0:03

Jerry Richardson's youngest son. Mark was

0:06

in his late twenties when he first learned that his

0:08

family was gonna try to do the

0:10

impossible. It was the spring of seven

0:13

and my dad's and I think I want to try to bring an NFL

0:15

team to the Carolinas. There's nobody in Charlotte.

0:17

Do you want to move to Charlotte and head

0:19

up the program and see if we can put it

0:22

together? Today we celebrate twenty five

0:24

seasons to Panther Football with Mark

0:26

Richardson. Twenty

0:29

five seasons of Panthers Football.

0:31

A celebration of the players, coaches,

0:33

and other people who have contributed to

0:35

the organizational success. No

0:38

to mc nixon, What

0:40

a great honor it is to podcast

0:42

a little bit with our friend Mark Richardson, Clemson

0:45

University grad nineteen eighty three and

0:47

former president of the Carolina Panthers.

0:50

We must begin Mark Richardson with a life

0:52

update. How are you doing

0:54

and what are you doing? I am doing very

0:57

well. Still spend sometime

0:59

in Charlott, but spend most most of our

1:01

time in Charleston and UM.

1:04

Ten years ago, when I left the Panthers, I started

1:06

a commercial real estate development company

1:09

and I'm still doing that. You look good,

1:11

you sound good. Are you happy? Yes, very happy.

1:13

And I worked for

1:16

myself by myself, so

1:18

my meetings have gotten very short. Decisions

1:22

are always unanimous, and

1:24

I have nobody to look at them. Things don't

1:26

go well. And as as your dad used to say, it's not a

1:28

democracy, no, I'll

1:30

count the votes. That is fantastic, Mark

1:33

Richardson, as the son of Jerry and

1:36

Mrs Rosalind, did you feel growing up

1:38

any pressure, any familiar pressure

1:40

to play football and or study

1:43

business? No, it's um.

1:45

You know, we had a rule in the house, and that is

1:48

you're gonna play something every season. So

1:51

uh, when school was over, you

1:53

know, we were involved in athletics and

1:56

played football all the way through, played

1:58

basketball through in your high school, and then

2:00

started wrestling in high school when my football

2:03

coach told me I was wrestling, and I told him

2:05

I was a shooting guard and he said, I'll see you on the wrestling

2:07

mat on Monday. And then I ran

2:09

track. So we were involved in some sport

2:11

every season. You were a member of some great

2:14

football teams at Clemson. How important

2:16

a time was that in your life? And

2:18

I think we were so young at

2:20

the time, we didn't realize exactly

2:22

what we did. So I was a junior

2:25

when we won the national championship in one

2:28

and the year before we

2:30

were six and five, So and we

2:32

were actually five and five going into the last game

2:34

against South Carolina, and South Carolina was eight

2:36

and three and going to the Gator Bowl, and George

2:38

Rogers was a running back and I

2:41

was gonna win the Heisman Trophy, and

2:43

there was a lot of talk if we didn't beat South Carolina

2:45

ups at South Carolina, coach Ford was

2:47

going to get fired and we're gonna be starting over.

2:49

So we went from an

2:52

average five and five team when the last

2:54

game to go six and five and then had

2:57

a great offseason, worked

2:59

really hard, coaching staff was motivated

3:01

and focused, and I had

3:03

a great offseason and a great spring, and

3:05

then things just really came together

3:08

that year. Throughout the win or the year not

3:10

even being ranked in the top twenty, UM

3:13

beat Georgia the second of the third game

3:15

and kind of got on the radar, and

3:17

then things just got on a roll.

3:20

There were some huge personalities on that team,

3:23

starting from Danny Ford on down. Are

3:25

those relationships and still important

3:28

ones to you and have you preserved many of them

3:30

they are. So Coach Ford's still around Clemson.

