Home of the NBA's Charlotte Hornets, Spectrum Center anchors Charlotte's uptown entertainment district, and you are outside it now. The arena opened in 2005 as Bobcats Arena, named for the expansion franchise that launched that year under founder Bob Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television and the first African-American majority owner of a major professional sports team. The franchise later reclaimed the Hornets name, honoring Charlotte's original NBA team that left for New Orleans in 2002.
The building hosts concerts, college tournaments, and major events in addition to basketball. Its location in First Ward, on land cleared by urban renewal, was intended to spur development in that quadrant of uptown — a strategy that has met with mixed success over the decades. Charlotte's sports identity is divided between the Hornets, the NFL's Carolina Panthers who play nearby at Bank of America Stadium, and the racing culture of NASCAR, which regards the greater Charlotte metro as its hometown.
This arena sits at the intersection of the city's new identity as a major-league sports market.