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NFL approves billionaire David Tepper as Panthers owner
ATLANTA — NFL owners on Tuesday kicked off their two-day spring meeting by unanimously approving multi-billionaire David Tepper as new owner of the Carolina Panthers.
“The first thing I care about is winning,” Tepper told an early afternoon news conference. “The second thing I care about is winning. And the third thing I care about is?”
Um, winning?
“You guys are smart,” he said.
Tepper replaces the 23-year-old franchise’s disgraced founding owner Jerry Richardson, who announced suddenly in mid-December — hours after an online Sports Illustrated expose contained shattering allegations against Richardson involving deplorable workplace misconduct — that he was putting the team up for sale.
Tepper is the 16th of the past 17 successful principal bidders on NFL teams over the past quarter-century able to have written a cheque for the entire sale price, according to Marc Ganis, president of Chicago-based Sports Corp. Ltd., a long-time expert in the field of pro sports franchise sales and relocations. In other words, don’t bother applying to buy an NFL club anymore if you’re not a cash-flush multibillionare.
Reports said Tepper paid a North American pro-sports franchise record of $2.275 US billion for the Panthers, all but $75 million in cash.
Tepper, a 60-year-old Pittsburgh native, made his reported $11-billion fortune as a hedge-fund manager, after gambling that the U.S. government would not let banks fail when the economy tanked in 2008. He bought investments and entities on the cheap, and watched their severely depressed values skyrocket during the economic recovery.
Richardson, 81, reportedly was scheduled to say goodbye to NFL owners during a brief appearance at the start of Tuesday’s meeting. The Sports
Illustrated article charged Richardson with deplorable work-place misconduct during his reign as Panthers owner, citing specific, detailed examples of sexual harassment, plus one incident in which he used a racial slur.
Richardson has not publicly denied the allegations.
Tepper, who since 2009 has owned a 5% stake in the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers, won’t officially become Panthers owner until July, he told a short news conference at a Buckhead hotel. By NFL rule Tepper must sell his minority stake in the Steelers in the interim.
Tepper took only a few questions from reporters.
He was asked if he will keep the Panthers in Charlotte, and what plans he might have for a future replacement stadium.
“What’s the name of the team? Carolina Panthers,” he said in his bombastic style. “It’s going to be the Carolina Panthers. There is a logical place for this team, and it’s Charlotte. And it is the Carolina Panthers. And that means this team has to have some sort of presence in the Carolinas … There’s two of them. Charlotte is the logical place for a stadium.
“As far as a new stadium? Again, you’re asking me too much (too soon).”
In a pair of awkward, illtimed exchanges meant to be funny, the mostly bald Tepper commented on the hair styles of two veteran male NFL reporters who’d asked him questions: Ian Rapoport of NFL Network and Joe Person of the Charlotte Observer.
Making comments on the physical appearances of others, however playfully intended, was a bad look for Tepper, when the reason he was able to buy the Panthers this spring is, in part, because of inappropriate observations made of others’ appearances by his predecessor.