He may be the best at getting money.
You have to give David Tepper credit. Tepper can play the sports ownership stadium game as well as anybody. Tepper owns the National Football League’s Carolina Panthers franchise and has picked up a Major League Soccer team. Tepper’s two sports businesses will share the Charlotte, North Carolina facility he owns. Tepper has lots of money and will pay for some things and will take public money for the rest. Tepper is getting taxpayers to put up about $110 million from a hospitality tax fund to pay his Charlotte stadium improvements. Eventually Tepper will demand a new stadium. “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,” Tepper said. “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.”
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. North Carolina and South Carolina politicians continue to give him tools to win the stadium game.
