Date: 8.24.98
WITH THE STOIC DEMEANOR of an oversize Buddha, Jerome Richardson stares into the distance and intones: "I'll never berate a coach or player, or scream about losing a game." That's clearly not George Steinbrenner talking. Owner of the Carolina Panthers football team, Richardson isn't even all that keen on telling FORBES his against-the-odds story of bringing an NFL team to the Carolinas. "I'm answering your questions because you asked them," he says with the Southern courtliness you'd expect from a boy raised in Fayetteville, N.C.
Still, it's quite a story. With the smell of new carpet in the air, Richardson is perched in his second-floor office of the spanking new Ericsson Stadium, one of few privately financed stadiums, and almost certainly the best in the country. We thought it might be fun to talk football over a hot dog, while sitting on the new stadium seats. Not so. Richardson, towering and taciturn at 6 foot 4 and 250 pounds, is a guy who gets things his way. We travel to a local Charlotte restaurant and brewery.
The best way to illustrate his character is by retelling a story in which Richardson, a recent graduate of Spartanburg, S.C.'s Wofford College, was a rookie wide receiver for the Baltimore Colts. Making a crucial touchdown in the Colts' championship 1959 game helped Richardson gain the Colts Rookie of the Year award. In his second year he wanted a $500 raise, to $10,000. The team offered only $9,750.
He quit over $250, packed his football dreams into his station wagon and drove home. "Maybe I was stupid," he shrugs, ordering iced tea. We should all be so stupid. He took his winnings from his championship game -- $4,000 -- and bought his first Hardee's franchise in 1961. Then he bought another and another, jumping on the fast-food bandwagon at the right moment in history. By 1993 his publicly owned Flagstar Cos., Inc. had $3.7 billion in revenues and owned 528 Hardee's, 1,013 Denny's and 217 Quincy's Family Steakhouses. All that expansion forced him to dilute his equity in the business, but Richardson is still a multimillionaire.
Along the way he was badly scarred when several Denny's restaurants were accused of discriminating against blacks. He reacted quickly and personally by making substantial amends, but the beating he took in the media explains his reluctance to deal with the press. While turning management of his restaurants over to others, Richardson was readying a return to football. People want to own football teams for different reasons: self-aggrandizement, investment, love of the game. Richardson claims the main reason is: "I grew up in the Carolinas and wanted to give something back."
He gave the Carolinas something they wanted badly. Charlotte barely had a prayer for an NFL franchise. A midsize town with a backwater image, Charlotte was up against bigger cities like Oakland, Baltimore and St. Louis, each of which had suffered the pain of losing an NFL franchise and wanted one back. San Antonio, Memphis and Jacksonville wanted teams and were in the running, too. "A national magazine gave us 50-to-1 odds of getting the team," says Richardson, sipping iced tea -- and clearly relishing that fact.
Shrewd businessperson that he is, Richardson quickly saw that the stadium would be the key. Having a modern stadium is the strongest draw today for a sports team. But a suitable stadium and team would cost in the neighborhood of $400 million. A lot of promoters, therefore, lobby to get taxpayer money to build new stadiums. "It didn't seem right," said Richardson. The league pooh-bahs didn't agree. "You're going to have to get the public to participate if you want to have any chance," they told Richardson.
Richardson took that literally. He would go to the public, not to the taxpayer. The only concession he got from the local government was the right to build the stadium on $60 million worth of city-owned land, for which he would pay $1 a year. Fans would underwrite the cost of building the stadium by purchasing the lifetime right to buy season tickets.
Would it work? "We didn't know whether we'd get a dime," he says. He got more than a dime. Starting July 1, 1993, Richardson's staff sold $160 million worth of rights to tickets priced between $600 and $5,400 apiece. This would become one of few privately financed football stadiums in the world. Twisting the arms of wealthy friends, and visiting the local banks for loans, he got the balance he needed: $280 million. Hugh L. McColl Jr., the chief executive of NationsBank, played financial quarterback in putting the loan package together. Richardson got Swedish telecommunications giant LM Ericsson to kick in $25 million for naming rights over nine years.
Raising the money was just a first-quarter touchdown. Now he had to get 21 of the 28 votes from the NFL owners, who were skeptical of the location. Richardson visited each commissioner and lobbied for every single vote. It was unanimous. "What Jerry Richardson did is like high-jumping over an 8-foot bar," says NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.
The Panthers played their first season in 1995, finishing 7 and 9 -- best ever for an expansion team. In their second season, the Panthers won the NFL West Division and advanced to the conference championship in 1996, finishing the season 12 and 4. Last year, however, was what Richardson calls "a learning experience," with the Panthers finishing 7 and 9, a step backward after the previous year's high. With his meaty hand clutching a black felt pen, he starts making indecipherable circles and arrows on the paper tablecloth to explain the sequence of plays.
Win some, lose some -- but financially, Charlotte is working. Even if the league's television revenue dips -- a rather likely scenario -- Richardson can tap preseason local TV, the gate, stadium ads and national radio to service in excess of $200 million in debt. Equity investors, who kicked in about $45 million, aren't getting a dime in dividends, but most of them care more about trying to win the Super Bowl for the hometown than about making a killing.
"I just know we're going to win," Richardson says simply. With that, he stands, flips a $50 bill on the table for the tab and a generous tip and strides away to his next appointment. The interview was obviously over. He was willing to tell us what he thought the public had a right to know, but obviously wasn't eager to court more questions.
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