NFL Panthers COO & VP Mark Hart said the team's 200-acre training facility and HQ in Rock Hill, S.C., will cause a "sports entertainment migration" to the area, according to Jeff Wilkinson of the Columbia STATE. Hart said, "We want it to be more than a practice facility. Entertainment, sports, community, high school, soccer, different sports. Pick your poison." He added that the Panthers "plan to break ground on the facility" in April '20 and have it "open for business" in August '22. Hart also said that the facility will "initially include an orthopedic sports medicine facility built by Atrium Health that would employ about 200 people, and the team is beginning to do its due diligence to land a hotel of at least 150 rooms that would include conference space." The development would be "similar" to the Cowboys' Star in Frisco and the Vikings' Viking Lakes facility in Eagan, Minn. The Panthers' facility would also "include an indoor practice facility of up to 10,000 seats, a half dozen or so outdoor practice fields, as well as training facilities and offices" (Columbia STATE, 8/16).
