Everyone who doesn’t live here – Maybe if I can get my hands on some extra freebies, I’ll send them your way. I’m not saying it’s a definite, but I’ll try.

The Hornets this year have been amazing: they’ve put together not only a talented set of athletes, but a set of real good people. Meanwhile, the organization as a whole has embodied everything New Orleans, making it its true home, and managing to master the bon vivant mentality while concomitantly intertwining it with good business sense. Every move they’ve made has been genius: from renegotiating their lease deal to their promotions to their slogans to their several programs, most recently Fan Up.

Passion. Purpose. Pride. It speaks to the team. It speaks to the organization. It speaks to the city. It speaks to their fans.

I’m glad to hear of the organization’s involvement with the community, especially regarding the team website writer. Again, I’m not in NOLA, so I’m appreciative of you telling me this, because honestly, I didn’t see much support early in the season, with or outside media. I only recently discovered hornetshype (via hornets247), so this allows me to check on the smaller things that make up our happy little Hornets community. Or nest, if you will.

Hailing from Dallas, we’ve been spoiled by good basketball ongoing many years, so again, our Hornets recent success is a breath of fresh air for me. Here’s hoping the league and the organization will push for more success in the upcoming seasons, cause I know I’ll be rooting, Peja-on-a-stick or no (by the way, I still want one)!

Mark, regarding your last post, I hear what you’re saying, but unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot the org can do about people expecting more and more and more. The only thing it can do is keep providing worthwhile giveaways and hope people enjoy them, so they will go home after the game and say “Wow, I got all of this great stuff from the Hornets, in addition to getting to watch the game.”

I’d like to clarify, because it’s not really the “involvement of the organization” that I was talking about that is based on success of the team. The involvement of the organization has been immense, even back in August or Sept., when the team hadn’t played a game yet or sold a ton of season tickets. Even the team website writer was driving around near where I live, dropping off boxes of pocket schedules at area businesses, gas stations and other places where a lot of people would see them, so hopefully casual fans or non-fans would know the Hornets were back and when the games were going to be played, in case they wanted to go.

We committed to a ton of grassroots marketing efforts before anything positive had happened basketball-wise. There are a zillion other things I could point to, but from my standpoint, I came up with the idea in the summer of making sure we had articles about fans in the game program for every home game (anyone who has been to a game this season has probably noticed those features). Next season don’t be surprised if that becomes an even bigger part of our program. The Fan Up concept has exploded, so it’s a no-brainer to me. I hope to commit to getting a lot more of them done in the summer when we have much more time to work on long-term projects.

The game program – which as many of you know, is free – also gets bigger and bigger page-wise depending on the number of sponsors who want to buy ads in there (more sponsors, more ads, more pages – more articles for fans to read). Which brings me back to my original point…… that the involvement of sponsors helps the Hornets deliver all of these “extras” that fans are getting. The point I was making was that as much as fans are hopefully happy with things now, it should get better because of more outside companies buying in and being excited about the Hornets.

While the results are positively wonderful, it’s actually still a little disappointing that this involvement of the organization is based on performance. Which, obviously, fits the standard business model, but as a die-hard fan, I see some room for dedicated improvement.

The only potential problem is fan expectations. While they deserve to expect greatness from the team, even I’m overestimating what I would/could get at a game (my size Peja-on-a-stick? I shall expect this EVERY game!). But hey, something is better than nothing, and certainly while the ride is lasting, the fans have been getting TONS more than something.

Again, you can tell I’m envious of those in NOLA, but that just shows how much love is going into this team, which is 180 degrees from the start of the season (not 360 degrees. I’m looking at you, Jason Kidd). Can’t hate on that.

What’s even better is that there will probably actually be MORE freebies in future Hornets seasons if the team continues to be successful on and off the court, not fewer. One of the reasons we have more giveaways than many NBA teams (I would say it’s more than “all” NBA teams, but I don’t have the across-the-board knowledge of what other franchises do to verify it…..) is because the sponsors of the team have been great.

The more successful the team is, the more people attend the games, the more they watch it on TV, etc. – the more sponsors want to be a part of the Hornets, because the sponsors know they are getting bang for their buck in terms of advertising (because a lot of fans are seeing the ads). When that happens, you have more and more companies who will gladly sponsor giveaways, or even come up with their own ideas for Hornets giveaways, such as the Geico caveman masks.

Honestly, I don’t remember ever seeing multiple quality giveaways from an NBA team at the same game before coming to the Hornets. I was always happy in Toronto, Philly or NJ to get something like a schedule magnet or an autograph card.