The Hornets Return

As a hotbed for basketball, it was only natural that Charlotte's emergence onto the national stage would be through this sport.  Despite doubts that the city could support a franchise of a "Big Four" sport--the other three being baseball, football, and hockey--Charlotte was awarded an NBA franchise in 1987.

A 1987 Los Angeles Times article details the cynicism Charlotte had to overcome.

"It was suggested early on that Spirit was an appropriate name for a proposed National Basketball Assn. franchise int his city because those proposing it didn't stand a ghost of a chance.

Charlotte, the city in a forest, was considered too small, too rural, too backward.

It is the nation's 32nd-largest television market, but that ranking falls, some would have you believe, when the TV is turned off in the department store window, or when Andy, Opie, Barney and Goober aren't gathered in front of the TV in Floyd's barber shop."