Bank of America Stadium

Bank of America Stadium
The Bank The BoA The B of A
View of the stadium during the 2015 season
Earlier names
Panthers Stadium / Carolinas Stadium (planning phase)
Sponsor name (s)
Ericsson Stadium (1996-2004)
Data
place	800 South Mint Street Charlotte , North Carolina 28202
Coordinates	35 ° 13 '33 "  N , 80 ° 51' 10.2"  W Coordinates: 35 ° 13 '33 "  N , 80 ° 51' 10.2"  W.
owner	Panthers Stadium LLC
operator	Panthers Stadium LLC
start of building	April 22, 1994
opening	September 1, 1996
Renovations	2007, 2014–2017
Extensions	1997–1998, 2005, 2007–2008, 2014–2015, 2017
surface	Natural grass (Voyager Bermuda Grass)
costs	248 million US dollars
architect	HOK Sport Wagner Murray Architects
capacity	75,523 places (since 2017) 75,419 places (2015–2017) 74,455 places (2014) 73,778 places (2008–2013) 73,504 places (2007) 73,298 places (2005–2006) 73,250 places (1998–2004) 73,248 places (1997) 72,685 Places (1996)
playing area	132 × 93 yds (121 × 80 m)
Societies)
Carolina Panthers ( NFL , since 1996) Charlotte MLS Expansion Team ( MLS , from 2021)
Events
Belk Bowl ( NCAA - college football , since 2002) ACC Championship Game (2010-2011) CONCACAF Gold Cup 2015 International Champions Cup 2018 CONCACAF Gold Cup 2019

The Bank of America Stadium is a football stadium in the US city ​​of Charlotte in the state of North Carolina . It is the home ground of the Carolina Panthers from the National Football League (NFL). The facility is located in downtown Charlottes Uptown and also houses the Panthers office. The team's training grounds are located in the immediate vicinity. From the 2021 season, the Major League Soccer (MLS) expansion team from Charlotte will also be based in the BoA .

With a current capacity of 75,523, it is currently the seventh largest stadium in the NFL. As a nickname have to the fans The Bank or The BoA naturalized. The nickname The Vault is rather outdated because of the partially arched facade. Because of her, the stadium is sometimes compared to the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles .

history

On December 15, 1987, entrepreneur Jerry Richardson , former Baltimore Colts NFL pro and Charlotte resident, announced plans to bring an NFL franchise to his home. The role model in the course of the application process was the Charlotte Hornets ( NBA ) basketball team , which began playing in the city in 1988 and generated very good audience figures. Richardson named four locations in the states of North and South Carolina as possible locations for the new team . In the internal process, Charlotte finally made the race, and on October 26, 1993, the NFL named the Carolina Panthers as its expansion team and then 29th member.

In order to be able to finance the construction of the arena with its total sum of 248 million US dollars without public funds, the Panthers sold so-called personal seat licenses (PSL) with a value of 120 million US dollars. Around 90 percent of the seats in the stadium, around 62,000, are still owned by these PSL holders . They still have to buy a season ticket every year. The example caught on: Other NFL clubs subsequently had their stadium financed, at least in part, by the fan base.

Because the stadium in Charlotte was not ready for occupancy when the Panthers joined the NFL in 1995 , they moved to Memorial Stadium in the university town of Clemson , South Carolina, in their first season . The Panthers' first league game in Charlotte finally took place on September 1, 1996, when the team received the Atlanta Falcons .

In its planning phase, the stadium was known as the Carolinas Stadium (this name is still used for FIFA events today) or Panthers Stadium , it was opened in 1996 as Ericsson Stadium . This was for sponsorship reasons : The Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson had acquired the naming rights to the stadium for a sum of 20 million US dollars over ten years. It has had its current name since 2004, when Bank of America replaced Ericsson and became a sponsor for 20 years for the sum of 140 million US dollars.

The arena has been renovated and enlarged several times since it opened, most recently in 2017 to the current capacity of 75,523. It underwent the most significant changes between January 2014 and August 2015, when large parts were overhauled for a total of 146 million US dollars. For example, new escalators were installed and video walls that were twice as large as before on both sides of the playing field . The city of Charlotte and the state of North Carolina paid a good half of the invested money, 75 million US dollars, the rest the Panthers. For this they committed to stay in Charlotte for at least six years.

Events

The facility is mostly used for football games of the NFL professional league, but traditionally one of the finals of the NCAA college championship , the Belk Bowl, also takes place here every year .

Other sporting events were the NCAA football championship in 1999 and 2000, group games of the Gold Cup in 2011 , 2015 and 2019 and games of the International Champions Cup . As part of this series of test matches during the European summer break, Bundesliga clubs Bayern Munich (2016 against Inter Milan ) and Borussia Dortmund (2018 against Liverpool ) played at the Bank of America Stadium.

The well-known preacher Billy Graham , a native of Charlotte, held a four-day meeting here in 1996 in front of 65,000 spectators. On October 10, 1997, a Rolling Stones concert took place.

Since the city of Charlotte got involved in the costly renovation from 2014 onwards, it has the right to rent the stadium free of charge for five occasions per year. However, this quota was never used up. The new owner David Tepper , who succeeded Jerry Richardson in 2018, announced that this should change under his leadership. It all started with a large beer festival on the lawn of the Bank of America Stadium in May 2019.

features

The stadium is divided into two tiers. The lower tier consists of the rows of seats near the playing field (blocks of 100) and the 200 and 300 sectors a little further away. The boxes numbered with 400 numbers and the media spaces are set back and covered. In the upper tier are the 500 sectors. These can only be reached via ramps or escalators. The four distinctive floodlight masts rise above them .

