Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper has held his first news conference in more than a year. Reporters peppered him with questions yesterday about the nixed deal to build a new training facility and headquarters for the team in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
The Panthers left the future of the $800 million project — construction on which was already underway — in the air after saying the city of Rock Hill didn’t provide bonds to help pay for infrastructure. As for answering reporters’ questions about the topic on Tuesday…
“Tepper said repeatedly he wasn’t really going to answer that question,” the Charlotte Ledger business newsletter’s Tony Mecia told WFAE’s Woody Cain on this week’s installment of BizWorthy. “He said that there’s been a lot of finger-pointing back and forth between Rock Hill and the team. He said Rock Hill had asked that that not be argued in media and in the public. And so he said, respectfully, he didn't want to answer that. So he didn't really give a lot of insight into that. But he did say he does want to meet with Rock Hill and maybe try to hash something out.”
Panthers owner David Tepper speaks to the media https://t.co/w3TAapdrDT
— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) April 27, 2022
There were plenty of other questions posed to Tepper, such as requests for a status update on his organization’s Eastland Mall site, plans for building an uptown entertainment district and for his thoughts on the new MLS team Charlotte FC.
“He didn’t really want to talk about any of that,” Mecia said. “He said he was there to talk about football. He did say he didn’t fully appreciate when he bought the team how great of an experience it is watching a game at Bank of America Stadium.”
You can listen to the full BizWorthy conversation above. Here’s a quick look at what else Cain and Mecia and covered this week.
- The wedding business is bouncing back after two years of postponed ceremonies due to the pandemic. The Charlotte area is seeing more and more weddings.
- There’s some discussion about what the former owners of Charlotte restaurants that closed in the pandemic — Price’s Chicken Coop, Zack’s Hamburgers, Bill Spoon’s Barbecue and Mr. K’s — are doing these days.
- The Charlotte Observer’s parent company, McClatchy, is using AI to generate some news articles.
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