CHARLOTTE — The return of the Duke’s Mayo Bowl to Bank of America Stadium this weekend marked the 10th year in a row that organizers staged the game without paying to rent the stadium. According to the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, that’s currently worth $550,000 annually.
The visitors’ authority collaborates with other entities, including the Charlotte Sports Foundation, owner of the bowl game, to put events in the stadium that will help generate visitor spending on hotels, restaurant meals, and related tourism spending.
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Rent-free dates at the NFL stadium for city government resulted from an agreement approved by City Council in 2013. The city committed $75 million for stadium improvements in exchange for a 10-year commitment from the Carolina Panthers, then owned by Jerry Richardson, to keep the franchise here through 2023. The city tapped existing tourism tax revenue to pay for the stadium projects.
Richardson and the Panthers spent $102 million on stadium upgrades in addition to the city’s $75 million over a five-year period spanning 2014 through 2018.
BofA Stadium opened in 1996 and was mostly privately financed. David Tepper bought the Panthers and the stadium from Richardson in 2018 for $2.275 billion.
The agreement reached in 2013 provides the city up to five rent-free dates at the stadium each year through 2023. Only once during that span — in 2019 — has the city used all five dates in a year. In 2022, the rent-free availability was used twice: for the Duke’s Mayo Bowl between N.C. State and Maryland, and for the N.C. Central-N.C. A&T football game played Sept. 2. The Central-A&T game generated direct spending by visitors and organizers of $7.9 million, according to the visitors authority.
The bowl game since 2017 has added $11.7 million annually in direct visitor spending, according to visitors authority studies. That excludes 2020, when Covid-19 state health mandates limited attendance to 1,500 fans.
VIDEO: College football fans head Uptown for Charlotte’s Duke’s Mayo Bowl
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