Isn’t it great when sports owners announce upgrades to their arena while contributing little to nothing themselves?
In Utah, the Smith Entertainment Group owns the local NBA and NHL teams. In order for this group to get almost a billion dollars from taxpayers to pay for upgrades to the current arena, the Group pledged to pay $3B dollars of their own money on upgrading the arena and renovations outside the venue. Only problem? Nobody knows any details about this pledge to pay $3B dollars. Can he walk away from this? Is it in writing? Is it just something he may not want to do in a few years? Who knows?
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Carolina Panthers officials swear their economic impact numbers are real, they just can’t prove it
Several weeks ago, the Carolina Panthers were given $650 million by the city of Charlotte to renovate their current NFL stadium. Nevermind that the Panthers owner has a less-than-perfect history of following through on commitments (then refuses to talk about it publicly). Nevermind that he is one of the richest men in the entire world. Maybe one of the worst owners too, but that is for another time. Anyway, since the deal was approved several weeks ago, some city leaders have been getting…
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The Carolina Panthers want $800 million from taxpayers, seem to be using the playbook from their last failed deal
In late 2018, David Tepper bought the Carolina Panthers. His first big project was to build a brand new team headquarters and training camp in Rock Hill, South Carolina. The $800 million deal was announced in 2019 and gave the team an absurd amount of tax credits and property tax savings. As ESPN put it, South Carolina leaders “cheered the investment, offering incentives and relishing getting a piece of the NFL team”. After construction of the project started, it wasn't that long before Rock…
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Charlotte taxpayers will be paying for a new stadium shortly
South Carolina House member John Ray Bradford stated that by keeping certain hospitality taxes in place until 2060, people should be happy because they are “not increasing any taxes”. Except, without this extension, locals would have paid less at hotels, bars, restaurants, etc… in the future. He also claimed that the city would have more confidence going to banks with more taxpayer money? Or something. My confidence is always sky-high whenever I see my “local hospitality lobbyists” being the…
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