Tom Talks: With land available, is next move for Panthers owner a new stadium?

David Tepper, who owns the Carolina Panthers, spoke Wednesday on CNBC. Across Charlotte and the country, investors taped the show, played it back and discussed it in a meeting on Zoom. That’s the kind of influence and credibility Tepper has.

As the owner of the Panthers, he also has influence and credibility. He has not been meek.

And now this: Charlotte Pipe and Foundry will take advantage of an incentive-laden deal to vacate its Charlotte digs and move 34 miles east to Oakboro. The land the company is leaving, at least in Charlotte, is unprecedented. It will vacate 55 acres so close to Bank of America Stadium that a quarterback with a big arm (Cam Newton, not Teddy Bridgewater) could hit it with a spiral.

Charlotte Pipe and Foundry worked out of Charlotte for more than 100 years, and who knows how much work would have to be done to make the land palatable for a stadium. Tepper is good at creating opportunities, and now he’ll be offered one.

But wait. Is Bank of America Stadium, which opened in September of 1996, obsolete? Care went into the building of the stadium, a testament to previous Panthers owner Jerry Richardson. Some stadiums offer little room to move. BOA is spacious and clean and — outdated.

It’s outdated because it lacks the suites the new stadiums offer and because it lacks a dome. Cover the roof and the stadium can host the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four.

Wherever the Panthers next build, the stadium will be such that, out in Texas, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones will say, “Damn. Unlike me, Tepper isn’t even the team president, GM, coach, and scouting director.”

The Pipe and Foundry site is an opportunity because all great stadiums should be built downtown. Build one too far across the state line and what do you do after a game — go on a hayride?

In downtown Charlotte, fans have access to restaurants and bars, and the Sunday experience will supersede the game.

My guess is that the Panthers will buy the former pipe and foundry site and build a spectacular stadium there, You’ll end up paying for part of it. Some of you will complain. He’s a billionaire. Some of us won’t. There’s a price to doing business, and we accept it.

Welcome back, NASCAR, we need you

NASCAR did the best work of any sport during the COVID-19 shutdown. FOX televised seven NASCAR iRacing events and attracted large audiences. Nice, nice touch to hold the last of the races at North Wilkesboro Speedway.

North Wilkesboro held 93 NASCAR Cup races from 1949 to 1996, and Jeff Gordon won the last of them. But North Wilkesboro was known for speed long before the track was built. This was moonshiner country, and built-up stripped-down cars helped keep it that way. Revenuers usually were little more than a presence in the rearview mirror. That’s what the moonshiners tell me, and I believe them.

We bemoan the passing of small tracks such as North Wilkesboro just as Canton, Ohio, no doubt bemoans the passing of the Canton Bulldogs of the American Professional Football Association, which became the NFL.

But if you want a small-town, small-track feel, go to Darlington Raceway. The track will host races Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the first and third of them Cup events. Next week, Charlotte Motor Speedway will put on four races in four days, the first and last of them a Cup race.

NASCAR once was a big deal. Executives, promoters and fans talked as if they believed it would supplant the NFL as the country’s No. 1 sport. A smart man who made his living in racing told me during NASCAR’s peak that every new track should accommodate at least 100,000 fans.

NASCAR offered clean-cut drivers and accepted no work stoppages. But the popularity was built on inflation. Many of the new fans that gave the sport a chance didn’t like what they saw, and returned to the usual big-league suspects — football, basketball and baseball. Many of the old fans felt as if they had been abandoned, and many of them stayed home, too. Tracks now block off entire sections to hide the empty seats, or have torn those sections down completely.

Sunday is an opportunity to begin to win fans back. The NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, NHL, MLS and college athletics are trying to figure out how to respond to the gradual reopening of the country, which is understandable. Those sports have lots of moving parts.

As befits the need for speed, NASCAR has outraced its stick-and-ball counterparts. Logistics are easier to accommodate. As on the PGA Tour, which opens next month, everybody gathers in one spot, at one time. There will be no practice in Darlington, and there will be no qualifying. Charleston native Darius Rucker, will sing the anthem, and the gentlemen will start their engines, at 4:30 p.m.

Safety of athletes and crews and all the people who participate in such a massive undertaking is essential. I trust NASCAR will get this right. I hope so.

I feel as if I’ve been grounded. The UFC put on an eight-match event Saturday, but UFC doesn’t move me, so I missed it.

I can’t read any more stories about the greatest player to wear No. 72, or follow the brackets in a greatest college basketball player of all time tournament. I’ve watched a lot of boxing matches, but since they’re a few years or a few decades old, I kind of know who wins.

A live race will offer the unexpected, and it will do this at my favorite track. Darlington has endured. If NASCAR were a start-up, there would be no track in Darlington. There would no Darlington Raceway Stock Car Museum. And the track wouldn’t be shaped like an egg. I’ve driven the track, albeit by myself. It was narrow when I was out there by myself. There will be few vacancies Sunday. Space will have to be earned.

Along with viewers, the race will attract bettors. More than at any other time, betting is part of sports. It’s easier now than it’s ever been. Bookies don’t work out of the back room of a downtown deli. They’re online.

