BrisbanePanther

Worked for them in the regular season true enough. Pretty sure they lost their home playoff game the same year though.

Yes, hence the "more likely than not", which in their case is like a 50.5% chance.

This will be an exciting season. Barring injury, I see at most four "more likely than not" losses (JAX, SEA, MIA, DAL). If Bryce is even half as good as we hope in year 1, I see 13 competitive games--all of which are winnable. The talk of winning the division is not crazy at all. EDIT: I also see 2-3 national games (maybe even night games) on here. I think the Houston game will be either a Thursday night or maybe even Sunday night game (Charlotte does get dressed up well for night games). Young vs Stroud will bring eyeballs. Young vs Lawrence/Reich vs Pedersen game could also be a good TV matchup. Depending on when the DAL game is scheduled, if Bryce is having a ROY-looking campaign, I can see that game getting flexed by NBC if it's later in the year.

Also agree that if the fans and Raleigh are so passionate they can just make the drive to Charlotte...just like all the other passionate fans in the Triangle. Two hours is no excuse, I mean that's basically the distance from Milwaukee to Green Bay. That's not half the population of the city of Green Bay in Lambeau every game...including Monday night games and Thursday night games. And Milwaukee is nowhere near as wealthy as Raleigh and their populations are almost the same. Just make the drive or even generate enough market for Amtrak to run.

Actually, but from personal experience, seeing Charlotte on TV did cause me to look more into it and eventually move there for a while. Maybe I'm highly unique and the only person who's done so, but I doubt it. Was there enough like me to justify to cost of whatever it was that got Charlotte on TV? Not sure. But we do know that have entertainment and cultural offering plays a role in being attractive for corporate relocations--particularly HQs who tend to bring their higher-paid staff. Ironically, know what else an economist will say is uneconomic? Schools, hospitals, and libraries. Those "investments" are wholly uneconomic in the classic sense--so much so that they rely on trying to attribute quantitative monetary value to their qualitative non-monetary social benefits, which is also squishy. And it also means weirdness that most are uncomfortable with like trying to put a price tag on a life when determining the number of hospital beds or surgeon suites to help people recover quicker (which goes back to the lost productivity value of them not working) or the expected income potential of a student if the student/teacher ratio is lowered through a new school or school expansion--assuming that the student stays in the region for the 30-year term that most economic studies work within. That's why I go back to the simple rightness/wrongness of public dollars supporting billion-dollar industries (oh, but then again, if we follow that tether, massive road expansions also subsidize billion dollar industries if they aren't tolled so maybe we accept subsidizing one vs the other based on the perceived benefit to us individually). That may be the core issue here, but relying on economics to support the position can turn into the equivalent of "live by the three, die by the three" when taking a stance.

And ironically, every single one of those teams moved to or will move to privately-financed arena/stadiums. The new A's stadium in Oakland would have been privately-financed as well. Las Vegas actually has multiple private arenas.

Sorry, but economists should be right there with politicians for trustworthiness. I know that they're good for saying that sports teams have the same economic value as a department store... But they also say that too much employment is a bad thing. They also say that the economy requires a certain number of people to be unemployed to be a 'good economy'. In fact the current threatened recession is 100% by design of economists who were "trying to take the heat out of the economy", only it's now getting away from them when thought they could control the levers that would force people out of work. Modern economists are mostly dopes who work in an abstract laboratory that treats people's lives as numbers to be sacrificed to satisfy their "invisible hand" deity. Source: I spent years working with economists working on major projects, and they can make any proposal look "good" for the economy or "bad" for the economy by a simple change in Excel. TL;DR: A position based on the right/wrong of public dollars supporting billionaires is one thing, but I recommend not using economists to support that position.

Whatever it is, I suspect there will be some tea leaves to read regarding timing of a new stadium, which would fetch huge dollars by itself. Also have to keep in mind that there'll be other stadiums coming too which could take some potential sponsors, including new ones in Buffalo, Nashville, and DC (which will almost certainly have their pick of sponsors in a mega-deal to compete with Bezos). In fact, I think a new DC stadium could break the $500m sponsorship mark. That being said, my contenders would be: American Airlines Field due to the Charlotte hub, but I'm not sure airlines are throwing money like this at sponsorships anymore. I also think it could be a random one like: Samsung Stadium--but then again this feels like the name for a new (or heavily renovated) stadium. The tech upgrades, customer experience, and product placement takes care of itself. All the video boards, ribbon boards, monitors, wifi, everything--all Samsung and probably special features for Samsung phone owners (like me! ).

Steph might actually be the best Charlottean native athlete ever. Too many people forget home when they get big. Charlotte is doing well that he stays connected via the Panthers.

Not sure why, but I really liked this moment for Branch. Good on him for coming back today.

Are we getting close to Hooker-in-the-3rd time? If he's not picked by Seattle, barring a trade that sounds like the likely outcome.

Was gonna say the same thing. It had to torture them that we were #1. Couldn't use all the commercials up then.

Oooh TEN... Hooker? Levis?

This is Joey Porter Jr. for PIT. The story writes itself.

Pretty sure Malik was there--and I think by himself for a looooooong time.