Out with the Old, in with the "New" Florida Bobcats
Matt Walsh
Wednesday June 21, 2000
Among Buffington’s job duties and responsibilities: getting the lazy sunbathers off the South Florida beaches and into the spring break-like atmosphere of National Car Rental Center where the Bobcats play their home games--all while trying to put out a winning product on the field to attract those South Floridians.
Not exactly a gravy position when you consider the team Buffington took over 10 weeks ago had a record of 19-45 during the past 5 seasons and was 0-20 in their division over the past three years. The Bobcats have yet to make the playoffs. Because of the dismal win-loss record, attendance figures over that time period haven’t risen to the occasion, either.
So it’s no surprise that Buffington’s first duty as GM of the Bobcats was to shed the negative past image and adopt a new campaign that promotes his team as the “New” Florida Bobcats.
“We’ve made a lot of changes in the front office and we’ve made a lot of changes on the field,” says Buffington who is doubling as the team’s head coach because of a two-game suspension to Dave Ewart. “We’re trying to promote this team a little differently than in the past. In all our ads, every time we answer the telephones, we’re referring to [the campaign] as the ‘New’ Florida Bobcats. Nobody ever did any display ads or real advertising before.”
A marketing gem it is not; the “New” Florida Bobcats have reverted to their old ways after a promising 3-2 start to the season. After one of the most questionable trades in AFL history that sent Fred McNair to Carolina, the Bobcats are now 0-3 without him. In Buffington’s defense, the Bobcats haven’t exactly been one the league’s higher echelon teams with McNair in the lineup (3-11 records in each of the past two seasons).
But the bad luck that has followed the Bobcats through most of the team’s existence also seems to catching up with them.
Earlier this season, a waterline busted at the state-of-the-art National Car Rental Center forcing Buffington to move the game to the next day, which happened to be Mother’s Day. (With this past Sunday’s loss to the Avengers, the Bobcats are the only team in AFL history to play games on both Mother’s and Father’s Day in the same season).
“It was a disaster,” Buffington said referring to the plumbing problem. “They had to postpone the game from Saturday night where we had 6200 tickets out to the next day which was Mother’s Day. We only had about a thousand people show up for that.”
After so many seasons of uninspired play and attendance figures hovering in the 2500-3000 range, one wonders how much longer this Bobcat franchise can stay afloat. Knowing that South Florida market is one of the toughest for attracting fans to sporting events, Buffington is still optimistic about the Bobcat’s chances on and off the field.
“I think it will take six wins to get in the playoff this season and hopefully, by the last [home] game we will have around seven thousand [fans] show up,” says Buffington who has thirteen years of Arena Football service under his belt. “That will give us an indication of what we can do in the future during the off season because [team owner] Dr. Michael Gelfand and myself have only been here for about 10 and a half weeks.”
Which means that Buffington and the rest of the staff at the Bobcat organization will continue to have their work cut out for them. Dating back to the Hooters franchise in Miami, nobody has been able to make Arena Football succeed in South Florida.
One thing is for certain: It’s going to take a little more than stamping the “New and Improved” label on the team to ensure it of any type of success.
Matt Walsh was a writer for ArenaFan Online from 2000 to 2001.
