He is afraid the building will fall down.
The National Football League’s Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper has issued a challenge to Charlotte, North Carolina in the stadium game. If you want a new Panthers stadium you better put up some money. Tepper isn’t outwardly saying he wants a new football facility because they would hurt him in the stadium negotiation game but he did say. “At some point that building will fall down. I’m not building a stadium alone.” The stadium is 25-year-old. In April, 2013, the Charlotte city council gave the team about $87 million to renovate the place. Charlotte does host eight or nine regular season NFL games along with pre-season games and maybe playoff games. The stadium will also host Tepper’s Major League Soccer franchise beginning in 2022.
In 2019, Tepper got Charlotte taxpayers to put up about $110 million from a hospitality tax fund to pay his stadium improvements for the soccer team. In August 2019, Tepper persuaded South Carolina elected officials to give him $115 million to help move his Panthers’ headquarters and practice facility from North Carolina to South Carolina. South Carolina politicians offered tax breaks and incentives over a 15-year period if Tepper took his business to York County. The facility, which Tepper will fund, will include two practice facilities and an indoor practice facility that could seat 10,000 people. But Tepper will keep his employees state income tax and will use that money to build his team’s headquarters. The facility will be off Interstate 77 and right now there is no way of accessing the site from the highway. But have no fear. An interchange will be built to help Tepper’s business. The cost? $40 million, half of which will be funded by federal taxpayers, the rest by local taxpayers. Tepper knows how to win the stadium game.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
