N&R editor Allen Johnson’s ‘special package on regionalism’ in yesterday’s paper seems to be a response to the gloomy outlook hanging over the Triad these days. The way Johnson sees it, if only there were more support for Tom Ward’s stadium-racetrack complex back in the 1960s, the Triad would be a major player today:

Long before the Carolina Panthers were even a twinkle in Jerry Richardson’s eye, pro football could have come to the Triad.

Really.

Back in 1960, when Richardson, the Panthers’ owner, was still catching passes for the Baltimore Colts, a Greensboro businessman began plotting a Hail Mary toss of his own: an NFL team, a 60,000-seat stadium on the Forsyth-Guilford line and a NASCAR oval with a 60,000-seat grandstand.

As Tom Ward envisioned them, the stadium and track would have been located in Kernersville and jointly financed by the two counties through bonds.

Of course, in those days neither pro football nor racing was the mega attraction each became over the next four decades.

But imagine what might be today if the idea had taken root.

But such a view doesn’t take into account the reality of the sports world these days. No doubt NASCAR and the NFL are bigger than ever. But that hasn’t kept markets from shifting in both sports. In the NFL, seven franchises have relocated in the last 25 years. Most recently, the San Francisco 49ers announced a move to Santa Clara after a stadium deal at Candlestick Point didn’t work out. Numerous other NFL franchises (too many to count) have moved into new stadiums in their namesake cities. Venues for NASCAR races have also altered drastically in the last several years, with tracks at both North Wilkesboro and Hickory falling by the wayside.

So if Ward had built his stadium, odds are it would be sitting empty, if it hadn’t already met the wrecking ball, as many other stadiums built at that time have. NASCAR, drawn by larger markets, wouldn’t have been able to fit a date in, while the NFL fanchise would have moved either to Winston-Salem or Greensboro, whichever city provided more taxpayers’ money for a downtown stadium. Most likely, it would have abandoned the Triad altogether for Charlotte.

In addition to the stadium-racetrack complex, Johnson thinks the Triad would also have benefitted from a regional indoor arena:

Building separate arenas in Winston-Salem and Greensboro made no sense. Both enhance quality of life but, like most arenas, both lose money. Both struggle to attract A-list entertainment. It would have been better in the beginning to create a centrally located facility…..but neither city would give up its investment today for a joint venture.

But one need only to look to Charlotte to see where trend has gone. When the “new-old” Charlotte Coliseum opened in the late 1980s, the success of the expansion Hornets was one of the NBA’s a hottest marketing tools. Now that the Hornets are in New Orleans and the Uptown crowd has Bobcats Arena, the Coliseum sits out by the airport, awaiting its date with the wrecking ball. With that in mind, is there little doubt that, even with the existence of regional arena, both Winston-Salem and Greensboro would be making moves on downtown arenas of their own?

The way I see it, if Ward’s vision had become reality, the Triad would still be like many other regions around the country: a small market struggling to find itself, with an eagerness to use lots of public money in the search.