Malik was trying to throw shade and the deal with Ally, as well. Really not a good weekend for him on social media IMO. Made himself look petty and small. Some people need to be saved from themselves on social media. If I had the ear of a rich and famous person I would tell them to let someone else run their social and get burner accounts if they can’t keep their mouths shut… or fingers shut, I guess… idk.
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Between BOA, BB&T/Suntrust/Truist, Ally, Wells Fargo, and all the other mega banks in Charlotte, they have a lot of money to throw for naming rights.
I am not surprised by this, and I would not be surprised if MLB comes to Charlotte either because of this. Especially if Charlotte can get another Fortune 50 company to move its HQ there (I think it will be Wells Fargo if the rumors are true),
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There are rumors of Wells Fargo moving? That’s crazy!
Charlotte seems like the obvious choice for a MLB team.
Another great episode by the guys at Raleigh City Sports. Malik was on and while they are supporters of the project, they didn’t shy away from asking some of the questions we have discussed on here.
Here are my takeaways.
Malik isn’t really happy that he’s followed all their rules, put together a nice package, and Charlotte is the one who got the meeting with a proposal that doesn’t even involve a soccer-specific stadium.
The RCS guys brought up the fact that it seems MLS keeps moving the goalposts and changing their rules based on who has the most money. IMO, they are right and that’s exactly what’s going on. Malik wouldn’t take a shot at the MLS and said it wasn’t them moving the goalposts, it was cities and their bids moving them. Not sure what that means, but to me, it’s 100% MLS catering to whoever has the most cash on hand.
Secondly, I said this before, and I’ll say it again. The approach and messaging around this proposal was a miss. There’s a ton of vagueness to Malik’s comments or certain things he ‘can’t comment’ on,won’t go into detail on, but at the same time he’s asking county/city for $300 million in public funds and is asking the people to write their city officials and back the proposal.
The positioning of all of this smells like your classic stadium proposal to a city. Not much detail, a lot happening behind closed doors, and a lot of unanswered questions. That worked about 5-10 years ago but isn’t ideal anymore. With tons of data, most of it pointing to horror stories around public financing of stadiums, I believe the right approach was to come out with an extremely transparent proposal that talked about contingencies, costs, usage, ROI and really just laid it out clearly…take it or leave it. I think with MLS they have a serious case for this, but I don’t know, I just don’t like the fact that it seems some information isn’t for the public to know.
Overall, I thought Malik came across fine, but still left us with lots of unanswered questions. RCS guys tried to pry, but he wouldn’t give it up. For instance, he talked contingencies and almost laughed at the idea that the city would give that kind of money without them…Well, then why don’t you tell us what they are instead of expecting us to know that is the case?
With strategic messaging, a solid social campaign, more transparency, and more public engagement, there would be a heck of a lot more excitement around this project and a lot less time spent asking questions and discussing hypotheticals.
Thought interview was great. Line of questioning was great. Malik was personable but likely didn’t sway anyone or change any minds with his answers.
I’m sure others will take different things away from this interview and I’d like to hear what other people thought about Malik’s comments. Either way, go give it a listen …
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Wells Fargo is NOT moving from San Francisco to ‘charlotte usa’ ! This sounds like some nonsense started straight out of ‘sharlottes got a lot …of insecurities’ . Wells has been a west coast based bank for over 100+ years. San Francisco—‘charlotte usa’? seriously?
This said, Raleigh’s companies could ‘step up’ more often. The problem is most of our companies are not ‘brand names’. A CRO or biopharmaceutical company, or Pendo for that matter, don’t need to advertise to general consumers. This is a challenge for our sports teams because unless you are New York City, LA, San Francisco, etc, the only companies that are going to spend money on naming rights are ‘home town’ companies.
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I mean it’s unlikly but possible. Charlotte is the second largest banking city in the US and is actually home to more Wells employees then San Fran.
