August 27, 2025 • 11 mins
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We chatted with Doug Gillen, the athletics director at app State,
back in the three o'clock hour, and right now we
welcome back and welcome in friend of the show, Mike Hill,
athletics director Charlotte forty nine ers. They are the other
half of the Duke's Mayo Bowl coming up, Duke's Mayo
Classic rather on Friday at Bank of America Stadium. Cannot
wait for this, and I hear that there's going to
be a lot of fans in attendance. Mike Hill back
(00:21):
with us here on a Wednesday. Mike, it's great to
have you back. It's been a while.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
How you been I've been doing great. Thanks for having me.
We're excited.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I bet I'm pretty pumped about it myself. I'll ask
you the same question I asked Doug. I mean, it's
right in your backyard. Obviously it's a big opportunity. But overall,
what does it mean for your program and your athletics
department to take part in the Duke's Mayo Classic.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, it's really special because it's our first time having
an opportunity to play, you know, at Bank of America Stadium,
you know, against a rival who has a fantastic football history.
We've got a ton of respect for for app State
and the top they've done in the history they have look.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
At the quality of teams that have played in this
game over of course these many years. How you know,
Charlotte Sports has got a fantastic job of putting together
some big time matchups and it just elevates.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
You know, our profile.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
And it gives us a chance to in our own city,
you know, and at our at our pro team stadium,
to stand up and be noticed.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
So we're we're really looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Well, and I got to point out too, we aired
the Coaches Show back on Monday. We'll have the broadcast
of the game here on wfn Z. This will be
a first for us. And while I have very little
to do with it in the grand scheme of things,
I have been watching and observing in the in the
background as all of this comes together this week. Welcome
to the wfn Z airwaves.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Mike.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
It's great to have you.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well, we could not be more fired up about it.
It's just a it's a great, great chance for us
to be partners with you guys, and we're looking forward
to having our game broadcasts. Our coaches shows, and uh,
it's a fantastic outlet. You guys do often work and
we're really pumped about it. All right.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
So one of the guys over there that you know
well sent us, He's all that's a regular listener, was
sending me pictures earlier today of the groundbreaking and the
celebration of the coming expansion. I've seen the pictures of
Jerry Richardson Stadium expansion coming in twenty twenty seven. Looks phenomenal,
Like what all went into this and how you're going
to get it done? What should we expect it all.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
To look like? Well, you know it has been you know,
years in the making. Now it's a huge project. It's
a seventy million dollar project.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
It's taking you know, some time to not only raise
the money, but obviously design it and pull pull our
plans together.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
And now here we go. We broke ground a day officially.
You know, we'll work through the next two football seasons.
Is a part of the project to complete it, and
it'll be done by the spring of twenty seven, so
you know it'll be a part in our dust scenario here.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
For the next two seasons. But it's a you know,
those are all, you know, minor inconveniences for.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
The sake of progress and to be able to add
seating capacity to our facilities, and because you know, we
were at capacity or over capacity for five of our
six home games last year.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
And you know, with the kind of games that we
have moving forward in the league, we play in the
rivalry games, we've got you know, app State every year
for the next six years. We've got ECU in our league.
Now you know, you're playing teams like Navy and Army
and Memphis and and of course some great non conference
games too in Ole, miss and others. So you know,
we need no seats and we need premium seats because
(03:23):
it generates revenue that we can reinvest into the football program,
which is really key at this point. And it's also
a chance for us year round to use the building
to feed our football team in our student athletes where
they don't currently have a training table setup, and so
this will give us a chance to invest in that
as well. So it's a it's a fantastic project. It's
(03:44):
a really happy day.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
For our program to break ground and to celebrate what's coming.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Mike kil Athletics director Charlotte forty nine ers. They've got
app state in the Duke's Mayo Classic on Friday. You
can hear it right here on WFNZ, and of course
you can head up to the bank and watch it,
which I'm sure they prefer. Duke's Mayo Classic coming up
on Friday. Since you mentioned it, and you know the
fundraising effort, you know everything about college athletics, it seems
these days, is you know, raising money. How much money
(04:09):
can you find? How much money can can you find
for you know, to get donated things like that, and
not to dredge up old history. But it wasn't that
long ago that Biff Pogi was on this show talking
about money and needing money, and you know that's your
job as the athletics directors to go out there and
find it and fund everything. Still with a young program
embarking on big endeavors like this, how what's your job like?
