Bobcats Sign Naming-Rights Deal With TWC; TV Shifts To FSN South
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| Bobcats Ink Arena Naming-Rights Deal With TWC |
The Bobcats have "apparently completed a deal that would greatly expand" the team's TV exposure and give Time Warner Cable (TWC) naming rights to Charlotte Bobcats Arena, according to George & Bonnell in a front-page piece in the CHARLOTTE OBSERVER. Under the deal, Time Warner would "get arena naming rights and release the team from its TV contract in a complicated deal," meaning the Bobcats TV broadcasts would move from TWC's News 14 channel to FSN South, which is "available in three times as many Carolina homes." The Bobcats and TWC said that the team today will "make a major announcement" regarding the deal. The Bobcats added that Owner Bob Johnson, President Fred Whitfield and Managing Partner of Basketball Operations Michael Jordan today will host a news conference at the arena titled "Name On. Game On." The deal is "intended to give the team -- one of the NBA's worst in attendance -- more exposure after the Bobcats' failed experiment" with an RSN. Under the Bobcats' deal with TWC, "several Charlotte suburbs served by other cable systems don't carry games," and games also "aren't available to satellite television viewers." A TV industry source indicated that the switch would "widen the Bobcats' potential TV audience" from the current 1.2 million HHs to 3.8 million HHs across the Carolinas. George & Bonnell note it is unclear whether the deal is a "simple swap of naming rights for TV rights." No financial details have been disclosed, but any naming rights money from TWC "would go to the Bobcats -- not the city of Charlotte" (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 4/8). The new TV deal begins tonight as the T'Wolves-Bobcats game will air on FSN South. Additionally, the arena is expected to be renamed the Time Warner Cable Arena. It has been without a naming rights deal since it opened in '05 (AP, 4/7).
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