Raleigh Stadium/Arena/Sports Discussions

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.

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Sports wise, if you want another losing team in Charlotte thatā€™s your prerogative.

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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 thereā€™s 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).

Iā€™m glad that we at least have one consistently competitive professional sports team to root for in NC, but I donā€™t consider the Hurricanes ā€œhome-grownā€ like the Panthers. It would be like if the Rays or As moved to Charlotteā€¦over time Iā€™m sure theyā€™d be adopted by residents as our home team like the Hurricanes have been, but initially I donā€™t think thereā€™s 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 theyā€™re not great), everyone walks around in FC gear which makes me think Raleigh would see a similar showing of support for an MLB team.

Iā€™m not convinced around your argument that the Hurricanes arenā€™t homegrown. The Whalers franchise was essentially burned to the ground early on. We took their franchise spot, but Iā€™d argue we didnā€™t take their fans and we didnā€™t take their history until very recently.

Homegrown doesnā€™t 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 doesnā€™t meant they werenā€™t 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.

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