Posts Tagged ‘Tom Benson’

Hornets Or Pelicans … What’s In A Name?

January 23, 2013  ·  7:51PM





HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – What’s in a nickname?

It depends on the circumstances. And for folks in New Orleans, those circumstances will change dramatically in the next 24 hours as the team they’ve known as the Hornets will become the Pelicans. The Hornets have scheduled a Thursday news conference to unveil their new logo, mascot and colors, per Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports.

What’s in a nickname?

For Hornets (… er, soon-to-be Pelicans) owner Tom Benson, apparently everything.

The owner of the NFL’s New Orleans Saints, Benson owned the rights to the Pelicans nickname before he bought the Hornets in April. The Pelicans date back to 1887 in New Orleans, giving them roots in the city dating back to before Dr. James Naismith invented the game of basketball (in 1891). The former minor league New Orleans Pelicans boast a rich baseball history and lineage, according to a Wikipedia entry:

Notable Pelicans included Shoeless Joe Jackson, Jimmy Dygert, Henry “Cotton” Knaupp, Bill Lindsay, Zeke Bonura, Gene Freese, and Hall of Famers Dazzy Vance, Joe Sewell, Bob Lemon and Earl Weaver. In Jackson’s only season with New Orleans (1910), he hit .354 to win the league batting title and led the team to the pennant with an 87–53 record. The following year, he would hit .408 with the American League’s Cleveland Naps.

In the 1950s, the team was associated with the Pittsburgh Pirates and was managed by Danny Murtaugh. Other notable Pelican managers included Larry Gilbert and Abner Powell, with the latter credited with introducing the “rain check” in 1889.

The Pelicans’ name briefly resurfaced during the 1977 season when oilman A. Ray Smith moved his Triple-A Tulsa Oilers to New Orleans to play in the Superdome. Tony La Russa was the starting shortstop for the team. After a single season, the team then moved toSpringfield, Illinois, and were renamed the Redbirds.

Whether or not the that history resonates in the city and with fans throughout the state and beyond, however, remains to be seen. As Spears noted, it wasn’t exactly met with fireworks from locals when word spread that a change was coming:

The name “Pelicans” has received a lot of criticism from Hornets fans and NBA followers. During the news conference, a video is expected to be shown explaining the history behind the nickname and what it means to New Orleans and the state. There was similar resistance when the Seattle SuperSonics changed their nickname to Thunder when the franchise moved to Oklahoma City in 2008, but now the nickname is widely accepted.

The Charlotte Hornets moved to New Orleans in 2002. Some fans are hoping the Charlotte Bobcats change their name back to the Hornets, considering the change in New Orleans. A source said the Bobcats will do their due diligence in considering a switch back to the Hornets, but nothing is imminent.

All that said, the Pelican is the state bird, on the state flag, on license plates various other official entities in the … wait for it … Pelican State.

But again, what’s in a nickname?

For fans of the Saints, Hornets and all things New Orleans who have come along since the baseball Pelicans, it’s all about the look of the new logo, mascot and colors.

“I believe people will like that it’s a state pride thing,” said Carl Blouin Jr., whose roots run generations deep in the Crescent City. “It really depends on what the logo looks like. If it’s a goofy Pelican with a long neck and a knot in his throat, no. If it’s a tough Pelican diving into Black Bay to catch a shad, looking fierce, then maybe so. But if it looks like a cartoon character … we’re going to have a major problem. It’s all going to depend on the logo.”

We’ll have to wait and see exactly what it looks like then. In the meantime, we need your input …

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Report: Hornets Set For Name Change

December 4, 2012  ·  9:58PM


HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – The name on the front of the jerseys will reportedly remain the same. The NBA franchise in New Orleans is not going anywhere.

But the same can’t be said for the nickname that the franchise brought to town from Charlotte. The Hornets could soon become the Pelicans … that’s right, the state bird (technically it’s the brown pelican) is set for global stardom as the new nickname of the franchise with new ownership in charge.

The Hornets’ new owner, Tom Benson, who also owns the New Orleans Saints, owns the rights to the Pelicans nickname, per a report from Yahoo! Sports that first announced the pending name change.

If it happens as planned, the change in New Orleans could trigger not only a mascot and color scheme change in the Pelican State, but also some changes back in Charlotte, where Bobcats owner Michael Jordan said the Hornets nickname would be welcomed if available:

“It’s definitely an interest down the road, but right now it’s the New Orleans Hornets,” Jordan told the Charlotte Observer. “We would definitely entertain the opportunity. That’s as much as we can say right now. We’ve heard the community ask the question, and we would listen.”

More from Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports with more details from the Hornets’ side of the potential change:

The Hornets also considered the nicknames Krewe (groups of costumed paraders in the annual Mardi Gras carnival in New Orleans) and Brass.

