Panthers PSL owners feeling insulted by losing their seats as stadium makes way for MLS
During the tough seasons, the ones like 2019, it could be hard for Virgil Dodson to find someone to bring with him to Panthers games.
Since the first game was played at Bank of America Stadium in 1996, he has sat comfortably in Row 8 of Section 140 — a benefit of being one of Carolina’s original Permanent Seat License owners.
Over the years, he expanded his seats from four to six, adding two more in Row 9. But when the Panthers called him late last month to say they had removed four of the seats he owned — plus a little less than 900 others in the first eight rows of the west end zone — to build 14 field-level luxury suites, he was in disbelief. His six season tickets would soon be separated.
“I could take my granddaughters with me, let the girls sit in front of us and then we were there to make sure everything’s OK,” Dodson said. “Now I’ve got four seats in section 105 and two seats still in section 140.”
When Carolina was announced as the NFL’s 29th team Oct. 26, 1993, then-owner Jerry Richardson stood on a stage in Chicago and looked right into the cameras from North Carolina.
“All of you who bought the 48,000 seat licenses, you have made history today,” Richardson said. “And when I get back to the Carolinas, I’m going to say, ‘Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!’ ”
The idea of a Permanent Seat License (PSL) was revolutionary at the time; no other NFL team had tried it. The idea — pioneered by Charlottean Max Muhleman — was that fans could make a one-time purchase of a license to guarantee they’d be in the same spot every year when they bought season tickets. The model was also being used to finance the construction of a potential stadium and convince the other 28 NFL owners there were people around Charlotte willing to put up money for a professional team.
Twenty-five seasons later, many of those original PSL owners still retain their seats, but some, like Dodson, are having to forfeit their spot to make way for renovations in order to retrofit the venue with improvements for Major League Soccer to come to Charlotte in 2021. New Panthers owner David Tepper’s desire to purchase an MLS team came with the requirement that the stadium would be altered to fit a soccer team with additions such as new locker rooms, facilities for players and a standing-only “supporters section.”
The west end zone renovations affect about 380 seat license owners, and many are unhappy, not only about having to leave the seats they’ve been in for years behind, but also because of the manner in which the news was presented to them.
What is a PSL?
Muhleman invented the PSL first for the Charlotte Hornets in the late 1980s, working as a sports marketing consultant. He suggested giving fans what were then called “Charter Seat Rights.” Those rights were given to season ticket-holders free of charge, meaning they held the rights to buy season tickets to their same seats every year and could also sell those rights to someone else.
When it came time to pitch an NFL expansion franchise, Muhleman proposed to Richardson that the team charge between $600 and $5,400 per seat for the rights to a spot in the new stadium and, on top of that, they also had to commit to purchasing tickets annually.
“All of the rest of us thought it would be a drawn-out process,” Muhleman said. “But we had over $40 million come in after the first day we opened the mail.”
Bank of America seats 75,525 and since it opened, about 10 percent of those have been set aside for single-game ticket purchase.
As recently as 2018, there were approximately 62,000 seat rights held by about 23,000 PSL accounts, and about 52 percent of current active PSLs are “originals” — meaning that the tickets have never changed hands since the opening.
‘Basically, they were telling us to go to hell’
The Panthers began contacting PSL owners affected by the new construction on Jan. 23, a day before holding a press event to tour the changes.
“Number one, we didn’t know how many PSL owners were going to be affected. And we also wanted to make sure that when we did this, we had all our own T’s crossed, our I’s dotted, we wanted to make sure that we when we communicated with these folks, we had a good plan in place,” Joe LaBue, vice president of ticket sales and services, said at the event. “Their happiness is top of mind in doing this before we go on sale with the bunker suites.”
But most PSL owners in the impacted section in the west end zone were contacted by the Panthers after their seats has been removed from the stadium. Some didn’t know they’d need to find a new season-ticket home until seeing photos on social media and news reports. The Panthers didn’t finish making their calls to those fans until at least the following Monday.
The Panthers wouldn’t comment for this story.
According to six PSL owners in the sections impacted who spoke to The Observer, they all received a phone call to inform them their seats were gone. Their options were to move to limited available seating in the same price range as their current seats or move to a more expensive PSL location (for an additional ticket cost, not including anything extra for the PSL rights).
PSL owners could also choose not to move and instead be offered what they paid for the license originally, plus an additional 25 percent. PSLs in the designated area today can be bought on the Panthers’ website for $7,500 a seat.
