On Tuesday night, the Charlotte Hornets game will be a Nickelodeon-themed affair, with events hosted by Kel Mitchell and a Double Dare competition at halftime along with plenty of nostalgia-tinged promotions. The first of those is this sick, Rugrats-themed merch that is already on sale at the Hornets’ pro shop:
Snag your own #HornetsNickNight socks and T-shirt starting at 11am today at the Hornets Fan Shop! #TheSplat pic.twitter.com/GJtyQSItX8
— Charlotte Hornets (@hornets) March 1, 2016
We aren’t aware of any specific connection between the show and the team, but who cares? It’s fun to just throw two unrelated things lots of people like together and say, screw it. That’s how you get Leonard Nimoy singing about hobbits. That’s how you get Air Bud, the seminal animals-playing-sports movie. More than anything, we’re just happy an NBA team is having fun with their image, and Charlotte throwing it back to their sick ’90s Hornets’ logo on the socks makes it all the better.
We’ve seen minor league baseball teams go the Nickelodeon route in the past with the Norfolk Tides sporting their wonderful-yet-ridiculous Spongebob Squarepants jerseys and the Frederick Keys remembering Rugrats with their awesome Chucky-themed outfits, but an NBA team honoring NickToons is on a whole different level.
If the Hornets’ opponents Tuesday night, the Suns, had any sense, they would temporarily change their team name to the Phoenix Reptars.