Louisiana is the Pelican State. The brown pelican is the state bird and appears on the state flag and seal, and official state painting. Moreover, the Pelicans played minor league baseball in New Orleans in all but nine seasons from 1887-1959 and in 1977.

Gayle Benson, [Tom] Benson’s wife, told Fox Sports New Orleans recently her preference for new team colors was navy blue, red and gold.

The Hornets came to New Orleans in 2002 from Charlotte. New Orleans has also had an NBA team called the Jazz, which moved to Salt Lake City in 1979.

Since the fine folks in Utah have no intention of parting ways with the Jazz nickname, the Bensons had to come up with something. And for the people of the state of Louisiana, the Pelicans is a much more representative moniker than the Hornets. It’s a state-pride thing.

We’re all for region-appropriate nicknames and everything; the Oklahoma City Thunder — who moved from Seattle and left the name “SuperSonics” behind — is a spot-on name. But some nicknames need to be left alone for eternity.

The Los Angeles Lakers are named for the lakes of Minnesota, where the franchise began as the Minneapolis Lakers. That nickname is off limits.

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Time To Worry Is Over In New Orleans

July 2, 2012  ·  11:31PM




No. 1 draft pick Anthony Davis, the new cornerstone of the team, sprained his ankle during a practice and that could cost him an opportunity to work out against the U.S. Olympic team beginning on Friday.

Restricted free agent and the key piece of the puzzle Eric Gordon has already visited with the Rockets and Pacers and plans to keep himself open to any opportunities that come up around the league.

Suddenly there are new reasons to worry in New Orleans. But they’re nothing at all like the old reasons.

Remember, it was not even 18 months ago when the Hornets had to organize a mid-season ticket drive to fill seats in order to meet an attendance clause that could have triggered an escape clause in their lease.

Remember, it was less than seven months ago when commissioner David Stern shot down the trade that would have sent Chris Paul to the Lakers and delivered the Hornets a handful of veteran talent that could have avoided the plummet in the standings.

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Hang Time Podcast (Episode 75) With Michael Wallace And Jimmy Smith

April 17, 2012  ·  7:16PM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – If you’ve spent any time in the past two seasons contemplating the working dynamic between Heat stars LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, you’re like the rest of us. You have your own theory about how two superstar teammates might co-exist, but you’re not certain exactly how that dynamic breaks down from the inside.

Well, we’re going to get as close to the middle as we can on Episode 75 of the Hang Time Podcast, breaking down all things Heat and the yin and yang relationship between the team’s two biggest stars with Michael Wallace of ESPN.com and the Heat Index, who has as good a handle on that delicate relationship as anyone in the business.

We also check on the status of the New Orleans Hornets and their new owner, Saints owner Tom Benson, with longtime New Orleans Times-Picayune sportswriter Jimmy Smith (a cousin on the Cajun side of the family). Benson promises a championship contender in both the NBA and NFL for fans in the Crescent City. He also mentioned something about a name change from the Hornets to …

Check out all of that and more on Episode 75 of the Hang Time Podcast with Michael Wallace of ESPN.com and Jimmy Smith of the Time-Picayune.

LISTEN HERE:


As always, we welcome your feedback. You can follow the entire crew, including the Hang Time Podcast, co-hosts Lang Whitaker of SLAM Magazine and Sekou Smith of NBA.com, as well as our superproducer Micah Hart of NBA.com’s All Ball Blog and the best engineer in the business, Jarrell “I Heart Peyton Manning” Wall.

– To download the podcast, click here. To subscribe via iTunes, click here, or get the xml feed if you want to subscribe some other, less iTunes-y way.

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Saints Owner To Buy Hornets

April 13, 2012  ·  11:53AM



The NBA’s days as an owner of the New Orleans Hornets are drawing to a close. The league reached a tentative agreement early Friday morning with New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson to buy the team for $338 million, according to a source with knowledge of the discussions.

The league chose Benson, who will be purchasing the team by himself, over a group of investors including businessman Raj Bhathal and former NBA head coach and general manager Mike Dunleavy, and former minority owner Gary Chouest, who had tried unsuccessfully to buy the team from majority owner George Shinn three years ago. The Bhathal group also included Larry Benson, Tom Benson’s younger brother.

The New Orleans Times Picayune first reported the sale to Tom Benson on its website this morning.

Benson would be allowed under the NFL’s rules to buy the Hornets. That sport prohibits cross ownership, the rule that prompted the Denver Nuggets’ former primary owner, Stan Kroenke, to transfer ownership of the Nuggets to his son, Josh, when Stan Kroenke obtained a majority ownership stake of the NFL’s St. Louis Rams.

Because the Saints and Hornets both play in New Orleans, the NFL would have no objection to Tom Benson’s purchase of the Hornets.

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