My statement was mainly regarding the use of state funds, which I believe Charlotte has taken too much of over the decades.
I was referring to Greensboro with that statement. Also, the Hurricanes are a home-grown sports team with one of the highest attendance records in the league. I saw a news story not long ago where a family mentioned that they moved here from out of state to be closer to the Hurricanes.
Sports wise, if you want another losing team in Charlotte thatâs your prerogative.
How?? Charlotte gets a laughably small amount of support of any kind from NC. Our infrastructure is falling further and further behind the demands of the city as it continues to grow and thereâs not much relief in sight other than MAYBE a regional line up to Davidson in a decade. Raleigh has seen improvements/expansion to 40, 440, and 540, as well as the investment towards the S-Line (I know a lot of that is federal though).
Iâm glad that we at least have one consistently competitive professional sports team to root for in NC, but I donât consider the Hurricanes âhome-grownâ like the Panthers. It would be like if the Rays or As moved to CharlotteâŚover time Iâm sure theyâd be adopted by residents as our home team like the Hurricanes have been, but initially I donât think thereâs the same level of community pride gained from landing a team that moved because they wanted more public funding than their previous home city was willing to give them. Charlotteans very quickly took to the FC (even if theyâre not great), everyone walks around in FC gear which makes me think Raleigh would see a similar showing of support for an MLB team.
Iâm not convinced around your argument that the Hurricanes arenât homegrown. The Whalers franchise was essentially burned to the ground early on. We took their franchise spot, but Iâd argue we didnât take their fans and we didnât take their history until very recently.
Homegrown doesnât have anything to do with speed of adoption. The vast majority of people that are Hurricanes fans grew up here. Just because the area did not take to the team quickly doesnât meant they werenât homegrown.
Glen Wesley went to my church in Cary when I was younger. And you can bet your ass that we supported the hell out of him.
Lenovo Center will host the 2028 menâs basketball East Regional.
By homegrown I very clearly meant that the team did not begin their existence in NC. Obviously by this point the Hurricanes have become Raleighâs team. Same as how the Titans have become a part of Nashville, the Ravens a part of Baltimore, etc. Even when a city rapidly adopts a relocating team as their own, I am really not a fan of billionaires moving a sports team to a different city because their original city wasnât willing to publicly fund a new and very expensive stadium or arena.
By homegrown I very clearly meant that the team did not begin their existence in NC.
Hartford fans did not follow the Hurricanes south. The Hurricanes were built from the bottom-up. They didnât come to Raleigh with built-in fandom like the Chargers in Los Angeles. Hell, the Los Angeles Lakers were originally the Minneapolis Lakers. Are we really going to sit here and pretend that the Lakers werenât homegrown in LA?
I understood that was your definition and I framed the way I responded to you to address it. Trying to categorize a team as not homegrown because of a few pieces of paper and a few employees that follow the team to another destination is a much bigger leap than the argument Iâm making.
Furthermore, when the Whalers move to NC in the 90s, their valuation was about $47.5 million. Most recently, they were valued at almost $1 billion. So, just by sheer valuation, 95% of this teamâs value was grown in good olâ Raleigh, North Carolina.
Youâre intentionally misconstruing my point. (Original) Browns fans didnât follow the team to Baltimore. SuperSonics fans didnât follow the team to OKC. Etc. The Ravens, Thunder, and generally all other teams that have moved, have built up large fanbases over time because typically there wasnât a team there already. Which includes the Lakers as there was not a basketball team there yet when the team moved.
The Chargers, while technically originally from LA, relocated to San Diego after their first season, and spent the following 56 years there. Itâs a very big stretch to say that they already had a built-in fan base in LA considering the team couldnât even sell out a ridiculously undersized 27,000 seat stadium in their first game back.
Certainly things are different now than when many sports franchises were started and in many cases relocated. There is so much money involved today that itâs hard to realistically compare moves in the mid-20th century to moves made more recently. But I mean itâs like saying Advance Auto Parts is home grown in Raleigh because thatâs where its headquarters is, and that seems like a disingenuous argument. Sports is sports, there are going to be fans everywhere.
Iâm not misconstruing anything. According to your logic, the Los Angeles Lakers arenât homegrown. Thatâs a ridiculous statement to make.
I provided monetary reasons (team valuation changes) and evidentiary reasons (fans not following the team) to support my thesis. Yours is only that the franchise didnât get founded and began here.
This is an odd example to choose, seeing as how there are 10,000 lakes in Minnesota but very few notable lakes in or around Los Angeles. The fact that the Los Angeles Lakers werenât homegrown in Los Angeles is pretty clearly given away in the name itself.
Ok but homie I think his point is that at this point in time, we see the Lakers as a pure Los Angeles cultural institution. Ainât nobody on planet earth saying âI was a fan of the Lakers when they were in MINNESOTAâ lmao - the Lakers are as LA as Hollywood and botox by now.
Same goes for the Hurricanes. NOBODY associates them with Hartford, CT lmao
Now I know why Leo still has this thread on the âOne hour between postsâ setting.
UmmmmmmmâŚ
The plans donât have any of those tailgating suites along the edges of the parking decks?? So just regular ol parking decks? - That is a major letdown.
Is it not possible that the plans would be for a parking deck with the tailgating areas built out after?
Would seem pretty crazy to release something 2 weeks ago and change plans already.
Sure, not very efficient schedule-wise, but still wouldâve expected some mention of future work or something.
I post the in general Raleigh conversation but Iâll put it here, Iâve been preaching this for years. Prayers finally being answered?
It paywalled but can someone copy paste the article Ive been preaching this for awhile now.
Reposting full articles behind a paywall is not allowed here. Please share articles with a few quotes and a link back to it.
A commercial real estate services firm released a report about reimagining cities, and one implication of its findings is that it would be nice if Raleigh had more residential and entertainment spaces relative to its number of office spaces. Hereâs a link to the report, which is not paywalled, and looks at a lot of cities, not just Raliegh.
Confusingly, though, the report says that 35.7 percent of Raleighâs âwalkable urban placesâ are residential, while the âideal mixâ to optimize GDP and real estate valuations is only 31 percent. This is an oddly specific number, and thereâs absolutely no explanation of how they arrived at this number, but it would seem to undercut the argument about residential space in Raleigh.
Funny thing is the franchise didnât even start in Minneapolis. It started in Detroit as the Gems, a promised arena never was built, and it was quickly sold to new owners who moved it to Minneapolis.