Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper spoke to the media yesterday about his desire for a new stadium, and among the things that came out of his mouth was this:
“You know, at some point that building [Bank of America Stadium] will fall down,” Tepper said. “I said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m not building a stadium alone. The community’s going to have to want it.”
Yes, that’s right, fall down. In speaking of a 25-year-old stadium. If well-maintained, steel buildings can last for well over a hundred years, as one can readily see from all of the early-20th-century skyscrapers that aren’t currently toppling over; human beings, meanwhile, don’t last nearly as long, so the odds of the 63-year-old Tepper ever having to think about how to replace his stadium because a gust of wind or possibly a Big Bad Wolf blew it over are pretty much nil.
Equally as important in Tepper’s statement as trying to convince people that his building is suddenly decrepit, of course, is the bit about “not building a stadium alone,” which means he wants somebody else to pay for it, and that somebody is “the community,” and he doesn’t mean the community of rich NFL owners. To recap:
Tepper, February 2020: “As far as a new stadium, this thing is whatever it is, seven years or 10 years — you have to talk about this stuff at some point. And this stadium is old in the NFL and at some point, we’re going to have to do something major — maintenance goes up every year.”
Tepper, February 2020 (a bit later in the month): “People here have to agree to do things or want to do things.”
Tepper’s been mostly quiet about the whole new-stadium thing since then, likely because of the whole world-being-on-fire thing, but now he’s clearly decided it’s time for a return to normalcy, which means demanding a new stadium before your 25-year-old one falls down and insisting that he’s not going to pay for it all himself. Because that would be crazy, what kind of NFL owner pays for an entire stadium himself, oh hush, you.
The Panthers can move to Buffalo once the Bills decamp to Greensboro.
At least the Yankees waited until actual concrete fell before complaining about the stadium falling apart.
This time? Call the bluff. Charlotte may or may not be a great NFL market, but there’s nowhere the Panthers can threaten to move to that is going to cause Charlotteans to feel threatened. St. Louis? San Diego? London? Pffft. Go ahead, hedge fund boy. Don’t let the door where the good lord split ya, to use a southern phrase.
They won’t, of course, because no one in a position of municipal government has any stones when it comes to professional sports franchises unless they’re in Oakland, California.
I fought this all day long. I finally had to comment. I couldn’t stop myself.
There’s always the Pontiac Silverdome (Michigan Panthers).
https://youtu.be/GTraZbRYY60 (epic music choice)
https://youtu.be/JP39HtD8W78 (epic local news coverage failure. “This building was to come down at 8:30. We heard the explosions. The structure is still standing. Was there a problem ….. Maybe this is just a wait and see.” An epic failure on par with Geraldo Rivera’s “The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults”)
Oh wait. Never mind.
https://youtu.be/_XKy6xTZpvg
Hey, the Roman Colosseum is still standing and available for occupancy.
Billionaires are conservative, “let’s not change a thing” about everything except for stadiums and wives.
In fairness, they tend to keep the wives until they are nearly 30. Unlike the stadia.
Because the Lord said marriage is a sacred union between a man and a series of increasingly younger women.
Back in 2013, the dolphins were saying the same things about “needing” repairs or else the whole stadium might have to be torn down.
They were unsuccessful in their bid to secure public funds for a lot of reasons. But the story is a decent read. https://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-dolphins/fl-dolphins-legislature-mayocol-b050713-20130506-column.html
It was kind of sad watching and reading the bobble-headed enthusiasm of the newsreaders.