Athletes and sports teams from North Carolina compete across an array of professional and amateur levels of competition, along with athletes who compete at the World and Olympic levels in their respective sport. At the collegiate and university level, there are several North Carolina schools in various conferences across an array of divisions.
North Carolina also has many minor league baseball teams. There are also a number of indoor football, indoor soccer, minor league basketball, and minor league ice hockey teams based throughout the state. Though it has never been home to a Major League Baseball club, North Carolina is home to numerous minor league and collegiate summer league teams. Many colleges with athletic programs also field baseball teams.
The first successful major professional sports team to be created in North Carolina were the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association NBA , which began play in the —89 season. The Charlotte team plays its home games at the Spectrum Center. The Bobcats assumed the Hornets nickname after the conclusion of the —14 season; the New Orleans team had changed its name to the New Orleans Pelicans at the start of that season.
By agreement between the NBA, Hornets, and Pelicans, the history and records of the — Hornets were assumed by the current Hornets franchise. Following the Cougars' move to St. Louis it would be fourteen years before professional basketball would return to the Old North State when Charlotte was awarded the NBA's 24th franchise, the Charlotte Hornets. The Hornets played at the Charlotte Coliseum before moving to New Orleans following a bitter dispute between team ownership and the city over funding for a new arena.
Two years after the Hornets decamped the Queen City was named as the home of the expansion Charlotte Bobcats who would play two seasons at the Coliseum before taking up residence at a new venue now known as Spectrum Center in Uptown. The franchise rights to the Hornets name and logo, plus the history of the original Charlotte Hornets, were given back to the city of Charlotte after the —14 NBA season, at the same time the Charlotte Bobcats became the Charlotte Hornets.
