Big wallet, big personality: David Tepper adds an MLS team – and imitates Elvis

We all know that David Tepper — who now owns two of Charlotte’s three major-league sports franchises — has a very big wallet.

What we are finding out more and more is that Tepper also has a very big personality. That was never more in evidence than on Tuesday when Major League Soccer made the official announcement that Charlotte would become the 30^th MLS team and begin playing in early 2021 – less than 15 months from right now.

The sheer force of Tepper’s personality helped get this team to Charlotte. His $12 billion net worth is the major reason, of course, but Tepper doesn’t hurt the cause with his charisma.

While offering a few new details about a potential future dual-sport stadium in Charlotte, Tepper also described to The Observer in an interview Tuesday what he expects soccer games in Bank of America Stadium to be.

“This is a little bit of a party for two hours,” Tepper said. “Charlotte loves a party. And we’re going to bring them a party.”

On Tuesday, Tepper was feeling good. He imitated Elvis. He teased the mayor. He talked about being a youth soccer coach for his own kids for nine years and then about tearing his ACL playing adult soccer at age 45. He purposely tried to stir up a rivalry between Charlotte and Atlanta, jokingly refusing to speak the name “Atlanta” and saying of Charlotte: “We’re the hot city. Screw that other city!”

Wait, go back a second.

He imitated Elvis?

Yes, he did. I have actually heard Tepper’s rendition of the first verse of Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” several times now. He’s got a good voice. He’s not shy about using it because he’s never shy about anything. This time he changed up the words slightly in honor of the MLS/Charlotte merger, singing in a low growl:

Well since I came to Charlotte

I found a new place to live

It’s gonna be the greatest place for MLS to be in

Did he nail it? Not completely.

But the weirdness — and I mean that in a good way — of a 62-year-old man worth $12 billion singing at a microphone after it was announced that he had bought an MLS team?

That alone made this press conference at the Mint Museum Uptown — aka, for a day, Tepper Town — more than worth the trip.

Tepper also told the story about when he got the news that Charlotte would be awarded an MLS franchise. He said he then called Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles to tell her about the team he was buying and described the phone call this way: “I called the mayor up and I said, ‘Mayor, I think I got a present here. I think it’s the most expensive present I ever gave a woman in my life.’”

How long will Bank of America Stadium last?

The expansion franchise fee Tepper will pay is somewhere in the $300-325 million range, which sounds like a lot until you realize that it’s less than 3 percent of his net wealth. The as-yet-unnamed MLS soccer team — I hope the first name will be “Charlotte” rather than “Carolina” — will share space at Bank of America Stadium with the Carolina Panthers starting in 2021.

Eventually, Tepper envisions the two teams still sharing space but at a gleaming new stadium in downtown Charlotte — one that would include a natural-grass field and be open to the elements.

“If we do a new stadium, we’re going to build a new stadium that’s great for soccer and great for football,” Tepper told The Observer. “We talk about retractable roofs. But I’m never going … to play football – or futbol – where you’re not playing in the fresh air…. I like playing football on grass. And soccer is made to be played on grass.”

One possibility would be a roof canopy — a stadium where fans are sheltered but the field itself is still open to the weather, much like the one the Panthers played in during a game in London this season. A retractable roof would be necessary, however, if Tepper ever wanted Charlotte to host a Final Four or a Super Bowl.

How long will the Panthers and the MLS team both use Bank of America Stadium before they move somewhere nearby to a new uptown Charlotte stadium?

“We probably can get another 10 or 15 years,” Tepper said of the current facility, which opened in 1996. “But at some point, we’re going to have to worry about it crumbling.”

For now, though, the teams will share space. Tepper mentioned his MLS interest in July 2018 when he gave his first press conference as the Panthers’ owner. Only 17 months later, he owns a team.

The Panthers play eight regular-season home games a year and 10 if you count preseason. MLS has more than double that, with 17 home dates per season. The soccer team will have its own locker rooms and a new tunnel to enter and exit the stadium.

Tepper’s next test

How much will a Charlotte soccer team draw per game? MLS commissioner Don Garber told The Observer he will be “disappointed if (Charlotte’s attendance is) not well over 30,000 fans a game.”

Any new Charlotte stadium would almost certainly stay uptown, Tepper said. Both he and Garber, the MLS commissioner, pointed out that MLS is a sport where centrally located stadiums are key to the millennial audience the sport wants to attract. “A stadium that is downtown has been a real formula to drive our success,” Garber said.

Noting that Charlotte doesn’t have a major-league baseball team (although it does have the minor-league Charlotte Knights playing uptown in a beautiful venue), Tepper said he thought “there’s a big void in the sports landscape here. Hopefully… with these great fans here, this will fill part of that void.”

What else will fill part of that void? Tepper himself. He’s answered more questions in the past two months about his intentions than Jerry Richardson did in his final 20 years as Carolina’s owner.

Of course, things will inevitably get thorny. They always do. Maybe over public money. Maybe over a new stadium. Maybe when the next Panthers coach Tepper hires next month doesn’t work out. Maybe over some crisis we have no clue about now.

That will be Tepper’s next test — when this honeymoon inevitably ends, as they all do.

But right now, he is sure getting a lot of stuff done.

This story was originally published December 17, 2019 at 6:22 PM with the headline "Big wallet, big personality: David Tepper adds an MLS team – and imitates Elvis."

Scott Fowler

The Charlotte Observer

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Columnist Scott Fowler has written for The Charlotte Observer since 1994 and has earned 26 APSE awards for his sportswriting. He hosted The Observer’s podcast “Carruth,” which Sports Illustrated once named “Podcast of the Year.” Fowler also conceived and hosted the online series and podcast “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” which featured 1-on-1 interviews with NC and SC sports icons and was turned into a book. He occasionally writes about non-sports subjects, such as the 5-part series “9/11/74,” which chronicled the forgotten plane crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 in Charlotte on Sept. 11, 1974. Support my work with a digital subscription