What Charlotte can learn from Atlanta about building a new stadium

• Most tickets were reselling for above face value as of Friday, with some between $400 and $500.

Why it matters: Atlanta, our big sibling to the south, has made many mistakes we don’t want to repeat. But they set the bar for how a city should launch a pro soccer club.

• Atlanta won a championship in 2018 — its second season.
• That year, the team set multiple league records for average attendance at 53,000, and pumped more than 70,000 fans to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium on at least two occasions.
• After they won the Cup, the city threw a victory parade and the line was a mile long.

The intrigue: Charlotte’s NFL and MLS owner David Tepper would like to build a new stadium, one that’s as grand as Mercedes-Benz in Atlanta. That palace has guaranteed Atlanta is in the conversation for every big sporting event, from the Super Bowl to a potential host site for the 2026 World Cup.

Yes, but: The process of making Mercedes-Benz wasn’t all hugs and kisses, our Axios Atlanta colleagues tell me.

• Taxpayers were originally told they’d have to invest about $200 million toward Mercedes-Benz. But that number ballooned to closer to $700 million in public spending.
• Its opening was delayed several times due to construction issues.
• The stadium was built next to English Avenue and Vine City, two historically Black neighborhoods. An initiative by team owner Arthur Blank to revitalize the neighborhoods sparked frank discussions about equity, housing affordability and poverty — issues that are still being addressed.

Our thought bubble from Axios Atlanta’s Thomas Wheatley: “The gameday experience at MBS is excellent — the food is tasty and cheap and the building has a great flow — but the sausage-making left a bad taste in many people’s mouths.”

Not only that, Thomas just visited Charlotte over the weekend of the Cincinnati FC game and said he loved how BofA Stadium blended in with Uptown.

Thomas’ thought bubble, Part II: “Expand your stadium where it is. Watching the flow of people walk through Uptown to BofA — and after the game, back through the city — was a beautiful sight.”

The big picture: New stadiums are the public investment of the moment in several places across the country.

• The Buffalo Bills just reached a deal with the New York state government that would put $850 million in public money toward a $1.4 billion stadium.
• And our friends at Axios Nashville broke the scoop last week that Tennessee’s governor was putting forward $500 million toward a $2 billion NFL stadium. City, state and
• Nashville also is opening a separate, soccer-specific stadium that will seat 30,000 people on May 1, 2022.

What’s next: Charlotte Pipe & Foundry is set to move its operations to Stanly County, opening a 55-acre parcel not far from Bank of America Stadium. Charlotte City Council last fall approved a rezoning of that property to allow for a variety of uses, including a stadium.

• Tepper has said there’s “no way in hell” he’d build a domed stadium in Charlotte, but he didn’t rule out a retractable roof.
• And he said he’s “not building a stadium alone,” as Axios’ Katie Peralta Soloff reported in that same story.

One more yes, but: Tepper Sports & Entertainment already has a strained relationship with one area government. In Rock Hill, TSE recently halted construction on a new Panthers headquarters facility until the city issues the bonds it’s promised.

• This week, a South Carolina official sounded off on our states’ richest man, telling the Charlotte Business Journal: “The bottom line is our community needs answers.”