The Charlotte Observer (Jefferson George and Rick Bonnell) reports: Tuesday night’s Charlotte Bobcats game aired on Fox Sports Net South, the team’s new cable TV home. Game tickets listed the venue’s new name, Time Warner Cable Arena. Those were the first visible results of two deals announced Tuesday that give Charlotte’s NBA team two things it has lacked since its inception: wide TV exposure and a corporate sponsor for the uptown arena. Time Warner Cable released the Bobcats from a TV contract that kept games out of many Charlotte-area homes, allowing the team to make a deal with Fox Sports Net South, which is available on cable and satellite TV systems across the Piedmont. In return, Time Warner Cable got the naming rights to the arena, which has carried the Bobcats name since opening in 2005. Executives with the Bobcats, Time Warner Cable and Fox Sports Net South all declined to discuss the money and years involved in the deals, saying only that they were “long-term” and “multiyear.”
