The Hornets are awesome.
It's plain and simple, really. They play a passionate, exciting brand of basketball loved by analysts and diehard NBA fans alike.
They are no longer "under the radar."
Everyone knows who Chris Paul is, and how quickly he has progressed into a top-five guard.
So why can't the team sell out its home arena on a nightly basis? Why hasn't "The Other City that Never Sleeps" taken to this team yet?
I think I may have some answers:
1. Population and Socio-Economic Circumstances
New Orleans is not a large city. Before Hurricane Katrina, the city had a population of slightly more than 600,000 residents. In 2006, one year after the tragedy, the city's population dwarfed to a mere 220,000 residents.
Think about that number for one second. I think Green Bay, Wisconsin might have almost as many residents and it has only one professional sports team—one that has had vast amounts of success in a place with nothing else to do besides watch football.
Try being able to support two professional sports teams in a city that got ravaged by the worst natural disaster in American history and has just lost almost 60 percent of its total population.
Today, New Orleans' population has increased to about 275,000 residents, making it the smallest market in the NBA.
Also, most of the team's potential fan base comes from outside the city.
Due to the fact that New Orleans has become a small city—one with a lower median household income than before the storm—attending NBA games on a regular basis is not easy for fans.
It is a fact that the Hornets have the cheapest season tickets in the NBA—yet when you play 41 home games a season, many coming at 7 p.m. on a Wednesday, you're not going to attract large crowds in a market where many people work jobs until at least 6 p.m. They then have to drive an hour to get to the arena and won't end up returning home until 11 p.m. The same is true with families.
You are not going to find a good deal of bachelors who call themselves full-time residents of New Orleans, unless you count broke college students of Tulane, Loyola, or LSU. Many of these people can't afford to bring their kids to the game on a school night or leave them at home until close to 11 p.m.
Essentially New Orleans' population—both the number and type of residents—is a major reason why the Hornets have been struggling so far despite their on-court success. There's only so much love to go around on the sporting landscape. These latter points will be expounded on later.
2. Lack of Tradition in the Region and Uncertainty About the Future
LSU is located in Baton Rouge, 65 miles from the New Orleans Arena. As a result, at least two-thirds of the houses in New Orleans sport purple and gold LSU flags outside their homes. Makes a whole lot of sense, eh?
comments (2) write a comment »
write a new comment
10 months ago
One factor you are missing is that a major area of the market, the affluent Northshore, cannot see the Hornets on TV because Cox Cable and Charter Cable are too greedy to come to a deal to help the city. Many have tried to help the deal go through but nothing can budge them. How can people become fans of the game if they can never watch them? I though it was interesting that that Memphis sell out came when Charter "in good faith" allowed the broadcasting of 3 games on the Northshore. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not.
10 months ago
The Hornets were also sub-.500 before this season.
LSU was also the National Champions this year, taking all the sports focus till early January away from practically everything else.
And don't discount that the Hornets haven't done a good job of marketing the team in the past.
Between Christmas, New Year's Eve, the Sugar Bowl, the BCS Championship LSU won in town, and more than a week of Mardi Gras, there's also been a lot of other stuff going on in town.
write a new comment