|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
by WILL FOLKS
***
The Carolina Panthers dramatically exceeded expectations this season, capturing their first NFC South championship since 2015 and reaching the playoffs for the first time during the otherwise disastrous David Tepper era.
The Panthers (8-9) will host an NFC Wild Card game against the Los Angeles Rams (12-5) at 4:30 p.m. EST this Saturday (January 10, 2026) at Bank of America Stadium in downtown Charlotte, N.C.
Yet while the Panthers’ coaching staff – led by second-year head coach Dave Canales – is clearly moving the franchise in the right direction, the team helping lead Carolina’s upcoming stadium renovation project is apparently no longer part of the equation.
Sources familiar with the unfolding situation said Panthers’ chief venues officer Caroline Wright and general counsel Tanya Taylor are no longer with the franchise as of Tuesday (January 6, 2026). It’s not immediately clear whether Wright and Taylor were fired or left voluntarily.
As we reported in June of 2024, the Panthers are undertaking a massive overhaul of Bank of America stadium, where the team has played its home games since 1996. With the Buffalo Bills wrapping up their final season at Highmark Stadium, Bank of America is now the seventh-oldest facility in the NFL.
***
Last April, the city of Charlotte voted to approve $650 million in proceeds from taxpayer-guaranteed bonds to accompany a $150 million investment from Tepper (whose net worth is estimated at $23.7 billion). In exchange for the city’s investment, the Panthers – and the Charlotte FC soccer team – agreed to remain in Charlotte for the next two decades.
Is the project still on track? Everything certainly seems to be progressing according to plan…
Just this week, Erik Spanberg of The Charlotte Business Journal reported on the latest developments associated with the project – which is expected to be carried out in phases between now and late 2030.
According to Spanberg, Panthers’ executives told him Tepper wanted to host as many concerts as possible this year (during the first phase of the project) because “subsequent phases from 2027 through 2030 are likely to limit outside events.”
“(The) hope is to have all construction finished in time for at least a portion of the 2030 season,” Tepper Sports & Entertainment CEO Kristi Coleman told Spanberg.
Tepper, our audience will recall, agreed to move the Panthers’ corporate headquarters (and practice facility) to Rock Hill, S.C. in 2019, a deal hailed as the signature economic development achievement of S.C. governor Henry McMaster. However, the agreement – which cost Palmetto State taxpayers tens of millions of dollars – ultimately collapsed, and in 2022 Tepper’s holding company filed for bankruptcy in Delaware.
My media outlet opposed that crony capitalist scheme from the very beginning.
***
RELATED | CLEMSON GOES ‘BACK TO THE FUTURE’
***
“This is a bad deal. Period,” I wrote in March of 2019. “South Carolina should pass on the Panthers … and tell Tepper that while he is welcome to locate in the Palmetto State, he is not going to get paid to bring (his team) here.”
Regular members of our audience know we have argued for years that the “benefits” of stadium subsidies accrue almost exclusively to the owners of the franchises who receive these tax breaks. A 2015 report from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University confirmed extensive previous research on this subject, concluding that “despite the many millions of dollars spent on professional sports, little or none of that money makes its way back to the taxpayers.”
In fact, the research actually uncovered “harmful effects of sports on per capita income, wage and salary disbursements, and wages per job.”
The Atlantic – a left-leaning media outlet – published a piece in May 2024 from author Dan Moore detailing just how poor an investment these stadium deals are for the cities which get suckered into supporting them.
“These subsidies are a boondoggle for taxpayers, who have spent nearly $30 billion on stadiums over the past 34 years, not counting property-tax exemptions or federal revenues lost to tax-exempt municipal bonds,” Moore wrote. “Stadiums do not come close to generating enough economic activity to pay back the public investment involved in building them—especially when they’re coupled with lease agreements that funnel revenue back to owners or allow teams to play in the stadiums rent-free.”
Keep it tuned to FITSNews as we dig deeper into the latest moves at Panthers’ headquarters…
***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
***
WANNA SOUND OFF?
Got something you’d like to say in response to one of our articles? Or an issue you’d like to address proactively? We have an open microphone policy! Submit your letter to the editor (or guest column) via email HERE. Got a tip for a story? CLICK HERE. Got a technical question or a glitch to report? CLICK HERE.
