For the third time in four years, Charlotte will be among a handful of cities hosting a neutral-site college football kickoff game when West Virginia plays Tennessee at Bank of America Stadium. And organizers anticipate a sellout at the 74,000-capacity NFL stadium.
If they succeed, it will be quite a turnaround after disappointing turnouts in 2015 (North Carolina versus South Carolina) and 2017 (N.C. State vs. South Carolina). In both cases, attendance was about two-thirds of capacity, a surprise given the pedigree and popularity of the schools involved and easy driving distances for fans from those campuses.
Will Webb, head of the Charlotte Sports Foundation, the nonprofit that runs the Belk Kickoff Game as well as the annual bowl game in December, told me Friday that more than 40,000 tickets have been sold for the Sept. 1 matchup between West Virginia and Tennessee. He said a sellout is likely, based on advance sales and interest from the two schools.
College football has become a focal point for local sports and tourism executives. There are several reasons for that, starting with an agreement reached in 2013 with the stadium owner: the NFL Carolina Panthers. City Council approved spending $75 million of tourism tax money to help pay for stadium renovations and, in return, the Panthers agreed to provide five rent-free dates each year for tourism-friendly events.
Adding a regular Labor Day weekend opener and continuing the bowl game started in 2002 became priorities after the Panthers agreement. In addition, a third college game not counted as a rent-free date — the ACC Football Championship — has become a consistent attraction. In April, the Atlantic Coast Conference extended the football championship’s commitment to Charlotte by 10 years, to 2030.
Uptown hotels close to the stadium are already seeing a significant boost in bookings for Labor Day, according to tourism executives. And organizers hope to begin creating sideline events to persuade some fans to stay longer when they come to town for a college opener. Case in point: A partnership between the sports foundation and music promoter Southern Entertainment that will bring country singer Brad Paisley to Memorial Stadium on Aug. 31 for a concert aimed mostly at visiting fans.
“It’s a good fit,” said Bob Durkin, president of Southern Entertainment. “And it’s a way to get people to maybe come for two nights instead of one, (it) puts heads in beds.”
Mecklenburg County owns Memorial Stadium, an 82-year-old building that will soon undergo $35 million worth of renovations. Durkin said Paisley fits the college football crowd and offers a natural tie-in by way of having grown up in West Virginia before moving to Nashville for his music career.
If the concert draws well, Durkin and Webb, the head of the sports foundation, hope to make live music a part of future kickoff games. Last year, the Belk College Kickoff added $9.3 million in spending on hotels, meals and other expenses, according to the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority.
Economists have consistently said impact numbers for sporting events and conventions tend to be inflated; visitors authority executives say their figures are conservative. Whatever your perspective, hotels, restaurants and other businesses that generate tourism tax revenue remain supportive of using that money to build and improve sports venues to help attract more events.
“We love it,” said Tyler Birchfield, president of H&B Hospitality Management, a company with four hotels in Ayrsley, located outside uptown in the Steele Creek area.
Birchfield told me it’s unlikely the Ayrsley hotels will see much direct benefit from Tennessee-West Virginia since fans will stay closer to the stadium. Even so, he said having the game benefits the industry as a whole — and reinforces the idea of Charlotte as a city that can lure more than just corporate travelers.
Uptown hotels have already seen demand spike for Labor Day weekend because of the kickoff game.
“We’ve seen a pick-up,” Omni Charlotte GM Douglas Hustad said Friday. “We’re anticipating being full for the weekend. We’re not quite there, but we think we will be.”
The Omni has 373 rooms and recently completed $30 million worth of renovations.
As with the ACC Championship and the Belk Bowl — both played in December — the Belk College Kickoff helps because it occurs during a time when there are fewer visitors coming to Charlotte.
Webb and the sports foundation have opening-weekend games lined up four of the next five years through 2023. The lone blank spot, in 2022, is close to being filled, Webb told me. And he’s already begun talking to schools about 2025 and 2026.
Less certain is the fate of the bowl game, started in 2002 and, since 2014, featuring an ACC school against one from the Southeastern Conference. The bowl is under contract through 2019 with Belk as the title sponsor, but the locally based retailer is no longer family-owned. New York private equity firm Sycamore Partners bought Belk in 2015.
The agreements with the conferences also end next year and, like many mid- and lower-tier college bowl games, the Belk Bowl has struggled to sell tickets. The game last eclipsed 50,000 in attendance in 2011. Last year, for the first time in the game’s history, it was played to less than half-capacity as 33,000 fans watched Texas A&M play Wake Forest.
According to the visitors authority, the ACC Championship added $21 million to the local economy last year for a sellout between Miami and Clemson while the bowl game generated $6 million.
Webb, the sports foundation executive, said discussions to keep the bowl game have already begun. And he’s encouraged by recent remarks made by new Panthers owner David Tepper, who said during his first press conference he hopes to bring the state high school football championship to the NFL stadium in the near future.
The sports foundation would be happy to help promote and manage the game if asked, Webb said.