Bobcats Basketball, LLC 333 East Trade Street Charlotte, N.C. 28202 Phone: 704-688-8880 Principals: Fred A.Whitfield, President and COO; Robert L. Johnson, Majority Owner; Michael Jordan, Owner and Managing Partner for Basketball Operations Whitfield’s Background: Raised in Greensboro, N.C.,Whitfield played basketball at Campbell University and attended the basketball camp where Michael Jordan was a counselor.Whitfield earned an undergraduate degree and MBA there, and a law degree at North Carolina Central University. He started a law practice in Greensboro that evolved into a business of representing professional athletes; he joined sports agent David Falk’s organization; he worked for Nike (based in Charlotte) negotiating shoe and apparel contracts with National Basketball Association players; he and Jordan worked with the Washington Wizards; he rejoined Nike to promote Brand Jordan; and he joined the Charlotte Bobcats in August 2006. Business: The Bobcats play in the NBA Eastern Conference’s Southeastern division, along with the Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, Atlanta Hawks and Washington Wizards. The team plays their home games in the Bobcats Arena located in uptown Charlotte. www.nba.com/bobcats
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to NBA basketball and our franchise, in particular, it could be exciting.” Whitfield, who turned 48 on the day the Bobcats opened their third season, says he wanted to assemble the best group of executives possible to help him build the excitement. He worked a deal with NBA commissioner David Stern to hire the league’s chief marketing officer, Greg Economu. It helps, Whitfield says, that Economu lives on Lake Norman. Whitfield also embraced the presence of Tim Hinchey, whom the league had placed with the Bobcats to help with corporate sales and sponsorships. Hinchey has experience with the Sacramento Kings and helped the New Orleans Hornets find acceptance in their temporary home of Oklahoma City in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. “Between Tim, Greg and me, we’ve hit the ground running,” says Whitfield, who admits to working 14-hour days on more than a few occasions. “We’ve started to establish a brand around who we are.” Branding the Bobcats What is the Bobcat brand? Whitfield says it has several elements. Perhaps the most important is being known for grassroots involvement in the community. The Bobcats plan to fund improvements to outdoor basketball courts in neighborhoods throughout greater Charlotte, from the lowest income to the highest. “You’ll see a lot of backboards that say ‘Bobcats’ and will have the names of our corporate sponsors,” Whitfield says. The team is also looking for a home for less fortunate children that it can take under its wing as a major charity, he says. That will come soon. On the court, Whitfield wants the Bobcats to be known as a “blue-collar” team, made up of athletes hungry for success and eager to overachieve. Players such as Gerald Wallace and Raymond Felton are already fashioning that image, he thinks. That kind of community caring, hard working image should entice more people to see a game and sample what the Bobcats are all about, Whitfield believes. To help these potential fans make up their mind, he’s devised some interesting ticket purchase plans. First, the Bobcats cut season ticket prices
by about 17 percent for the 2006-07 season. Then Whitfield added some additional incentives. In conjunction with the NBA, he initiated a $199 full-season package. “These were for seats in the far corners of the building that we weren’t going to sell anyway,” Whitfield explains. “We sold 1,100 of them. That’s $5 a game per season. If we can just get people to test our product, see what an exciting event it is, then those are the people hopefully we can upgrade to higher priced tickets.” Then there’s the $999 full-season ticket package that Hinchey came up with. Buyers sit in first level seats except for games against the best 12 NBA teams – Cleveland, Miami and the Los Angeles Lakers among them – when crowds are naturally larger. Then they move to the first few rows of the upper level. How are these efforts working? Speaking just before the season started, Whitfield says the Bobcats have sold 2,600 new full-season ticket packages, ranking them fourth in the NBA. For the 2005-06 season, the team sold only 461 new season ticket plans. Overall, the Bobcats had 5,100 season tickets last year. Whitfield says his goal is 10,000 season tickets, but admits he might not get there this year. As many as 8,000, plus a healthy number of partial season packages, would be acceptable for now, he says. Personal Connections Help Whitfield has several other initiatives, including his personal sales efforts. He knows many influential Charlotteans from living in Charlotte during the ’90s, working as an agent for players in the organization of noted sports businessman David Falk, and then for Nike, managing player endorsements for shoes and apparel. He has connections with those who belong to established clubs such as Myers Park and Quail Hollow, Whitfield says, and he communicates ®
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Whitfield took on what he calls “a reexpansion team,” because the NBA awarded Charlotte the Bobcats after George Shinn moved the Hornets, the city’s first major league team, to New Orleans. When Whitfield lived here during the Hornets’ glory days, he saw Charlotte set NBA records with consecutive sellouts that strung out over several seasons. By contrast, the Bobcats have struggled to attract decent crowds to their new arena in Charlotte’s Center City. “I saw the great teams the Hornets had,” Whitfield says as he leans forward in his Bobcats Arena office, elbows on knees. “I saw the energy this community had behind their team. I knew this town was a great sports town,” he says, adding that he’s been a Carolina Panthers season ticket holder from day one and is a NASCAR fan, too. “I just felt this was a unique opportunity,” he says of his new position. “If we could reconnect the sports fans in this community