The Kyle Bailey Show: Erik Spanberg

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Eric Spanberg, Charlotte Business Journal. I bothered him yesterday, like
two hours before the show, and he was like, leave
me alone. I'll come on tomorrow. And so he's following
through on that. Eric Spanberg is back with us on
a Friday. What's going on, brother, How you been well?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yes, I will go ahead and confess you were speaking
of roller coasters in the last forty eight hours. I
have declined the head football coaching jobs at my alma mater, LSU.
You're alma mater Virginia Tech, Arkansas and others. So that's
why I was busy. But I'm available today, so let's
get to it.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Two things. This is why I love you. It's also
why I missed you because I had already prepared for
my first question to be about LSU football, and you
beat me to the punch because I had to ask
as much of an asset as you are to this
city with the Charlotte Business Journal, and I mean that.
And as much as I know you love living here,
is there any part of you that's jealous that you
don't get to cover this LSU coaching search and all

(00:52):
of the insanity that goes along with it.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Are you kidding? Me. This is the ultimate Louisiana dumpster
fire gumbo political corruption fest. I am really feeling homesick
watching this one play out. Good Lord, we have outdone ourselves.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Can you explain to the folks that might not because
I don't even know that I fully understand it. I
didn't grow up in Louisianna politics, But like, can you
explain why the governor's even involved? Because it truly is
a very uniquely Southern thing about college football and the
way this is happening, but it's also uniquely Louisiana thing.
Why does Jeff Landry have anything to do with this?

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yes, it is. It is Southern. And then some as
you've probably seen or maybe you haven't, this goes back
to Huey Long in the twenties and thirties, who was
essentially a dictator governor and became one of the most
powerful politicians in twentieth century America. And he was involved

(01:47):
from head to toe in the LSU program, from the
band and their uniforms and the field and pep talks
and telling the coaches what place to call it. It is
just ingrained in the culture of Louisiana. Really, they're only
other than food. The only things we talk about are
LSU football and politics, and so it's inevitable that the

(02:09):
two would be mixed together.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, it is. You're right, and it's just fascinating and
I love it, and I know you knew you were
jealous not to be able to cover that all right now,
speaking of big sports stories, I did see a minute
ago as I was scrolling your timeline, because really, our
interviews are easy because I just follow your reporting and
then ask you about it when you come on the air.
Eight hundred eleven million dollars gambled in North Carolina in October, Eric,

(02:34):
I mean, that number just keeps going up. And I'm
kind of hesitant to go over the top on this
because you know, we got sports embroiled and gambling scandals
right now, so it's not all great. But like nearly
a billion dollars gambled in North Carolina October.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, that really shocked me. And you're right, and you
know I mentioned in my story, as I think all
of us are right now, we knew, or I think
most of us, an anybody who's kind of level headed
knew that comes with a lot of risk, This intermingling
of gambling and sports. We're seeing it play out. It
feels like there's a new scandal every day, and yet

(03:09):
at the same time, when you look at North Carolina
and how this has gone, the thing that surprises me
the most, Kyle, is that you knew it would be
active at the beginning. I really thought after I don't know,
six nine months, not that it would go away by
any stretches, but I didn't feel as though it would
be sustained or you know, keep growing. But that is

(03:33):
by far, I think, by some I don't know, two
hundred million dollars. That is by far the biggest month
that North Carolina has had since it legalized online sports
betting in March of twenty twenty four. So yeah, that
shows you the allure of this and the power of
pro and college football.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Well again, just the number itself, staggering, eight hundred and
eleven million dollars. Do you have any thoughts on the
I mean, the sweeping federal indictments, the FBI probe. It's
not just the NBA. Now we got a couple of
baseball pitchers, but I'd swept up in this as well.
Like I think we're all wondering how deep does it go?

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, I think you know. The obvious is how deep
does it go? By the way, there was another story
this week about unnamed college athletes being involved in some
kind of gambling ring. We don't have a lot of
details about that. I would say a couple things about it. First,
to go back where we were earlier, it's inevitable when
you have this close up a relationship between gambling and

(04:28):
professional in college sports. The other thing is, I think
all of us want to know what is the line
before people begin to say I don't trust this, and
what I mean I shouldn't use the word line right
terrible gambling plant. But what I mean by that is
are these legitimate competitions. We all know that if you

(04:50):
lose that aspect of sports, there's really no reason to watch.
If it's staged, a lot of the allure goes away.
I guess maybe you would say, well, look at professional wrestling,
but this is a different thing. Major League Baseball in
the NFL and the NBA, those are not predicated on
that type of entertainment. The most attractive aspect of this

(05:12):
is that you have great athletes and you have no
idea what's going to happen. So if you begin to
chip away at that, there will be a point where
you're going to start to see some erosion of fan interest.
And the question is how much does it take to
make that happen.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Well, apparently we're not close. If people are gambling eight
hundred and eleven million dollars in the state of North
Carolina in a single mounth that's just wild. Eric Spanberg,
Charlotte Business Journal, hanging out with us here on a Friday.
Go back to the news from weeks ago. Teper Sports
and Entertainment partnering with Live Nation to build I believe
a forty four hundred seat indoor amphitheater concert venue. No

(05:46):
public money attached to this. I know that was one
of the lead story or parts of the story when
it first came out, but I haven't heard much about
it since then. What should folks know about this and
how did it come to be?