Bill and Cindy Buchanan have owned their front-row seats since the beginning and were unhappy with the options available.
“They sell our seats for $7,500 for the PSLs and they offered us about $3,300, which is less than half what they were worth,” Cindy Buchanan said. “They were basically forcing us into taking the seats that they had available. They are the seats that they can’t sell, so that’s what we ended up with.”
The Buchanans are among the most passionate Panthers fans, well known for their ”Garage Mahal” they’ve built over the years. They’re hoping that they will at least get the physical seats back to keep in their possession. They were told the day before the media event that their seats were gone and that they had to make a decision within 24 hours about what they wanted to do next.
“It’s like, ‘Oh, by the way, your mother passed away last week,’ ” Bill Buchanan said on the team’s timing. “The most decent thing they could have done is offer us what they sell those seats for. It’s really a slap in the face that they offered us what we paid when they were at Clemson (where the Panthers played their first season in 1995). Basically, they were telling us to go to hell and enjoy the trip.”
For some, taking seats in the corner of the same end zone made more sense than selling back to the team due to the poor financial return.
“That value (of the seat license), I have a penny that’s 100 years old, it’s only worth what somebody’s willing to pay for it,” Steve Cramer said. “The Panthers keep saying those seats are $15,000 on paper, but how many people are going to pay that?”
More changes coming to Bank of America Stadium
The west end zone is only the first phase of remodeling Bank of America Stadium. A midfield tunnel and other features will be added for MLS, which will likely also impact PSL owners.
PSLs only apply to Bank of America Stadium, and Tepper has indicated there is a timeline to building a new stadium fit for both the Panthers and MLS.
“There are places like Wrigley Field and Fenway Park that are 100 years old, and then there are places that are torn down in 25 years,” Muhleman said. “The way the stadium was being built, I think a lot of us thought it would be at least 50 years, maybe longer, more indefinite and long reign.”
Part of the reason the Panthers are doing renovations is to delay that process and bring enhancements to the stadium to keep up with the rest of the NFL.
For the time being, the Panthers aren’t going anywhere. If and when that time does come, other new NFL stadium models, such as the when the Falcons moved from the Georgia Dome to Mercedes-Benz Stadium and introduced PSLs, have shown a significant increase in season-ticket prices.
In a new stadium, there’s concern PSL prices could skyrocket, but UNC-Chapel Hill sports administration associate professor Nels Popp told The Observer that “smart owners” in the NFL understand there’s a limit to how much fans will pay for a PSL.
He added that from a public relations standpoint “it’s critical” to keep PSL owners happy.
Per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, lower-bowl end zone seats went from costing $89 and $75 in the Georgia Dome to $115 and $100 per game, increases of 29 and 33 percent, respectively. The Falcons sold only PSLs and didn’t set aside any single-game options.
“It will probably be a cold day in I-don’t-know-where before I invest in PSLs again,” Cindy Buchanan said. “Everything they tell you is basically subject to the whims of the owner. He must not think it’s a big deal to alienate 400 people because he figures he’s got a big pool of people to draw from, but you keep doing that, then I don’t know the PSL concept might go down the tubes.”
Panthers attendance has decreased in recent years. Because of the uncertainty surrounding a potential new stadium, buying PSLs at this time is an uncertain proposition. But that doesn’t mean fans are giving up on the team. Enhancements such as the field-level suites could bring new people to the stadium in 2020.
“I’m so mad, but at the same time I can’t let one man’s decisions ruin the love that I have for that team,” PSL owner Tyler Combs said. “I love them, that’s all I’ve ever known. They’ve been a part of my life for 20-some years and I’m a huge football guy. Would I buy seats and go sit in that stadium right now and give Tepper more money? Probably not, but I honestly don’t see myself just giving up.”
PSL owners who have sat through the good and the bad with the Panthers are having a hard time walking away from their team despite there potentially being no financial incentive down the line. The PSL agreement specifically states that they “should not be viewed or acquired as an investment and Licensee should not expect to derive any economic profits as a licensee as PSLs.”
Exactly how many more seats will still be impacted is unclear, and the Panthers wouldn’t provide any information. But more PSL owners will have to move.
“That’s the thing that makes all sports, especially pro sports, go,” Muhleman said. “When people stop caring about them, they’re not going to be successful.”
Charlotte Observer reporter Hannah Smoot contributed to this story.
This story was originally published February 7, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
