Panthers founder Jerry Richardson passes away at 86

[Paa Langfart]

RIP Mr Richardson.  Thank you for bringing us an NFL team to call our own.  Condolences to family and your good friends such as Greg Olsen and Smitty.

[Paa Langfart]

 

[thefuzz]

RIP Big Cat.

[TheBigKat]

Rest in Power BigCat

 

 you brought the NFL to Charlotte

 you accomplished so much in a lifetime

 without you and your vision Charlotte may not be what it is today

there’s countless stories of the good you’ve done for your players, you’ll be missed

 

i admired you, even had my username after you 

[ladypanther]

Joe Person's article had an appropriate title:

Panthers founder Jerry Richardson leaves behind enormous impact, troubled legacy

JR was complicated.  He could be known as incredibly generous.  Person tells this story I had not heard before:

Beane, who started working for the Panthers in 1998, recalled Richardson coming back to Bank of America Stadium one day shocked at how expensive gas had become. At the team’s next all-staff meeting, Richardson instituted a minimum salary for every full-time employee, including those who had been on an hourly wage scale.

“People with that kind of money don’t always think about people who are at the bottom of the food chain,” Beane said. “That struck him, that gas was that expensive. And I just thought, ‘What owners would actually think about something like that?’”

Beane also said:

He’s one of the most successful businesspeople you can be around,”  “Everything he touched turned to gold.”

Also Person reports:

Richardson remained out of public view after the sale. Until his health declined, Richardson would regularly go to his south Charlotte office, which oversaw charitable contributions of more than $500 million.

Richardson allowed tight end Greg Olsen to use his private plane when Olsen’s son was born with a congenital heart defect in 2012. Long snapper J.J. Jansen, who has played more games than any player in Panthers history, came to Charlotte as a 23-year-old in 2009 with little familiarity with the franchise. He said Richardson, known as “Mister” or “Big Cat” around the Panthers’ facility, was almost “larger than life.”

“To watch him glow when talking about this team and this city, and what it meant to him to not only have a football team where he grew up but to be able to bring that to this area, was always a very special thing to him,” Jansen said. “And that always meant a lot to me.”

 

........for all of Panthers founder Jerry Richardson’s business accomplishments and philanthropic efforts — his towering stature in Charlotte — his legacy also includes the troubling workplace misconduct allegations that cost him the team he loved and forever altered his perception in the city and around the NFL.

Richardson died Wednesday night at his Charlotte home, 28 years after bringing the NFL to the Carolinas and five years after selling the team after a Sports Illustrated report detailed accusations that Richardson sexually harassed several women and directed a racial slur toward a team employee.

https://theathletic.com/4269899/2023/03/03/jerry-richardson-dies-carolina-panthers/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983

I was also reminded in something else I read that he paid for every team employee to go to the Super Bowl the 1st time the Panthers were there.

An aside...it is very ironic that both he and Olsen's son that he helped before he was born, both needed heart transplants.

 

There would not be NFL football in the Carolinas with out JR.  His great passion for the area and  football  made it happen.  It is hard to reconcile a man so generous and  also abusive. I just don't understand.  I appreciate him and am sad that his legacy was so tarnished by his misdeeds.  I feel for his family, especially his wife.

He got a lot of years out of that second heart for a man his age.  It sounds like that he quietly continued to try to do good things and make a positive impact in the community.

RIP JR

[Move the Panthers to Raleigh]

20 hours ago, electro's horse said:

And then didn't have another winning season for seven years. 

Constant internal power squabbles, drove his own family out of the business, sexually assaulted everything that moved, infatuated with Marty Hurney, nuked his own team to make a point to the Players Union, took a heart transplant from someone who wasn't a piece of poo. 

Good riddance  

[HPPantherzfan]

RIP Big Cat!  Thank you for bringing the NFL to Charlotte!

[Move the Panthers to Raleigh]

I do miss JR and I wish everything had turned out differently.

Also, it was great having a Carolina native, southerner as our owner. It’s not the same having some guy from up north owning our team

[TheBigKat]

18 hours ago, onmyown said:

That’s literally like saying if Tepper didn’t buy the Panthers we wouldn’t have an owner. It’s not true at all.

If we didn’t have a tax payers, PSL owners, and demand…we would not have the Panthers. People should really give the city/PSL owners credit for funding this team far more than the investors ever have including (in fact due to) JR.

It still takes work, negotiations, putting together a group

 

Big Kat hired a consultant who invented PSLs

Charlotte in the early 90s isn't what it is today, if you told someone you were going to Mooresville or Matthews they would think you are about to undergo a trek on the Oregon Trail

There's plenty of cities that have the means to get NFL franchises (Louisville, Austin come to mind) but it takes a bull of a man to organize it all and convince a bunch of other billionaires that he belongs in their group

[electro's horse]

37 minutes ago, TheBigKat said:

It still takes work, negotiations, putting together a group

 

Big Kat hired a consultant who invented PSLs

Charlotte in the early 90s isn't what it is today, if you told someone you were going to Mooresville or Matthews they would think you are about to undergo a trek on the Oregon Trail

There's plenty of cities that have the means to get NFL franchises (Louisville, Austin come to mind) but it takes a bull of a man to organize it all and convince a bunch of other billionaires that he belongs in their group

Oh so he hired a consulting group to figure out how to fleece the fanbase? Wow, what a hero. 

This myth that Charlotte was some dark horse to get an NFL franchise needs to die. At the time Charlotte led the league in NBA attendance, and the hornets were one of the most profitable NBA teams in the league. The Charlotte area had the money and population to support the team. There were multiple groups trying to get the Panthers to Charlotte; Richardson won not because of the "professionalism of his presentation" or whatever stupid thing (do you think the other business leaders wouldn't have been?) but because he figured out a way to scam the city with PSLs, and other owners wanted to see if it would work. Just like he was later in his career, he was more than happy to screw over his own fans and for the betterment of the league owners (2010). 

the real shocker at the time was Jacksonville. That's the one where people were probably paid off. 

[electro's horse]

Like my favorite tidbit of knowledge about how big a deal the hornets were prior to the panthers is that the strip club on Tyvola on the way to the coliseum was like the fifth most profitable strip club on the east coast. I can't remember the exact number but it was shocking how much money that place would make. 

[Murph]

RIP Big Cat

[cookinwithgas]

1 hour ago, TheBigKat said:

Big Kat hired a consultant who invented PSLs

Max Muhleman.  I got to spend an afternoon with him at his house installing a computer and he was a very interesting man to talk to. The response to the PSL concept made the awarding of the franchise a no risk decision for the NFL.

[Chimera]

2 hours ago, Move the Panthers to Raleigh said:

oh god you gave fiz attention.