(04:30):
Like how difficult is it to get the fan base
fired up and to get them donating money because that
fuels everything in college athletics.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Well it does. But I think we've seen great growth
in our donor base over the last few years. I
mean we' we have nearly doubled our donor base, and
of course the last five years. You know, we had
a huge jump in our fundraising just from last year
to this year. I think he was almost sixty seven percent,
So you know, we've got we've got signs of progress
from the fundraising piece. But it's not all just fundraising either.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
It's all so finding ways to generate revenue or increase
revenue from existing streams and finding new ones. And we're
excited about the launch of Charlotte forty nine Ers Ventures,
which is a new in house the agency that we've
launched and that is already seeing results in terms of
corporate partnerships and the new nil opportunities for our student athletes,
and also being a part of the league get super progressive.
(05:22):
To move to the American was a big one for us.
You know, we've moved there two years ago. We've won
more conference championships in this league than anybody in the league,
eight over the last two years, which is not bad
for the.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
New kids on the block. And we just know that
this thing is getting ready to explode when football takes
off under coach albn and we know that's going to happen,
and excited about the future. So Fundraising has always been
an important part of these jobs. It's more important than
ever now. But it's really in general, it's just finding
ways to increase revenue streams and that includes, you know, fundraising,
(05:56):
and includes multimedia rights, it includes conference revenue and other
streams that we seek to develop. So it's exciting. It's
not easy, but you know what, we love what we do.
We're passionate about it. And there's an incredible momentum behind
our university right now with its growth and around our
whole program, and so it just feels good. Timing is everything.
(06:18):
I told Coach album that today. I said, man, you
knew what you were doing. You took this job at
the right time. Here we are debuting a new building. Man,
And he agreed with that, you know. He laughed, he said,
you're right, you know.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So it's exciting, it is, and it's funny you mentioned that.
I want to ask about Tim, but I was just
thinking back to I think it was December thirteenth of
last year. I was in DC and I was talking
to Tim Pernetti, your commissioner and the American I actually
accidentally called at the AAC and he quickly corrected me
and I get it, I understand. But Tim's a great guy,
(06:47):
I mean, great leadership. I really enjoyed talking to him,
and I talked to him that day about the hiring
of Tim Alban and I'm pretty sure I'm right about that.
But when you hired him, when the announcement came down,
my first thought was, Wow, that's a great hire for Charlotte.
He's been on the job for months.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Now.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
What have you learned? Is the guy you hired back
in December the guy you expected to get?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Man? Is he ever? And then some? I mean it
has been I mean it. You don't want to gush
too much. It doesn't sound real, but he's been a
dream to work with. He's an absolute pro and somebody
who you can tell like he's got every part of
his operation under control. He's been there, done it. You know,
(07:27):
he's had success at this level at the FBS level.
You know he's repeated that success. He's done it in
the transfer portal era. He's won a national championship at
the NAI level as a head coach. You know, he's
just he's he's the real deal, you know, and just
a he's a great human too, I mean, just just
a fantastic, authentic person who has really connected well, I
(07:49):
think with our fan base. I think he's a fantastic
fit for our university and for our program, and so
I listen, we are overjoyed. We were overjoyed in December
when he commit had to come here, and that enthusiasm
has only grown based on what we've seen so far.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
When was the first conversation between you two regarding Hey, Tim,
just so you know your first home game is going
to be against Bill Belichick.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Well, you know, it's funny because one of the things
he asked me when we were talking about the opportunity
and the offer, was you know what our scheduling philosophy
was going to be. And you know where he came
from at Ohio, you and they've done a great job there.
Obviously over the years, they've bought a lot. But he
was having to play sometimes three Power four opponents in
(08:39):
a season, and you know, we're playing two this year.
And I told him our commitment would be not to
play any more than two, but if at least one
of those could be a home and home like the
one we had with North Carolina, that we wanted to
do that. And he loved that and thought that was
a great approach. And so you know, when you know,
just a few days or weeks later, the news came
out that that Guitar Heels had hired you know, Bill Pelicheck.