Placing a bet is as easy as shaking hands. Since the onset of COVID-19, placing a bet is easier than shaking hands. Bettors who did not have the opportunity to put money on the NCAA basketball tournament, the NBA playoffs and Major League Baseball finally have an opportunity to bet on something live.

NASCAR, you are in position to win this race, the race for a broader audience. Good luck, and have fun. We will.

The Cam Newton watch continues

Cam Newton was polarizing as a Carolina Panther. He didn’t even have to do anything. Even his wardrobe was polarizing. Until Newton arrived, I had no idea how many football fans care about other men’s attire.

Fans rarely liked or disliked him. They loved or despised him. Now that he no longer is a Panther, the debate continues. Which camp are you in?

The Panthers abandoned him and will rue the day they did.

Or, now that they finally cut him loose, they can become a football team.

You want an example of Newton’s impact. Here.

Newton is a vegan, and because of him, his fans began to eat a plant-based diet. Because of him, his detractors ask for a steak with a side order of hamburger.

As a football player, I neither loved nor hated the guy. He had a great season, great games, great halves, great quarters and great plays. As a passer, he was never elite. But because he was 6-foot-5 and 245 pounds and could move, he made an impact in other ways. No quarterback his size ever moved like he did.

Newton is, at the moment, unemployed. Teams thus far have been unwilling to gamble because they’ve been unwilling to offer $20-plus million a season to a quarterback coming off a Lisfranc injury and, before that, multiple shoulder surgeries. Maybe the shoulder is good. Probably the shoulder is good. But the shoulder is comprised of so many small muscles, that potential employers are wary. And if because of the Lisfranc he can’t move, why sign him?

Because of the shutdown, teams can’t see Newton’s shoulder and foot with their eyes, their own medical staff. While Newton waits, teams hire other quarterbacks.

Longtime Cincinnati Bengals starter Andy Dalton signed with the Dallas Cowboys as a reserve, and longtime Tampa Bay Buccaneers starter Jameis Winston did the same with the New Orleans Saints.

But I don’t see Newton as a reserve. He’s been a starter since he played his first game in Glendale, Arizona, in 2011. He had swagger in training camp before the game. It was not a reserve’s stagger.

If he did sign with a team as a backup, and the starter had a bad game, especially a fragile starter, impatient fans would begin to chant Newton’s name. The Panthers locker room moved to his beat, his music, and so did practice.

If he’s healthy, I thought he’d be a great hire for the Chicago Bears. If starter Mitch Trubisky continues not to be the player the Bears long for, Newton would be an outstanding replacement. Also, Trubisky is accustomed to looking over his shoulder — albeit at Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, a much better player in the ACC than Trubisky was, but inexplicably taken 10 spots later in the 2017 draft. The Bears signed Nick Foles instead.

So we wait for the winner of the Newton sweepstakes. If a team becomes frustrated with their starter during training camp (if there is a conventional camp) and preseason (if there is a preseason) maybe they call. Maybe they don’t give up on their starter until the season begins.

Short takes: Jordan’s mesmerizing documentary

▪ We watch “The Last Dance,” the Michael Jordan documentary, every Sunday. We watched two episodes and then turn to “SportsCenter” to see what some of the people in the episodes that week say.

Unfortunately, there are only 10 episodes, and the last two episodes of “The Last Dance” will air Sunday night. Then what?

The documentary is the dominant attraction in the COVID-19 era. We talk about it with our kids, albeit from a safe distance. I find it absolutely mesmerizing, some of it terribly sad and some of it funny, the funny parts when Jordan reacts to interviews with Isiah Thomas and Gary Payton, the Glove.

I made a list of other NBA players about whom I’d watch a documentary. But it won’t work while they’re still playing. An alternative might be to find a player who rarely played, played poorly when he did, and mainly sat on the bench. Make it a one-part series. But that might not work, either.

“The Last Dance,” for an NBA player, likely is once in a lifetime. The timing of the broadcasts is impeccable, and the quality superb. We live in a sports wasteland, and the show has given us something to hang on to …

▪ You can shop for odds if you prefer, but most go like this. The Kansas City Chiefs are the favorite to again win the Super Bowl. The odds are short, 4-1.

At the other end, Washington, the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Cincinnati Bengals are 200-1.

In the NFC South, the New Orleans Saints are 11-1, Tampa Bay Buccaneers 12-1, Atlanta Falcons 60-1, and the Carolina Panthers 125-1. The only teams with longer odds than the Panthers are Washington, Jacksonville and Cincinnati …

▪ Watched “Shane,” my favorite Western of all time, and the brilliant “Pulp Fiction.” I’ve watched so many movies I needed to find two I knew I’d like. Have also become hooked on “Ozark.” Many of you recommended it. Thanks.

▪ The other day, I parked my car, and prepared to get out and go home, but the Led Zeppelin network on Sirius/XM played three superb songs in a row, so I couldn’t leave. I thought about it. I listened for 20 minutes to songs I have on disc inside, and briefly questioned my social (distancing) life. But if you’re a Zep aficionado, a true believer, you understand.