Posted by John Vrooman on Thursday, December 20, 2018 in National Football League.

Interview with Charlotte Observer.

-What would you say are the biggest advantages/opportunities of moving practice facilities (adjacent to BofA Stadium) and offices (inside stadium) to somewhere else offsite?

The Panthers are simply keeping up with the Jonses by building separate practice facilities, which in this case probably involves a covered facility and offices exclusively controlled by the franchise. The secret to the Panthers future development projects probably lies in the recent past of remote offsite developments by Pittsburgh Steelers and the rest of the NFL.

-North and South Carolina have long competed for businesses through things like tax breaks, incentives, public-private funding deals etc. Think this could be something that plays out with the Panthers?

Yep, the modus operandi of the Panthers will initially involve a modest bargaining (extortion) triangle between at least two alternative relocation sites, like the two Carolinas.

The Panthers will then play both ends against the middle, and the winning state or local government agency will systematically overbid tax breaks and interest rate shields in the bargaining process. This is how the true take it or leave it territorial monopoly power of a single NFL franchise works.

-How would the new location (new state, county, for instance) stand to benefit financially from the new campus?

There will be modest economic gains for the new location, but they will be outweighed by the losses other local regional jurisdictions and they will be exceeded by the hidden project costs.

Most of the economic gains will accrue to the Panthers and project developers and leak out of the local economy like a sieve.

As a result the economic multiplier effects will be zero-sum at best. This is usually what happens with the public subsidization of a private business.

-Do you think a move of some facilities away from BofA Stadium could prompted employees and even players/coaches to establish residences elsewhere wherever the new campus is?

This hard to predict, but the relatively small administrative staffs of NFL clubs are probably not the best drivers of economic development and many of the NFL players (career less than 4 years) and coaches are in a constant state of transition.

If the relocation project was such a good deal for the state and local jurisdictions, it would (could) probably already be done by a private development consortium integrated as part of a larger entertainment/business district.

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