3:33

Um I still don't think he's bought

3:35

a meal yet He's got every

3:37

dollar that he ever earned. And he's

3:39

a farmer in Clemson now, so he's

3:42

raising cattle. And Um also

3:44

Um got one of the permits to be a

3:46

hemp farmer. So he

3:49

raises cattle and he grows hemp. And he still

3:51

goes and eats for free at the Holiday

3:54

inn. Holiday Inns not there,

3:56

but there are a lot of other places. He

3:58

was a fixture there for so many

4:00

years, my goodness, and there

4:02

and there are a handful of people I see in touch with so

4:05

um Bill Smith Um is

4:07

also a trustee with me at Clemson now. So

4:09

Bill and our teammates, and still

4:12

close with Perry Tuttle, and still close with my

4:14

roommate Jeff stock Still and

4:17

Reggie Pleasant who was on our team

4:19

as a team chaplain at Clemson now and Jeff

4:21

Davis works for the football program.

4:23

So there's still a lot of guys that are still tied

4:25

in Kendall Alley, close friend from

4:28

school and a close friend here in

4:30

Clemson and Charlotte as well. Of

4:32

course, Clemson's got it rolling. Of course,

4:34

now with the ev aswhenny Mark Richardson

4:37

on the podcast, Okay Marks, now fast forward

4:39

a few years. You're out of Clemson. I want to know exactly

4:41

what you were doing and where you were and what

4:43

your emotions were when you first heard

4:46

that you're going after an NFL team for the Carolina

4:49

Well, I just finished graduate

4:51

school UM at the University Virginia,

4:53

finished my NBA, and I

4:55

actually left Clemson. I went to New York

4:57

and worked for a year and a half and went back to school

5:00

and trying to figure out what I

5:03

was gonna do. And it was the spring

5:05

of nine, eight seven, and my dad said, I think

5:07

I want to try to bring an NFL team to the Carolinas.

5:09

There's nobody in Charlotte. Do you want to move

5:11

to Charlotte and head up the program

5:14

and see if we can put it together.

5:16

And at the time, I was twenty seven years old

5:18

and I didn't know what I was gonna do. I had no commitment

5:20

to do anything, so moved

5:22

here in the spring of seven. You

5:26

know, we started from scratch, so

5:28

we had to put together in ownership group. We

5:30

had to We hired

5:33

met Max Mullerman, hired him to help us

5:35

with the marketing part of it. Hired an investment

5:37

banking firm, don't put together the financial

5:40

financials accounting

5:42

firm, and UH interviewed

5:45

architects, hired an architect, looked

5:47

at over eighty different sites here in

5:50

the surrounding Charlotte area trying

5:53

to find the right stadium site. UH

5:55

ended up at the site downtown. UM.

5:58

So it's really six and a half your project.

6:00

So we went from seven to nine

6:03

and then the real work began and it was

6:06

a whirlwin from the day

6:08

we got the team until two years later

6:10

when we kicked off the first game. Where

6:12

were the obstacles in the early days, Well,

6:14

I think we were. We

6:17

were running a parallel

6:19

public relations marketing UM

6:22

program. One of them is we

6:24

were trying to convince the people in the

6:26

Carolinas that we were a legitimate candidate.

