Carl Scheer, who helped to bring the BI-LO Center to Greenville, is now back with the Charlotte Hornets
As part of his more than 40 years in sports, veteran manager and consultant Carl Scheer spent several years in the Upstate paving the way for the BI-LO Center’s genesis. Now he has helped to bring the Charlotte Hornets’ name back to the Queen City.
Scheer started in sports with the Carolina Cougars basketball team as president and general manager. He had played basketball in college at Colgate University and at Middlebury College as he studied law. Scheer practiced law for six years in Greensboro, N.C., and later worked as an administrator with the Continental Basketball Association (CBA), a development league of the NBA.
Scheer said along the way, he worked with the Carolina Cougars, Los Angeles Clippers, Buffalo and the Denver Nuggets. After working with Denver for a second time, Scheer formed a boutique marketing company, Scheer Sports, and worked in marketing basketball and hockey. He soon acquired an interest in the Charlotte Checkers hockey team.
In the mid-1990s, Scheer was working with the city of Greenville to promote an ACC baseball tour that was stopping at Greenville Municipal Stadium. He later met with the city manager and leaders to discuss establishing an arena for Greenville.
There were multiple bumps along the way, said Scheer, but in the end the $64 million project was the largest public-private partnership in the Upstate at the time and an “extraordinary arena for its time.” Scheer called finalizing the deal for the BI-LO Center one of the highlights of his decades-long career.
“We had done what no one thought could be done,” he said.
Soon, however, the “chance to restore a hockey arena in Charlotte” – not to mention cutting the commuting time between Greenville and Charlotte – lured Scheer to North Carolina.
The other standout moment in his career came in 1998, when he was asked to be president and general manager of the Charlotte Hornets, Scheer says. “No one thought Charlotte could support an NBA team.
These days, Scheer, 76, is back in Charlotte, working as a consultant with the Charlotte Bobcats at Time Warner Cable Arena.
“Michael Jordan convinced me to work full-time with the Bobcats,” he said.
Now he works to achieve a better relationship with the community, sells club seats and suites, and meets with local leaders about the team. His latest project is focusing on bringing the beloved Charlotte Hornets name back to the city, approved on July 18 by the NBA.
The Hornets had moved to New Orleans, he said, but when the team was sold to the owner of the Saints, he changed the name to the Pelicans. Now the NBA is allowing Charlotte to purchase the name, a first in the history of the league, he said. Though the switch will cost several million dollars, “we feel it’s important to the community that supported the Hornets for many years,” he said.
The love of sports is what has always drawn him to what he does, Scheer says. “There’s not one day I would change professions.”
