Via Barry Petchesky comes some ridiculously sad news about the Bobcats' media reach.

The league's smallest local TV audiences have been in Charlotte, where Bobcats games have been viewed by an average of 11,000 homes.

To put that in perspective, the Cats sell more seats to each game, on average (15,850) than there are households watching on TV. I've long maintained that this is a sad legacy of the Hornets' exit, that even though the area can support and embrace major pro sports teams, the NBA has become so toxic here that it'll take entirely new generations of people growing up with the Bobcats as a fact of life -- ignorant of the ill feelings left by the previous era -- for pro basketball to truly take hold again.

That said, I have nothing but praise for the way the organization markets itself, reaches out, and treats customers. Sometimes, there are larger forces at work, and I suspect that's what's happening here. Just gotta wait it out.