6:29

UM. I grew up in the Carolinas and we

6:32

used to have to following the

6:34

Washington teams or the Atlanta teams,

6:36

and there was not professional sports in

6:39

the Carolina. So we had to

6:41

convince the people in the Carolinas

6:43

that we were a legitimate candidate

6:45

and we had a chance to win and we had a lot of assets

6:48

and a lot of benefits that we're gonna be attractive

6:50

to the NFL. So we were doing that within the

6:52

Carolinas, within the borders of North and

6:54

South Carolina. Then outside

6:56

of it, we were trying to convince everybody

6:58

else in the country that Carolinas

7:01

was a very dynamic market. So we were working

7:03

on two different plans at

7:06

the same time. A lot of similarities, but it's

7:08

really a different pitch, you know, pumping

7:11

the people up in the Carolinas to say we can

7:13

do this, and then outside the Carolinas

7:15

telling the people you know, you really don't

7:17

know what you're missing and you don't know what

7:20

you have in the Carolina is a tremendous fan

7:22

base and it's time to tap

7:24

into it. Was there ever a time

7:26

that you thought you possibly

7:28

couldn't get it done, Yes, Uh,

7:31

it happens. So we

7:33

we spent five years

7:36

thinking that we were going to have a certain

7:39

financing plan with the NFL and it was okay

7:41

with the NFL, and we were going to use to seem

7:44

financial model that Joe Robbie used

7:46

in Miami to finance Joe Robbie

7:49

Stadium, and that is we're gonna take luxury

7:51

suites and club seats. We're gonna sign long

7:53

term leases, and we're gonna take the leases to

7:55

the bank and use it as collateral. And

7:58

that was gonna be uh the

8:00

underpinning of the financial program

8:02

to finance the team. The stadium

8:05

in in

8:07

late May early June, so

8:10

about sixteen months for the NFL

8:12

was going to award the team. They said,

8:15

we're not going to approve that financing plan for you.

8:17

You're the only one that's talking

8:19

about financing a team, and it's gonna be the highest

8:21

price ever paid for a professional

8:23

sports team and at the same time

8:25

trying to fight privately finance the stadium.

8:28

And we're uncomfortable with

8:31

the financial magnitude of that. So

8:34

you need to go back to your community and you need

8:36

to do what everybody else has done and get a

8:38

dedicated tax stream

8:41

that's going to finance the stadium.

8:43

So they gave us until September.

8:46

So they gave us about a hundred days. Hundred

8:48

days to go back, and we came

8:51

back in September and um

8:53

Max and I met with the NFL and we told him

8:55

that we'd solve their problem,

8:57

and they said, what problem is

8:59

that you know, we said, you're you've

9:02

got great NFL teams

9:04

playing in and horrible

9:06

stadiums, and you can't get financing for

9:08

stadium. So you've got Pittsburgh

9:11

in a bad stadium. You've got Philadelphia, you've

9:13

got New Detroit, you've got Denver,

9:15

you've got Chicago, you've got Pittsburgh

9:18

at San Francisco, and you can't

9:20

get a tax um bond

9:22

referendum passed anywhere for finance

9:25

for financing a stadium. So

9:27

we've got a new financing mechanism. And that

9:29

was the PSL. When we said what's

9:31

the PSL, and we went through

9:33

the process of explaining what it was,

9:36

they were very skeptical and I'm

9:38

not sure that's gonna work. I'm not sure

9:40

why anybody would pay you up

9:43

front for the right to

9:45

then be a season ticket holder. And

9:47

we said, well, just let us try it, you

9:49

know, let us go out and pre sell it. If

9:52

we pre sell it and it works, then

9:54

we get our stadium finance. We'll get our NFL

9:56

team, and you've got a financing mechanism

9:59

to build all your other stadiums for

10:01

your NFL teams that are playing in very poor

10:03

stadiums. And so

10:05

they agreed to let us do it, and it worked

10:07

in every stadium since then has been based on a

10:10

PSL plan. That is amazing.

10:12

Not only did you help get a team

10:14

for the Carolinas, but you helped the National Football

10:16

League give them some

10:18

some some fundraising weapons to build new stadiums.

10:21

Amazing. So if

10:23

you knew how hard it

10:25

was going to be and how much it was going

10:27

to cost, would you do it again?

10:30

Yeah? What what a tremendous

10:32

asset. And also to

10:34

um be in the middle

10:37

of it, so not only

10:39

have a seat on the bus, but actually be

10:42

driving the bus. It was unbelievable.

10:45

Um, And what an asset for the Carolinas.

10:48

And I think we're really just

10:51

now starting to see the true impact

10:53

because people of your generation,

10:55

my generation, we grew up following somebody else's

10:58

NFL team. Our children now have

11:00

gone through a generation that all they know

11:03

is the Carolina Panthers, and now they're starting

11:05

to have their own children that they're bringing

11:07

the game. So you know, we're

11:09

getting to our third generation of Panthers fans.

11:12

And I think you can really see

11:15

the roots, um there widened

11:17

their deep and um, what

11:19

an unbelievable program

11:21

to be a part of and uh been

11:24

a great twenty five years. It has

11:26

been. There's nothing like the NFL. Of course.

