get tons of revenue from our family via jersey/shirt/hat/etc. sales well beyond the initial $50 we spent on any of those individual games.

If we had grown up 15 years later we would never get to see the Hornets in person. I just looked up prices for Hornets/Celtics on December 10, a non-marquee matchup, and the lowest price for the worst seats is $21. For a family of four that's almost $100 when you factor in uptown parking for an awful view of two mediocre NBA teams. The working class fan has been almost totally shut out. I know there isn't a chance in hell of any pro sports team lowering ticket prices, but it's an idea whose time has come. If ticket prices at TWC dropped to $10 for upper deck seats, with a comparable discount for all the other sections to match, I would be willing to bet attendance would spike. Right now I know for a fact several families back in Cherryville have looked into seeing a Hornets game for nostalgia purposes before realizing they can't afford it. I know the marketing department would argue that season-ticket prices are much lower on a per-game basis, but that's a huge investment to make and lots of folks simply are never going to have the disposable income/time/interest to justify 41 games of regular season play.

LamarMatic7 · Post #6 » by **LamarMatic7** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 6:15 pm

hey... at least we're not Detroit!

Post #7 » by **fatlever** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 6:16 pm

its only going to get worse as player salaries rise and the owners probably lose a few percentage points in BRI during the next lockout. owners will just shift that burden to the fans. with the players and owners negotiate, nobody is thinking of the fans. would be nice to see the fans have a voice. how about both players and owners give up one percent of BRI so the ticker prices can be dropped by a certain percentage across all arenas. that will never happen.

EwingSweatsALot · Post #8 » by **EwingSweatsALot** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 6:37 pm

Charlotte's decline in fandom correlates with Charlotte's rise in the business world.

In the 80s and early to mid 90s Charlotte wasn't the second largest and at times largest banking city in the United States. I wouldn't say blue collar, some of the older folks on the board could explain it better, but it was more of an honest guys hard working kind of place. Charlotte has started to become more of a high society type place where in cases perception matters. The problem with this is that just because you project yourself as this doesn't mean you can always be this, or afford the things you want. I can't tell you how many times I have heard people won't goto games because they won't sit in the upper deck. Then you say OK what about lower deck, and they respond with well I can't pay that.

I know tickets are expensive in the lower deck, but if you wanna go you wanna go. But people don't wanna be seen in the upper deck because for some reason it isn't good enough for them. Charlotte has become a big time corporate city. People need to be seen as something even if they aren't. The upper deck doesn't promote who they want to be.

I'm not saying this is the only reason, prices and a **** team are others, but it is definitely an issue that goes along with why people don't go to games.

MKGsMotor · Post #9 » by **MKGsMotor** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 6:37 pm

You can't blame the fans here. I wonder how OKC's arena would look and sound if they had a subpar team and less national media coverage this whole time.

LamarMatic7 · Post #10 » by **LamarMatic7** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 6:38 pm

we definitely need more self-depreciating humor around these parts. where has the 2011 negative positivity gone!?

remember that it could be worse. our future once was this group of guys:

(I find this photo to be an uncanny combination of hilarity and sadness)

Liver_Pooty · Post #11 » by **Liver_Pooty** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 6:44 pm

MKGsMotor wrote:You can't blame the fans here. I wonder how OKC's arena would look and sound if they had a subpar team and less national media coverage this whole time.

Probably just fine since they're the only show in town.

LamarMatic7 · Post #12 » by **LamarMatic7** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 6:48 pm

Liver_Pooty wrote:
MKGsMotor wrote:You can't blame the fans here. I wonder how OKC's arena would look and sound if they had a subpar team and less national media coverage this whole time.

Probably just fine since they're the only show in town.

yep. teams like the Blazers and the Sonics have proven this.

Hornet Mania · Post #13 » by **Hornet Mania** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 8:08 pm

Some really good responses that are getting to the heart of the issue, I think. I just wanted to quickly say that I in no way blame the fans for any losses, and I understand that the team has performed poorly so it makes sense that the enthusiasm is a little low. What really prompted me to make the thread was the lack of noise throughout last night's game, even when the team was up 20+. It seemed to me that the problem was deeper than our team being really disappointing this season, and it left me concerned that the atmosphere at the arena would forever resemble Carolina Panthers games. I guess that's just the evolution of pro sports in Charlotte.

Post #14 » by **BigSlam** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 8:26 pm

I just don't understand it. The name change, the colour change - that was meant to instantly make us a 50+ win team and give us sell outs every night.

I'm so confused....

Post #15 » by **JDR720** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 8:32 pm

attendance is up quite a bit from last season (more than 1500 fans) so its doing better. I think a new TV deal would help, people that would otherwise be Charlotte fans aren't because they cant watch the games. and more fans in NC/SC = better attendance probably. and of course being fun to watch would help and our team isn't very fun to watch right now.

W_HAMILTON · Post #16 » by **W_HAMILTON** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 8:47 pm

JDR720 wrote:attendance is up quite a bit from last season (more than 1500 fans) so its doing better. I think a new TV deal would help, people that would otherwise be Charlotte fans aren't because they cant watch the games. and more fans in NC/SC = better attendance probably. and of course being fun to watch would help and our team isn't very fun to watch right now.

I still don't know how I can be approximately three hours from Charlotte (NE SC) and not get any of the games on my cable package. I believe I have the stations, but none of them actually show the games. Half the time, some old ass boxing documentary is on. And what's worse, I don't think I can simply buy a League Pass subscription to watch them, because I tried to get one of those online passes before and it said that it was blacked out because I was in market, yet my market shows none of the games...

As for the other issue regarding ticket prices that everyone is talking about, it seemed like they just surged in price based on anticipation for the new rebranding. I imagine once things settle down, the upper bowl tickets will be more reasonably priced.

Post #17 » by **JDR720** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 9:23 pm

TV deal should include all of NC and SC, Eastern Tennessee ( maybe everything East of Chattanooga and Knoxville) Southern Virginia (just one "row" of counties from Lee county to Virginia Beach?) and maybe even Northern Georgia (Tennessee and NC/SC border counties)

rough Map of my area

This will help the fan base a lot and i think its doable.

mattcampbell · Post #18 » by **mattcampbell** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 9:56 pm

I agree with parts about the crowd. It frustrates me when so many people that sit around me are just there to casually watch the games and don't get engaged at all. The two guys beside me that have season tickets have said maybe a combined 20 words this season at the games. I will say that attendance does seem to be a bit better, looked a lot more crowded last night than a typical Friday night game last year.

Liver_Pooty · Post #19 » by **Liver_Pooty** » Sun Nov 23, 2014 1:36 am

JDR720 wrote:attendance is up quite a bit from last season (more than 1500 fans) so its doing better. I think a new TV deal would help, people that would otherwise be Charlotte fans aren't because they cant watch the games. and more fans in NC/SC = better attendance probably. and of course being fun to watch would help and our team isn't very fun to watch right now.

I think its up league wide in general. Were still what? Around 20th or so?

Eh, I expected a lot better.

Post #20 » by **JDR720** » Sun Nov 23, 2014 1:38 am

Liver_Pooty wrote:
JDR720 wrote:attendance is up quite a bit from last season (more than 1500 fans) so its doing better. I think a new TV deal would help, people that would otherwise be Charlotte fans aren't because they cant watch the games. and more fans in NC/SC = better attendance probably. and of course being fun to watch would help and our team isn't very fun to watch right now.

I think its up league wide in general. Were still what? Around 20th or so?

Eh, I expected a lot better.

17th, about 250 away from 15th