(09:03):
You know, the interest level in that game ramped up
big time, you know, And so but I know this,
you know what coach would say is when we respect
all opponents, but here none and I love his philosophy
on that. And so you know, we'll be ready to
go this Friday for app and you know, we'll turn
around a week later and host you know, the Fellows
in Carolina Blue, and that's gonna be a special day
in our campus.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
I'm gonna have to hit you up for a press
credential that day. I got to make sure I get
in for that one. Now we got Mike Kill, Mike
Kill the ad and Charlotte he's with us on the
hotline here before we let you go. I mean, just
any thoughts on on Friday, what you know in terms
of getting fans out there, anybody. I got to listeners
by the way, still asking are their tickets left? Where
can we get them? So let's direct people to where
(09:45):
they need to go to get them in the building
on Friday to watch this game.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, absolutely, there there are tickets available now. You know,
each school received an allotment of seats and then Charlotte Sports,
who organizes this game. You know, they sell the the
ballance of the seats and you know, we have essentially
burned through most of our tickets right that we were allotted.
But there are seats available for this game, so people
(10:10):
can go. Fans can go to our website Charlotte Charlotte
forty nine ers dot com and be directed to purchase
tickets for the game, and we encourage them to do it. Listen,
we have more alums in this city than any other school.
We have one hundred thousand alums and live and work
in the Charlotte metro area. The second closest school in
this period with alums is Chapel Hill and they have
(10:33):
about twenty two thousand. So this talent is full of
people who were green, you know, and so we need
them to come out. We need them to support this
football team and enjoy, you know, the start to a
Labor Day weekend in a Marquee matchup against Arrival, who
we have a ton of respect for and can't wait.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
To get after Well, Mike, I can't wait for the
season to start. I really do. I love the hire
you've made. Clearly the program has momentum, the expansion plans
look phenomenal, and again, welcome to the w f NZ
air waves. I hope we get to talk a lot
throughout the season now.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I look forward to that. Thanks so much for having
me today, and uh, let's get a big job on Friday.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Go Niners.
We chatted with Doug Gillen, the athletics director at app State,
back in the three o'clock hour, and right now we
welcome back and welcome in friend of the show, Mike Hill,
athletics director Charlotte forty nine ers. They are the other
half of the Duke's Mayo Bowl coming up, Duke's Mayo
Classic rather on Friday at Bank of America Stadium. Cannot
wait for this, and I hear that there's going to
be a lot of fans in attendance. Mike Hill back
(00:21):
with us here on a Wednesday. Mike, it's great to
have you back. It's been a while.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
How you been I've been doing great. Thanks for having me.
We're excited.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I bet I'm pretty pumped about it myself. I'll ask
you the same question I asked Doug. I mean, it's
right in your backyard. Obviously it's a big opportunity. But overall,
what does it mean for your program and your athletics
department to take part in the Duke's Mayo Classic.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, it's really special because it's our first time having
an opportunity to play, you know, at Bank of America Stadium,
you know, against a rival who has a fantastic football history.
We've got a ton of respect for for app State
and the top they've done in the history they have look.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
At the quality of teams that have played in this
game over of course these many years. How you know,
Charlotte Sports has got a fantastic job of putting together
some big time matchups and it just elevates.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
You know, our profile.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
And it gives us a chance to in our own city,
you know, and at our at our pro team stadium,
to stand up and be noticed.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
So we're we're really looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Well, and I got to point out too, we aired
the Coaches Show back on Monday. We'll have the broadcast
of the game here on wfn Z. This will be
a first for us. And while I have very little
to do with it in the grand scheme of things,
I have been watching and observing in the in the
background as all of this comes together this week. Welcome
to the wfn Z airwaves.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Mike.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
It's great to have you.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well, we could not be more fired up about it.
