{"id":17213,"date":"2026-09-14T18:07:05","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T22:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.carolinaattorneys.com\/blog\/?p=17213"},"modified":"2026-09-14T18:35:50","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T22:35:50","slug":"north-carolina-court-funding-sports-subsidies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carolinaattorneys.com\/blog\/north-carolina-court-funding-sports-subsidies\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports vs Courts | Being Good Stewards of Taxpayers&#8217; Money"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"PDq2pG_selectionAnchorContainer\" data-start=\"536\" data-end=\"1326\">North Carolina court funding and Charlotte sports stadium subsidies reveal a familiar pattern in local and state government spending. When a wealthy team owner has enough leverage, public officials find a funding mechanism, whether the decision is made at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center or on Jones Street in Raleigh. Charlotte has been my permanent home for more than forty-three years. For more than thirty-four of those years, since graduating from law school, I have practiced law in Mecklenburg County courts. Throughout that time, I have heard a different message whenever the subject is the court system, mental-health treatment, transit safety, working highway lights, road maintenance, or meaningful traffic relief. Then we hear about shortages, divided authority, restricted accounts, delayed projects, and limited revenue.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1331\" data-end=\"1885\">I am not against sports. I am against using public money to enrich billionaire team owners while public institutions struggle to perform basic duties. When I go out to eat in Mecklenburg County, I pay the county\u2019s additional 1 percent tax on prepared food and beverages, just like everyone else in town. While not a property tax, it still involves the government taking money and giving it to someone else. Calling it hospitality revenue, tourism money, or a restricted fund does not change its source. The restriction may control where government spends the money, but it does not make the money private.<\/p>\n<div style=\"max-width: 1100px; margin: 30px auto; border: 8px solid #073765; background: #073765; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; box-sizing: border-box;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 14px 20px 10px; color: #ffffff; text-align: center; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.5px; text-transform: uppercase;\">Charlotte &amp; North Carolina\u2019s Spending Priorities<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.carolinaattorneys.com\/blog\/north-carolina-court-funding-sports-subsidies\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Sports vs Courts | Being Good Stewards of Taxpayers&#8217; Money\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>North Carolina court funding and Charlotte sports stadium subsidies reveal a familiar pattern in local and state government spending. When a wealthy team owner has enough leverage, public officials find a funding mechanism, whether the decision is made at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center or on Jones Street in Raleigh. Charlotte has been my permanent home [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17217,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[973],"tags":[4209,4222,4220,4105,4218,4217,4219,4216,4212,4211,4214,4221,4224,3022,2443,4207,4213,4215,4205,4208,4210,4223,3026,4225,4206],"class_list":["post-17213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-assistant-district-attorneys","tag-bank-of-america-stadium","tag-carolina-panthers-stadium","tag-cats-security-failures","tag-charlotte-budget-priorities","tag-charlotte-public-spending","tag-charlotte-sports-subsidies","tag-competency-evaluations","tag-court-backlogs","tag-court-delays","tag-criminal-justice-funding","tag-david-tepper","tag-i-77-express-lanes","tag-irynas-law","tag-mecklenburg-county-courts","tag-mecklenburg-county-district-attorney","tag-mecklenburg-county-jail","tag-mental-health-funding","tag-north-carolina-court-funding","tag-north-carolina-judicial-branch","tag-north-carolina-public-defenders","tag-prepared-food-and-beverage-tax","tag-pretrial-detention","tag-public-infrastructure","tag-underfunded-north-carolina-courts"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>North Carolina Court Funding vs. Charlotte Sports Subsidies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Court funding remains lacking while Charlotte commits $925 million to privately owned sports facilities and considers another $26.6 million.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.carolinaattorneys.com\/blog\/north-carolina-court-funding-sports-subsidies\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"North Carolina Court Funding vs. Charlotte Sports Subsidies\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Court funding remains lacking while Charlotte commits $925 million to privately owned sports facilities and considers another $26.6 million.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.carolinaattorneys.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Charlotte-Sports-Funding-Highway-Robbery.webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Carolina Attorneys\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"18 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"North Carolina Court Funding vs. Charlotte Sports Subsidies","description":"Court funding remains lacking while Charlotte commits $925 million to privately owned sports facilities and considers another $26.6 million.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.carolinaattorneys.com\/blog\/north-carolina-court-funding-sports-subsidies\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"North Carolina Court Funding vs. Charlotte Sports Subsidies","twitter_description":"Court funding remains lacking while Charlotte commits $925 million to privately owned sports facilities and considers another $26.6 million.","twitter_image":"https:\/\/www.carolinaattorneys.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Charlotte-Sports-Funding-Highway-Robbery.webp","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Carolina Attorneys","Est. reading time":"18 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinaattorneys.com\/blog\/north-carolina-court-funding-sports-subsidies\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinaattorneys.com\/blog\/north-carolina-court-funding-sports-subsidies\/"},"author":{"name":"Carolina Attorneys","@id":"https:\/\/www.carolinaattorneys.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7b1994a08a51b357b94c69492e786113"},"headline":"Sports vs Courts | Being Good Stewards of Taxpayers&#8217; 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