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Plus Wells could get some fat incentive package and get credit for shaking things up to improve their image.
No one would believe B of A would every leave San Fransisco, where it was born in the ruins of the '06 earthquake. I understand the bank & name were purchased, but this does prove that nearly anything is possible. That said, I would be just as stunned if W-F moved HQ as when BoA did.
It seems like Malik is starting to lose his cool. You can certainly understand where he’s coming from, considering he’s spent years trying to get his ducks in a row and here comes one rich dude in Charlotte pushing him out of the way seemingly overnight. That said, he’s gotta be diplomatic in these situations and keep things to himself. Or partner with a billionaire…Dundon has made noise about bringing MLS to Raleigh, but I imagine it would hurt Malik’s ego to have to bring Dundon in on the bid. Who knows?
Interestingly enough, the crowd at this weekend’s match in Charlotte was considered a disappointment. Furthermore, Charlotte’s USL team has the lowest attendance of any team in that league that isn’t a direct affiliate in the same city of an MLS club. Not that NCFC is doing great (middle of the pack), but the appetite for MLS in Charlotte is coming from the suits, not the stands. Of course, the suits are who matter in the end.
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Bank of America didn’t leave San Francisco. They were acquired.
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In case I was unclear, I did edit out an redundant “it”.
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Agree. Charlotte seems like a better fit for MLB, while Raleigh would be a great fit for MLS.
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There are rumors. IT will depend on the new CEO, but the lead candidate is Charlotte based. All it will really mean is the leadership staff switch sites. However, operations have been moving to Charlotte heavily over the last few years. Look at their job postings.
Edit: Just to add, I believe Wells Fargo is Charlotte’s largest employer, with 33,000 in the metro area?
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If I’m not mistaken , The Raleigh City Sports Podcast stated that The Wake County Commissioner’s
Workshop Meeting on August 12th 2pm Room 2800 at The Justice Center is a closed meeting . Wake
County Commissioner Vickie Adamson sent me a email today stating that this meeting is open to the
public .
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@nipper.dwight , I think you’re correct and that the meeting is open. We were probably just misinformed…per usual!
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Eh, MLS is more of a … Charlotte idea.
But, no, seriously: Since literally day one as the owner of the Panthers, David Tepper has been trying to shake down the city of Charlotte for public subsidies to build a new stadium to replace the perfectly good stadium the team already has, even going so far as obliquely threatening to move the team to South Carolina. But while that would probably work just fine for an NFL team, you couldn’t really put an MLS team in Rock Hill. So in addition of saving the cost of building a new soccer stadium, putting an MLS team in Bank of America Stadium would make it less likely that the public gets saddled with the cost of building a new football stadium for the Panthers. Very efficient!
BTW, this is another factor to think about before deciding whether to subsidize the construction of a sports stadium: Sure, the team owners will be happy for a good decade, maybe two, but usually after about 20 to 25 years, they start moaning about how the stadium was just fine when it opened, but now it’s starting to show its age and feel dated compared to the great experience you get in other cities, and we need to plow even more public money into renovating it in order to keep pace with modern expectations. Indeed, this is literally what is happening right now with PNC Arena, which is now getting a $115 million top-off from the public even though it’s not quite 20 years old. (And they initially asked for $200 million.)
@JoeZ Naming rights for an MLS soccer-specific stadium usually run around $2 million per year, but that doesn’t mean that the city/county would get to keep all of that money, even if the public nominally owns the stadium. The naming rights for a USL stadium are next to nothing. Sahlen paid a grand total of $400,000 for the naming rights for NCFC’s current stadium, but Cary gets only $100,000 of that money, and NCFC gets the rest. (WakeMed pays Cary $315,000 a year for the naming rights for the larger soccer complex in which the stadium is located.)
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Can anybody that is a subscriber of TBJ give us the article information ? Thanks !
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Please summarize the TBJ articles in your own words and not copy and paste them here.
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