It's just a it's a great, great chance for us
to be partners with you guys, and we're looking forward
to having our game broadcasts. Our coaches shows, and uh,
it's a fantastic outlet. You guys do often work and
we're really pumped about it. All right.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
So one of the guys over there that you know
well sent us, He's all that's a regular listener, was
sending me pictures earlier today of the groundbreaking and the
celebration of the coming expansion. I've seen the pictures of
Jerry Richardson Stadium expansion coming in twenty twenty seven. Looks phenomenal,
Like what all went into this and how you're going
to get it done? What should we expect it all.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
To look like? Well, you know it has been you know,
years in the making. Now it's a huge project. It's
a seventy million dollar project.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
It's taking you know, some time to not only raise
the money, but obviously design it and pull pull our
plans together.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
And now here we go. We broke ground a day officially.
You know, we'll work through the next two football seasons.
Is a part of the project to complete it, and
it'll be done by the spring of twenty seven, so
you know it'll be a part in our dust scenario here.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
For the next two seasons. But it's a you know,
those are all, you know, minor inconveniences for.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
The sake of progress and to be able to add
seating capacity to our facilities, and because you know, we
were at capacity or over capacity for five of our
six home games last year.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
And you know, with the kind of games that we
have moving forward in the league, we play in the
rivalry games, we've got you know, app State every year
for the next six years. We've got ECU in our league.
Now you know, you're playing teams like Navy and Army
and Memphis and and of course some great non conference
games too in Ole, miss and others. So you know,
we need no seats and we need premium seats because
(03:23):
it generates revenue that we can reinvest into the football program,
which is really key at this point. And it's also
a chance for us year round to use the building
to feed our football team in our student athletes where
they don't currently have a training table setup, and so
this will give us a chance to invest in that
as well. So it's a it's a fantastic project. It's
(03:44):
a really happy day.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
For our program to break ground and to celebrate what's coming.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Mike kil Athletics director Charlotte forty nine ers. They've got
app state in the Duke's Mayo Classic on Friday. You
can hear it right here on WFNZ, and of course
you can head up to the bank and watch it,
which I'm sure they prefer. Duke's Mayo Classic coming up
on Friday. Since you mentioned it, and you know the
fundraising effort, you know everything about college athletics, it seems
these days, is you know, raising money. How much money
(04:09):
can you find? How much money can can you find
for you know, to get donated things like that, and
not to dredge up old history. But it wasn't that
long ago that Biff Pogi was on this show talking
about money and needing money, and you know that's your
job as the athletics directors to go out there and
find it and fund everything. Still with a young program
embarking on big endeavors like this, how what's your job like?
(04:30):
Like how difficult is it to get the fan base
fired up and to get them donating money because that
fuels everything in college athletics.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Well it does. But I think we've seen great growth
in our donor base over the last few years. I
mean we' we have nearly doubled our donor base, and
of course the last five years. You know, we had
a huge jump in our fundraising just from last year
to this year. I think he was almost sixty seven percent,
So you know, we've got we've got signs of progress
from the fundraising piece. But it's not all just fundraising either.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
It's all so finding ways to generate revenue or increase
revenue from existing streams and finding new ones. And we're
excited about the launch of Charlotte forty nine Ers Ventures,
which is a new in house the agency that we've
launched and that is already seeing results in terms of
corporate partnerships and the new nil opportunities for our student athletes,
and also being a part of the league get super progressive.
(05:22):
To move to the American was a big one for us.
You know, we've moved there two years ago. We've won
more conference championships in this league than anybody in the league,
eight over the last two years, which is not bad
for the.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
New kids on the block. And we just know that
this thing is getting ready to explode when football takes
off under coach albn and we know that's going to happen,
and excited about the future. So Fundraising has always been
an important part of these jobs. It's more important than
ever now. But it's really in general, it's just finding
ways to increase revenue streams and that includes, you know, fundraising,
(05:56):
and includes multimedia rights, it includes conference revenue and other
streams that we seek to develop. So it's exciting. It's
not easy, but you know what, we love what we do.
We're passionate about it. And there's an incredible momentum behind
our university right now with its growth and around our
whole program, and so it just feels good. Timing is everything.
(06:18):
I told Coach album that today. I said, man, you
knew what you were doing. You took this job at
the right time. Here we are debuting a new building. Man,
And he agreed with that, you know. He laughed, he said,
you're right, you know.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So it's exciting, it is, and it's funny you mentioned that.
