How David Tepper fast-tracked Major League Soccer’s path to Charlotte

Sacramento, which won a team in October, began vying for a team in 2014.

With a net worth of almost $12 billion, Tepper’s pockets certainly help his chances. But he’s taken some other key steps along the way, too.

Tepper has marked off his checklist most of what he set out to do when he first took over as owner of the Panthers — build a practice bubble Uptown, secure plans for a South Carolina facility, bring concerts and other non-NFL events to Bank of America Stadium.

Any day now, Tepper will cross off the biggest item on the list, when Charlotte lands the MLS’s 30 team.

The last time Charlotte made a run at the MLS was almost exactly three years ago, and it was an entirely different group of bidders — racetrack owners Bruton and Marcus Smith.

I remember when commissioner Don Garber held a conference call with several reporters to talk about expansion back then. Ten markets were bidding, including Charlotte. He lauded the Smiths for their energy and pro sports experience.

My Observer colleagues and I covered the ups and downs of the Smiths’ bid until October 2017, when the effort died. Elected officials refused to provide public funds to help pay for the Smiths’ $175 million plan to redo Memorial Stadium for an MLS team.

At the time, it seemed like Charlotte’s chances at landing a team died, too.

Even if it wasn’t successful, the Smiths’ bid helped lay the groundwork for Tepper’s effort, says at-large city councilman James Mitchell. MLS executives came to visit Charlotte back then, he notes. They learned about the city’s rapid growth and fans’ appetite for pro soccer.

“I think we learned a lot of valuable lessons from that episode,” Mitchell says of the 2017 effort.

Half a year after the Smiths’ bid fizzled, Tepper agreed to buy the Panthers for $2.275 billion — an NFL record price. The first time Tepper brought up the MLS was in May 2018, at the NFL owners meeting in Atlanta. This was months before Tepper’s purchase of the Panthers even closed.

Once the deal was sealed, Tepper quickly got to work to fast-track his MLS plans.

One of his first items of business: Hiring Tom Glick as the Panthers’ team president. Three years earlier, Glick helped bring MLS to New York.

Glick and Tepper made a number significant upgrades to the business side of the Panthers’ operation, including an expanded sponsorship from Lowe’s and a deal from Atrium Health for the practice bubble. This summer, Panthers executives signed a multi-year deal with Ally Financial to be the primary corporate backer for Charlotte’s eventual MLS team.

Panthers executives have also brought more high-profile soccer games to the stadium. This summer, they signed a five-year deal with Relevant Sports to host the International Champions Cup. It’s the first multi-year deal of its kind for the tournament.

Glick has already been successful in securing public funds for Tepper’s operation — just in South Carolina.

Last spring the Panthers worked with South Carolina lawmakers to dedicate $115 million in incentives to build a team practice facility and headquarters to Rock Hill.

Now, team executives want over $100 million in incentives from the city of Charlotte to upgrade Bank of America Stadium to accommodate MLS — including adding a center tunnel and MLS-specific camera equipment. Now, the MLS deal is contingent upon those changes.

Tepper’s proposal also includes turning the old Eastland Mall site into an MLS team headquarters and practice grounds. The property around Eastland, which closed in 2010 and was razed three years later, still sits empty.

The city longs to invest in the site.

“Rebranding Eastland to be able to do some very special … and it’s something District 5 has been waiting on for so long,” says Mitchell, the city councilman.

Tepper seems to care about how Eastland neighbors view the plans. A few weeks ago, he visited several nearby businesses to gauge their thoughts on the proposal — including Manolo’s Bakery owner Manolo Betancur, whom the Agenda wrote about last month.

Tepper has also started engaging Charlotte’s minor-league soccer team, the Independence, to see how the two groups could work together if the MLS comes here.

There was no such collaboration last time.

In fact, the Observer wrote in 2017 that Independence president and managing partner Jim McPhilliamy spent more than $200,000 on his own to study a redesign of Memorial Stadium — only to have the Smiths use his architectural designs in their MLS pitch without his consent.

“We have been run over in this process,” he told the paper. 

Now, McPhilliamy has been in cordial talks with Panthers executives on how his team and a future MLS franchise could work together. Nothing has been formalized, though.

Their future work together could include grooming talent for a major-league franchise, and collaborating on youth camps, experts say. Currently, Memorial Stadium is undergoing a $40 million renovation and will become the new home of the Independence.

McPhilliamy describes his relationship with Tepper at the moment as “friendly competitors.”

“I did ask them to make sure and put me on a priority season-ticket holder list so I can get good seats,” he joked of Tepper’s future MLS team.