Waddell: ‘If you don’t think there’s gambling in North Carolina, you’re living under a rock’ :: WRALSportsFan.com – WRALSportsFan

Carolina Hurricanes general manager Don Waddell addresses his disappointment in status of North Carolina's sports gambling bills and his encouragement on the possibility of PNC Arena getting potential upgrades.

what's your sense about where it stands and how disappointed were you in the vote last week? Well, you're a lot of time and effort went into this for a lot of people and we're very disappointed obviously. Um, we're hoping it gets some movement going in the other direction, which I believe there's been lots of talks about it, but I think, you know, gambling is, It's coming probably all 50 states eventually. You know, it's a tax revenue. Uh, you know, I've always said if we don't think there's gambling going on in North Carolina where you live in Iraq um, two things you can gain out of it. You gain tax revenue and you also get control of it just like the lottery. You know, it's run by the state and we don't see much difference from it. The state controls it and runs it. So we were disappointed, but we're also optimistic that we'll see it in their future. How important is it as a revenue potential revenue stream to the hurricanes and to what you guys are trying to accomplish? Well, it's very important because all the other teams are getting it, you know, and so it just puts us behind, we're behind because of ticket prices and sponsorship dollars and all that. So it just puts us further behind from a reference And when you look at redesigning this building, you know, certainly that sports book came up many times. Is that, would you like to see it in the building. Would you like to see it connected? You have thoughts on where it should be? Well, you know, it's gonna depend on the bill, but I think connected to the building makes a lot of sense because you know, you want to be able to access access at 365 days a year, but you'd also like to have your like they do in other cities uh that have sports betting is, you know, people can access it between periods between halves of basketball games, you know, so make it uh as convenient for people to get to. So I think attached to the building with obviously entrances from outside may collapse since last one. For me, do you have any projections on on what that would mean for bottom line revenue or sponsorships or have you gotten that far? No, we've obviously been contacted by all the big players, but until it got passed because once it gets past and we know it's probably another nine or 10 months to get all the reds in place. So we felt that we had some time in our hand and you know, it's just like what we talked about today, we talked about it a year ago. It's probably the dynamic of his change to today. So we're in place, we'll be ready to go once it gets approved to move forward. I think it's I think they said it here is we're sitting on a lot of property that, you know, when the building was built, if you go back there was talk about development on the property that never got followed through. So We're sitting on 80 acres I believe just just on the P. And C. Side that make it a destination place. I think they said it very well they're making a place people want to go to. So you know we don't have anything like that right now and I think it would be a huge benefit to not only us but then she stayed also. Yeah. Yeah absolutely. They've been great to deal with. We have a great relationship with the Chancellor and everybody else cabin and obviously boo so I think everybody's on the same page. It's just a matter of trying to move the needle forward. So they haven't said you're gonna take how many 1000 parking spots? We'll end up with more parking spots. Will probably end up with probably 4-6,000 more parking spots when you're all done because you're gonna have to provide obviously parking spots if you're gonna have retail and things like that. So Uh we think it's a win win for everyone. Like some sort of certainly parking you know I mean structure parking is gonna have to be part of it. You know remember we have we only have 4000 spots on our side of the property and the state's got about 4500 over there. So we're talking about our side of the property. So we think our 4000 spots will probably turn in some like 8-10,000 spots. Would you like to see a hotel over there as well? Multiple hotels, maybe, Maybe two hotels, some office buildings, retail, mixed housing. You know, lot of opportunities on the west side around the building. I think that's the plan. Everything from the street coming back. There's a lot of land back there. It's not used, there's a lot of land. I've toured it multiple multiple times. So there's, there's a lot more land than people even can imagine. Just driving around the circle outside that circle, there's lots of land. How much of your time goes to this? Obviously you're trying to build a Stanley cup winning hockey team as well. It seems like you're, yeah, you spend a lot of time, it's what's pressing today. You know, that's what I look at wake up in the board and I said, okay, whatever I have to get done today. And so, you know, everything is important and it's important to have had a lot of my team in here today to hear it also, I think, you know, you gotta rely on your people to help you through all these different projects. It seems like the board is pretty motivated to move forward with this health been talking about for so long, you know, I mean, this was, we thought this project was going to move forward three or four years ago and then installed with Covid and everything else going on. So I think it's I think everybody's anxious to get going. You know, the building, I think they said the bones of the building is in good shape, but you know, let's face it, it's gonna be a 23 year old building as we start this next season. For both of us, things have changed and it's nothing against anybody that built the building or anything like that. But the amenities, as we've talked about are much greater and much appealing to our customers.

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Waddell: 'If you don't think there's gambling in North Carolina, you're living under a rock' :: WRALSportsFan.com - WRALSportsFan