11:28

A couple of more questions on our podcast for Mark

11:30

Richardson, former team president,

11:32

and we'll let him get back to to

11:35

to doing big commercial real estate deals.

11:38

The moment that you found

11:41

out. Panther fans remembered the press conference,

11:43

They remember your dad, of course, thank you, thank you, thank

11:45

you. But but there must have been a phone call something

11:47

before that. How and when did you did

11:49

you guys find out that you've been awarded the Panthers.

11:51

We found out about ten

11:54

minutes before everybody else found out.

11:56

So we were all in Chicago and

11:59

when made our presentation that morning, everybody

12:01

made their final presentations, and

12:04

they sent us back to a hotel room and they

12:06

sequestered us. They said don't leave, and

12:08

we weren't sure if they wanted to lock us

12:10

in so that they could get to us, or lock us in

12:12

so we couldn't get out. But um,

12:15

you know, about ten minutes but before

12:17

everybody else knew, they knocked on the door

12:20

and they said, come with us, and so they

12:22

took us. They escorted us down the back

12:24

hallway and down the service elevator

12:26

and back through the back and

12:28

we walked through the kitchen and

12:32

I recognized where we are and I said, we're

12:34

getting ready to get the team. My dad said,

12:36

what do you mean. I said, well, this

12:39

is the room that we were in before

12:42

they escorted us in for us to make

12:44

our final presentation. I said, they wouldn't bring

12:46

us here to tell us we weren't getting a team. The

12:48

only reason we're in this room because they're

12:50

getting ready to tell us, And so we

12:53

came in. It was very short. They

12:55

announced we've been worded the team. We went straight

12:57

into the press conference, and if you look

13:00

back on that tape, the

13:02

TV cameras barely had time to

13:05

roll. So when tagerloo

13:07

Bo says the twenty nine franchises the Carolina

13:09

Panthers, it barely rolled.

13:11

They barely had time to get the tape running before

13:14

the announcement was made. So we didn't know until

13:17

right before everybody else knew. Amazing,

13:19

how did the nickname Panthers come

13:22

up? And what were the other contenders? Um,

13:25

I would like to tell you there's a great marketing study

13:28

and there was a survey, but there

13:31

wasn't. So my my dad

13:33

said to me, you got any thoughts on nickname

13:36

and colors? I said, I really like panthers

13:39

and I don't really like black and blue. He

13:41

said, I love the

13:43

Panthers. I love black and blue, and let's add some silver

13:45

to it. So that

13:47

that's about what it took. There was no

13:50

in depth study or uh,

13:53

no marketing group, no focus group.

13:57

That that's simple. Yeah,

14:00

if it's not broke, don't try to

14:02

tinker with it. This worked well. What

14:04

a great visit. Mark, Thanks so much. So here's

14:06

the last question for you, and then we'll wrap up. You've

14:09

accomplished so much in your life, professionally,

14:11

personally. Where on a list

14:14

of the things of which you are most proud

14:16

would the Carolina Panthers right, It wouldn't

14:19

rank at the top. You know.

14:21

I think being part of national

14:23

championship football team, um,

14:27

and being from a small southern college

14:29

that people really didn't know that that's

14:31

a highlight. But I

14:34

think what the Carolinas did and the way they came

14:36

together and what the Panthers mean

14:39

to the Carolinas as a whole,

14:41

that's UM tremendous accomplishment

14:44

that you know. I know, I take a lot

14:46

of pride in and I know a lot of other people too

14:49

as well, as you should. Mark

14:51

Richardson, former Panther team president,

14:54

current minority owner, and a man

14:56

whose legacy in these parts is

14:58

definitely secure. Mark, thanks for Utah. Thanks.

15:02

Mark Richardson knew that players were the

15:04

thing, and one of the Panthers high profile

15:06

early draft picks from those days was

15:08

a freak athlete from Bailey, North

15:10

Carolina. You'll meet Julia's peppers

15:12

next time on the podcast.