David Tepper isn’t just a bad NFL owner. He’s stealing Charlotte’s sports joy | Opinion

The Carolina Panthers have had zero stability — and zero winning seasons — since David Tepper bought the team in 2018.

This season was supposed to be different. But the Panthers have won just one measly game — an NFL-worst record that led Tepper to fire head coach Frank Reich on Monday. Like his predecessors, Reich was ousted mid-season, but he didn’t even last a year.

It turns out that you really can keep sinking lower, even when it feels like there’s nowhere to go but up.

Under Tepper, though, this city is losing more than just a whole lot of football games. It’s missing out on something bigger and more intangible: the sense of joy, kinship and pride that sports teams can create in a community.

Sure, you can still go to a Panthers game, if you’re OK with the fact that it’s likely to be both a disappointment and a snoozefest. At least the team is so bad that a ticket won’t actually cost you that much. Still, with the way the season is going, there are far better ways to spend a Sunday.

The blame starts with ownership. Tepper has failed to give Charlotte a reason to believe in him or his team. The revolving door of players and coaches at Bank of America Stadium. The impulsive decision-making. Seeing the stadium overrun by the opposing team’s fans. Chasing after Deshaun Watson despite the many, many allegations against him. The drama with the failed Rock Hill practice facility and the Eastland Mall project. Over time, those bad headlines add up, and the fanbase’s hope is slowly replaced by apathy. Firing yet another head coach before the end of the season is just another sign of chaos that brings no confidence of better days ahead.

The Charlotte Hornets aren’t owned by Tepper, but it’s a similar story. You can still cheer for them, if you can stomach the fact that they’re “comfortable” keeping someone like Miles Bridges around — and you’ve managed to stick around through front office woes, bad draft picks and the longest playoff drought in the NBA.

Compare that to the Carolina Hurricanes. Of course, it helps that they’ve become a decent team that’s had real success in the postseason. But they also have something else that the Panthers do not: stability. The Hurricanes don’t make regular headlines for botched hires, broken promises or crushed expectations. Hockey is thriving in the Triangle, and it’s a great thing to witness.

As a UNC alum, some of my greatest memories were made cheering on the Tar Heels, especially in basketball. Winning the national championship in 2017, biting my nails with 20,000 other fans at the screening in the Dean Dome. Rushing Franklin Street with my fellow students. Even once I graduated and moved to Charlotte, I found that same feeling: I watched UNC beat Duke in Coach K’s final home game alongside fans of all ages at Moo & Brew. I watched UNC beat Duke again in the Final Four surrounded by a bunch of strangers in South End.

I wish I could bottle that feeling up and keep it forever. Nothing quite compares to the rush of a good sporting event, particularly when you have some kind of personal stake in the outcome. There’s something really special about the way sports can foster a sense of togetherness and belonging.

Longtime fans might still remember the way it felt the last time the Panthers were a legitimate contender. A friend recently told me that in 2016, the year the Panthers made it to the Super Bowl, you could feel the excitement throughout the city, whether you were at school, church, or in line at the grocery store.

And as someone who has lived in Charlotte for a couple of years now, it feels like that’s what the city’s missing. We have the teams. We have the players. But we don’t quite have the joy. It’s been stolen by a seemingly never-ending cycle of bad ownership, bad management and bad decisions.

The most loyal of fans may still believe in what the Panthers — and the Hornets, for that matter — can be. But the best thing about sports is that they can make new fans out of people who don’t know a thing about the game, reaching across social and cultural divides to unite a community. They’re a source of passion and pride for the city they call home. Right now, Charlotte’s sports teams are achieving none of that, and our city is worse off because of it.