I want to ask about Tim, but I was just
thinking back to I think it was December thirteenth of
last year. I was in DC and I was talking
to Tim Pernetti, your commissioner and the American I actually
accidentally called at the AAC and he quickly corrected me
and I get it, I understand. But Tim's a great guy,
(06:47):
I mean, great leadership. I really enjoyed talking to him,
and I talked to him that day about the hiring
of Tim Alban and I'm pretty sure I'm right about that.
But when you hired him, when the announcement came down,
my first thought was, Wow, that's a great hire for Charlotte.
He's been on the job for months.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Now.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
What have you learned? Is the guy you hired back
in December the guy you expected to get?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Man? Is he ever? And then some? I mean it
has been I mean it. You don't want to gush
too much. It doesn't sound real, but he's been a
dream to work with. He's an absolute pro and somebody
who you can tell like he's got every part of
his operation under control. He's been there, done it. You know,
(07:27):
he's had success at this level at the FBS level.
You know he's repeated that success. He's done it in
the transfer portal era. He's won a national championship at
the NAI level as a head coach. You know, he's
just he's he's the real deal, you know, and just
a he's a great human too, I mean, just just
a fantastic, authentic person who has really connected well, I
(07:49):
think with our fan base. I think he's a fantastic
fit for our university and for our program, and so
I listen, we are overjoyed. We were overjoyed in December
when he commit had to come here, and that enthusiasm
has only grown based on what we've seen so far.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
When was the first conversation between you two regarding Hey, Tim,
just so you know your first home game is going
to be against Bill Belichick.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Well, you know, it's funny because one of the things
he asked me when we were talking about the opportunity
and the offer, was you know what our scheduling philosophy
was going to be. And you know where he came
from at Ohio, you and they've done a great job there.
Obviously over the years, they've bought a lot. But he
was having to play sometimes three Power four opponents in
(08:39):
a season, and you know, we're playing two this year.
And I told him our commitment would be not to
play any more than two, but if at least one
of those could be a home and home like the
one we had with North Carolina, that we wanted to
do that. And he loved that and thought that was
a great approach. And so you know, when you know,
just a few days or weeks later, the news came
out that that Guitar Heels had hired you know, Bill Pelicheck.
(09:03):
You know, the interest level in that game ramped up
big time, you know, And so but I know this,
you know what coach would say is when we respect
all opponents, but here none and I love his philosophy
on that. And so you know, we'll be ready to
go this Friday for app and you know, we'll turn
around a week later and host you know, the Fellows
in Carolina Blue, and that's gonna be a special day
in our campus.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
I'm gonna have to hit you up for a press
credential that day. I got to make sure I get
in for that one. Now we got Mike Kill, Mike
Kill the ad and Charlotte he's with us on the
hotline here before we let you go. I mean, just
any thoughts on on Friday, what you know in terms
of getting fans out there, anybody. I got to listeners
by the way, still asking are their tickets left? Where
can we get them? So let's direct people to where
(09:45):
they need to go to get them in the building
on Friday to watch this game.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, absolutely, there there are tickets available now. You know,
each school received an allotment of seats and then Charlotte Sports,
who organizes this game. You know, they sell the the
ballance of the seats and you know, we have essentially
burned through most of our tickets right that we were allotted.
But there are seats available for this game, so people
(10:10):
can go. Fans can go to our website Charlotte Charlotte
forty nine ers dot com and be directed to purchase
tickets for the game, and we encourage them to do it. Listen,
we have more alums in this city than any other school.
We have one hundred thousand alums and live and work
in the Charlotte metro area. The second closest school in
this period with alums is Chapel Hill and they have
(10:33):
about twenty two thousand. So this talent is full of
people who were green, you know, and so we need
them to come out. We need them to support this
football team and enjoy, you know, the start to a
Labor Day weekend in a Marquee matchup against Arrival, who
we have a ton of respect for and can't wait.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
To get after Well, Mike, I can't wait for the
season to start. I really do. I love the hire
you've made. Clearly the program has momentum, the expansion plans
look phenomenal, and again, welcome to the w f NZ
air waves. I hope we get to talk a lot
throughout the season now.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I look forward to that. Thanks so much for having
me today, and uh, let's get a big job on Friday.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Go Niners.
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