Should the Charlotte Hornets bring back the WNBA’s Sting?

In the late nineties and early 2000s, the Charlotte Hornets were not the only professional basketball team in town.

The Charlotte Sting were one of the eight original franchises when the WNBA began play in 1997. WNBA teams were collectively owned by the NBA until 2002. The WNBA continued to operate the Sting until Robert Johnson was awarded the then-Charlotte Bobcats to replace the original Hornets; the Sting were included in the deal.

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Led by Andrea Stinson and Vicky Bullett, the Sting immediately contended for a WNBA championship. After the end of the first season, which the Sting lost to the eventual champion Houston Comets in the Eastern Conference semifinals, and with the folding of the American Basketball league, the Sting acquired Dawn Staley prior to the beginning of their second season.

When Johnson purchased the team, the team’s colors were changed from teal and purple to orange and blue to match the Bobcats’ colors. However, the team kept the Sting name.

Although basketball operations for the Sting were aggressive in making player moves in order for the Sting to contend, the business side of the Sting was ultimately their downfall.

Despite the Bobcats having their own television network to broadcast all of their games, the doomed-from-the-start Carolinas Sports Entertainment Television (C-SET), the Sting did not have a single game on the network. After C-SET folded after its first year, the team did not secure local television for the Sting. Throughout Johnson’s ownership, the team only broadcasted games on the radio.

There was minimal marketing for the Sting as well. With the team in a rebuild on the court and low ticket sales due to the lack of promotion, Johnson turned ownership of the team back over to the league.

A Kansas City-based group expressed interest in buying the Sting and moving the team. A number of local buyers were interested in buying and keeping the Sting in Charlotte, but the league was more focused on moving the team. The Kansas City plans eventually fell through and when a Charlotte fundraising effort failed to purchase the team, the Sting folded. The Sting became the first WNBA team to fold that appeared in at least one WNBA Final.

The unfortunate and completely avoidable end of the Sting in Charlotte isn’t the memory that sticks with Sting fans and the thousands of girls around the world whose dreams of playing professional basketball were ignited by the start of the WNBA.

Stinson and Staley are to the Sting what Dell Curry and Muggsy Bogues are to the Hornets. Stinson briefly had her jersey retired at the Spectrum Center before Charlotte regained the Hornet name and the jersey was removed. Stinson is the Sting’s career leader in points (3,329), field goals (1,302), free throws made (520) and attempted (706), rebounds (1,115), and steals (339). She an All-Star three times (2000, 2001, 2002).

If you come across a Staley clip or picture, more than likely it will be of her playing for the national team or the Sting. Staley is the Sting’s career leader in assists (1,176), assists per game (5.4), minutes per game (33.3), and steals per game (1.4). She an All-Star four times with the Sting (2001, 2002, 2003, 2005), five times overall.

Overall, the Sting were 143-179 (44.4%), with six playoff appearances in ten seasons. Their lone Finals appearance was in 2001, where they would be swept 2-0 by Lisa Leslie and the Los Angeles Sparks.