There are several statues outside the stadium . There are two larger than life, roaring bronze panthers at all entrances . The names of the fans who have a personal seat license in the stadium are engraved on each of its pedestals .

For Jerry Richardson's 80th birthday in 2016, a memorial was also erected to the team's founder and long-time owner . He too is flanked by two panthers. When the NFL opened an investigation into him for improper conduct towards employees in late 2017, Richardson was forced to sell the team. After taking over the team, David Tepper stated that for contractual reasons he was not allowed to remove the almost four meter tall statue of his predecessor. In contrast, Tepper replaced the NFL logo painted in the middle of the field under Richardson with the logo of the Panthers, thus fulfilling a long-cherished wish of the fans.

Also honored with bronze statues are Mike McCormack , after the founding of the club's first general manager , and Sam Mills . The short linebacker was part of the Panthers from season one. After three years he ended his career as a player and became an assistant coach at the club. He was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2003, but kept his job anyway. In that season , the Panthers came into the Super Bowl XXXVIII in front, and along the way inspired Mills players before a playoff game against the Dallas Cowboys with a memorable speech, in which he, among others, the slogan Keep Pounding ( Stomp ever ) used . This is still the battle cry of the fans and the collar of the official jerseys embroidered. Mills died on April 18, 2005. His shirt number 51 has not been used by the Panthers since then.

future

When Jerry Richardson put the Panthers up for sale at the end of 2017, interested buyers expressed the desire to build a new stadium for the team and even move the Panthers to another city. David Tepper, who finally won the bid for the purchase price of 2.275 billion US dollars, spoke out against it: Charlotte was the natural home of the Panthers.

However, Tepper is considering relocating the team's training grounds and offices to Fort Mill , South Carolina . The place is just across the border to the neighboring state, just a few kilometers south of Charlotte. The Dallas Cowboys' premises in Arlington, Texas are supposed to be the model . In the densely built-up city center of Charlotte, however, there is not enough space to build a comparable training center. Construction costs of 150 million US dollars and a construction period of four years are expected.

In order to bridge the time until the completion of the facility in Fort Mill, the existing training grounds at the Bank of America Stadium were temporarily roofed over with a so-called bubble. The hall was put into operation on August 19, 2019. Tepper also mentioned the possibility of a roof for the stadium itself.

gallery

• 

  Exterior view of the stadium before the major renovation from 2014 (with the old scoreboards)

• 

  Interior view of the stadium before the renovation

• 

  The video walls newly installed in 2015. Twice the size of the previous ones

and display information about the image

Game between the Carolina Panthers and the New Orleans Saints in September 2015

See also

• List of the largest stadiums in the world

Web links

Commons : Bank of America Stadium  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

• panthers.com: stadium on the site of the Carolina Panthers (English)
• stadionwelt.de: picture gallery

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Zach Spedden: MLS club to join Panthers at Bank of America Stadium in 2021. In: footballstadiumdigest.com. December 17, 2019, accessed February 14, 2020 . 
2. ↑ (as of February 2020)
3. ↑ www.profootballhof.com: Carolina Panthers Team History .
4. ↑ Forbes: NFL Team Valuations 2006 / # 14 Carolina Panthers .
5. ^ Katherine Peralta / Charlotte Observer : Panthers PSL holders could see their investment vanish if new owners build stadium .
6. ^ Percy Allen / The Seattle Times : Ericsson Stadium sets tone for fields of the future .
7. ^ John L. Crompton and Dennis R. Howard: The American experience with facility naming rights .
8. ↑ Erik Spanberg / Charlotte Business Journal : Panthers sign BofA for stadium naming rights .
9. ↑ Katherine Peralta / Charlotte Observer : Panthers president: Bank of America Stadium renovations are on track .
10. ↑ About The Bowl .
11. ^ Championship History .
12. ↑ Scott Fowler / Charlotte Observer : How Billy Graham's sports connections in Charlotte ran deep .
13. ↑ www.setlist.fm : The Rolling Stones Setlist at Ericsson Stadium, Charlotte, NC, USA .
14. ↑ Katherine Peralta / Charlotte Observer : Charlotte wants to bring more events to Panthers stadium while it still can .
15. ^ Katherine Peralta / Charlotte Observer : Carolina Panthers stadium to welcome its first beer festival .
16. ↑ Ken Belson / New York Times : Jerry Richardson, Facing Misconduct Allegations, Will Sell Panthers .
17. ↑ USA Today with AP : Panthers owner under contract to keep Richardson statue .
18. ↑ Jourdan Rodrigue / Charlotte Observer : NFL logo is out. The Panthers logo is at midfield at Bank of America Stadium .
19. ↑ Scott Fowler / Charlotte Observer : Panthers owner under contract to keep Richardson statue .
20. ↑ www.nfl.com: Retired Numbers .
21. ↑ Sean Wagner-McGough / CBS: At least one potential Panthers owner reportedly wanted to move team .
22. ↑ Erik Sommers / Cats Cratch Reader : David Tepper becomes new owner of the Carolina Panthers .
23. ^ Andy Shain / Post And Courier : Carolina Panthers plan to build team HQ, practice facility in SC .
24. ↑ Erik Spanberg / Charlotte Business Journal : SC meeting opens door to major incentives package for Carolina Panthers HQ, training facility .
25. ↑ Brendan Marks: Early reviews from Panthers first practice in new bubble? Better than a ballroom. The Charlotte Observer, accessed August 20, 2019 . 
26. ↑ Nick Carboni / WCNC: David Tepper hints at possible roof for Bank of America Stadium .