Wow.
Time to get out the Greek columns. I hope they saved them.
So the Carolina Panthers will play their first regular season game away so that Bank of America stadium can be used by the Democratic National Convention. The official explanation for this is that the stadium was chosen “to give more people a chance to be part of the convention festivities,” which is a bunch of bunk. The truth, as reported by Bloomberg, is that the move has actually been made “to sell more skyboxes to wealthy donors, according to three Democrats involved in the fundraising.”
Now that’s how you spread the wealth. Just hand over the BofA stadium for a day so the Dems can use it to raise money to pay for the convention. They are calling this an in-kind donation, but that’s a stretch, given that they intend to take the donated sky boxes and sell them for the day. And all of this is going down in a stadium named for the ultimate bastion of corporate evil, Bank of America. The media would freak out if the GOP tried something like this.
I wonder if the wealthy donors ensconced in the stadium seats will be Wall Street evil types paying extra for climate controlled seats to enjoy the bashing by Obama that will no doubt be aimed straight at them. How ironic that evil capitalists will be funding all of this as Obama makes bid for one more run at destroying what remains of capitalism in this country.
And what of Carolina Panthers and stadium owner Jerry Richardson? I wonder what all of this is setting him back in terms of lost revenue — and how they plan to make it up to him.
Update: Some of you have wondered if Jerry Richardson plans to charge the DNC rent for the stadium. The answer appears to be no.
This is from Lexis-Nexis/The Charlotte Observer:
Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, who watched the news conference, told reporters later that the team is not charging rent for the stadium.
