• BizJournals.com, Thursday, April 10, 2008 12:15 PM

A sports stadium in Charlotte, N.C. will be renamed the Time Warner Cable Arena under a new deal between the MSO and the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats with change for the venue -- currently named after the team -- coming over the next several months. And in a related agreement, TV broadcasts of Bobcat home games will move to Fox Sports Net South from Time Warner's Carolina News14. The latter currently has the TV rights for 50 Bobcats games a season through 2015, but the station can be seen only in parts of Charlotte, Raleigh and Greensboro to a combined audience of 1.2 million homes.

That limited distribution has harmed ticket sales because so much of the target audience can't see the team play regularly. Now, FSN South will carry 70 Bobcats games a season, in addition to other team-related content, beginning with the 2008-2009 season. It broadcasts to 4 million homes across the Carolinas and also carries the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes, a franchise based in Raleigh. The shift will also bring Bobcat games to viewers with satellite, making it more likely for bars and restaurants to show them and potentially vastly expanding the audience base.

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