Tepper Sports & Entertainment brings back most of furloughed staff, eliminates a few roles
After furloughing over 16 employees in August, Tepper Sports & Entertainment has brought back a vast majority of those workers, while eliminating a handful of positions, a TS&E spokesperson confirmed.
In August, Tepper Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte FC, furloughed or laid off employees with over 20 impacted by the moves, as reported by The Observer. The staff changes went across departments and salary levels with impacted areas including security, community relations, ticketing and entertainment.
The furloughs were initially put in place through Jan. 31, although employees returned to work over a period of time and were conducted to preserve the team’s operations. The TS&E spokesperson confirmed that many of the furloughed employees were back at work or were offered the opportunity to return. Multiple positions, however, were determined to be nonessential to the business at this time and were eliminated.
When the furloughs and layoffs were conducted in the summer, the hope was that the changes would minimize the moves that the company, which had fewer than 300 employees, needed to make in the following months. No large-scale furloughs or layoffs have taken place since then.
“I decide on these decisions based on what’s good for the organization and what’s good for the individual. It’s not good to have an individual sit there idle for a year or a year and a half or two years with nothing to do inside the organization,” Tepper said about the furloughs in September. “You’re basing this purely on a financial question, this is a human question, and every individual’s an individual. ... Sometimes difficult decisions, sometimes there’s still the right decision. It may not seem the right decision for everybody involved at the time, but they’re still the right decision.”
Over the past month, the team has promoted Vice President of Communications and External Affairs Steven Drummond to Senior Advisor to the Chairman & Vice President of External Football Operations and Director of Security Eddie Levins, who led the Panthers’ effort against COVID-19, to Vice President of Compliance & Operations.
TS&E also parted ways with Meredith Starkey Vice President - Chief Marketing Officer as the business side of the organization is being adjusted and that role is no longer a part of the staff, in addition to moving on from two members of the football operations team under new general manager Scott Fitterer — director of football operations Bryan Porter and director of football staff Mark Carrier. The team is searching for a new Chief Revenue Officer and Vice President of Corporate Partnerships.
Last May, TS&E parted ways with more than 10 employees. Those moves were unrelated to the pandemic and extended to many employees who had been with the Panthers organization for several years.
Owner of both the Panthers and Charlotte FC, Tepper is the founder and CEO of global hedge fund Appaloosa Management and is the richest owner in the NFL, worth an estimated $13 billion, according to Forbes. He bought the Panthers in 2018 for $2.275 billion, and purchased Charlotte FC, the 30th MLS expansion team, for more than $200 million. The first MLS season in Charlotte has been delayed until 2022.
The NFL canceled all preseason games, eliminating the team’s revenue potential from two home preseason contests, and there was reduced attendance at all eight regular-season home games, including no fans in attendance the Panthers’ home opener.
Construction is currently ongoing at the Panthers’ new facility in Rock Hill, which is expected to first open in 2023. There has also been renovations at Bank of America Stadium for the addition of the MLS team, as well as other work being done at one of the oldest stadiums in the NFL.
This story was originally published February 12, 2021 at 4:36 PM.