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, so this is something that David Tepper has been
canting at for a long time that he wanted some
kind of music venue to be at the stadium or
near the stadium, beyond doing stadium concerts because obviously they're
only a handful of acts that can play a stadium
and fill it up. When you go to forty four
hundred people. That gives you many, many more options. Partnering

(06:20):
with Live Nation gives you access to the best tours.
The thing that is interesting to me, one of the
things that's interesting to me about this, Kyle, is almost
every sports team now is looking for a way to
get into concerts or to add more concerts from Spectrum
Center obviously, to be of a stadium. You've heard talk

(06:42):
of UNC Charlotte perhaps hosting concerts out there, any venue
anywhere in the country. The answer is always, well, we'll
bring in concerts and people love live music, obviously, But
I do wonder kind of what is the breaking point
here because you all so have P and C Music Pavilion,
you have theaters here, you have the ad Exchange Music Factory.

(07:05):
What I will say in the case of this venue
is between having an alliance with an NFL owner and
Live Nation, they're going to get their shows. Now. I
don't know who they're taking their shows from, but they're
going to get their shows.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
See that's what I was wondering too. You know who
does this pull from and who does this hurt the most?
But now listen options are good for the consumer. But
somebody's going to be hurt by that, and I'm sure
there's some folks not happy that it's going down that way.
Eric Spanberg, Charlotte Business Journal, hanging out with us here
on a Friday, Just going back through some of your
recent reporting and stories. You know, the Savannah Bananas are
a big deal everywhere they go. They sold out Bank

(07:40):
of America Stadium back to back nights, one hundred and
fifty thousand tickets sold. But you reported, but I think
about a month ago that there are new teams coming
to truest Field this coming year, that Banana Ball is expanding.
What should we know?

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, so one of the teams is the Party Animals,
who have typically played They've been to the Washington Generals, if
you will, to the Bananas, but they also go off
and do their own thing from time to time. And
the Bananas are now adding a couple of more teams,
and Jesse Cole, the guy who created this with his wife,

(08:13):
is trying to create a whole league of Banana Ball.
And I think this is going to be really interesting, Kyle, because,
as you mentioned, the Bananas have been such an overwhelming
success story, so popular. But as you know, when things
get bigger and bigger and bigger, it's harder and harder
to do quality control to keep from being oversaturated. So

(08:37):
I'm really curious to see how this does. Now. Obviously
there's a big difference between feeling via a stadium and
feeling truest field, but you do wonder kind of how
much of an appetite is there for banana ball. We're
about to get a good idea now.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
A couple of big things. We'll let you go. Charlotte
FC bowed out of the postseason last week. They're done
for a while. Also news on the restructuring or the
changing of the schedule that came down yesterday from Commissioner
Don Garber. I also saw that you had reported they
saw an eight percent dropping attendance year over year, but
still ranked third in MLS attendance. Thoughts on maybe why

(09:16):
we saw attendance drop by eight percent this year, but
also any thoughts on the changing of the schedule to
align with the European and global soccer schedules.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah, a couple things there. I first of all, let's
knock out the schedule real fast. I think that's a
good idea. I think being aligned with what the rest
of the sport does, particularly the highest echelons of the
sport is doing, is a good idea. Secondly, I'm going
to throw in one for you. The restructuring of the
Apple deal tells me that MLS knows they don't have
a very good media deal because they're shortening it. And then, thirdly,

(09:50):
on attendance, I was a little bit surprised by that.
I know there is more competition than ever for an
entertainment dollar, but particularly because Charlotte FC had such a
good season, I would have thought that they would have
at least held the line. I think the thing to
watch here with attendance for Charlotte FC is they made

(10:11):
a pretty significant shift this past season away from doing
the full stadium capacity. You remember they would open the
upper bowl a lot and you'd have tickets for fifteen dollars.
I think that by limiting the capacity, you probably create
more value for your season ticket holders, and you also
maybe create a little bit more of a sense of

(10:32):
urgency going forward, so that might help them start to
get that number going back up.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Last thing, the Dicky V Invitational that was here just
I think what two weeks ago is that right? Two
weeks ago. I think last week. I'm sorry, bed time flies.
So yeah, twelve thousand and what four thirty five showed
up for that event.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
I loved that.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Like I love the fact that they had it at all.
Charlotte's become really a depth. The Charlotte Sports Foundation doing
a great job with all these things too. But like that,
twelve thousand, four thirty five is that a good number?
Does that guarantee staying power? What will you think?

Speaker 2 (11:04):
I think it will be back. I think it's an
okay number. Look, that's the nineteen thousand capacity building. They
had a good matchup. I think they were hurt by
the late tip off. I believe it was an eight
forty five tip on a school night. I wonder whether
they will look at maybe a Friday night, a Thursday night,

(11:25):
something like that next year. But I suspect that this
will continue for the most obvious reason. The ratings on
ESPN were really good, and ESPN is one of the
lead organizers with a sports foundation, and we know the
appetite for college basketball is here, so I think they
can build on this.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Eric, you're the best man. Thank you for the time.
Great catching up and hope to see you again

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Soon sounds good, Have a good weekend,