Getty Image
The Carolina Panthers had the worst record in the NFL last year, but that apparently isn’t stopping the franchise from asking season ticket holders to pony up even more cash if they want to hold onto their seats.
Fans of the Carolina Panthers haven’t really had a lot to root for since the team punched its ticket to the Super Bowl in 2016.
Since then, the squad has only posted a winning record a single time (which led to a one-and-done playoff appearance) and grappled with a revolving door of head coaches who weren’t really given the time to turn things around even though you could argue they didn’t earn the opportunity to stick around for longer.
However, things took a fairly dramatic turn for the worse in 2023. First-year head coach Frank Reich was kicked to the curb after getting off to a 1-10 start, and interim skipper Chris Tabor wasn’t exactly able to right the ship while closing out a season where the team finished with a record of 2-15.
The Panthers normally would’ve received a consolation prize in the form of the top overall pick in the NFL Draft, but that privilege ended up being transferred to the Bears courtesy of the trade that sent D.J. Moore to Carolina prior to the start of the 2023 campaign.
As things currently stand, it’s pretty hard for Panthers fans to be optimistic about the future. There’s a chance Dave Canales could help the team right the ship after he was tapped to become the seventh man to coach the team in the past five years, but the decision to draft Bryce Young over C.J. Stroud seems to be a retroactively regrettable one and he’s just one of the many glaring issues with the current offense.
It’s subsequently pretty hard to imagine most spectators are going to be scrambling to attend games in person thanks to the current state of the franchise, but according to WSCO, that hasn’t stopped Carolina from informing season ticket holders they’ll be expected to pay an average of 4% more than they forked over last year to retain their package (a hike that follows the 5.8% increase that was rolled out in 2023).
Fans do have a golden opportunity to use their wallets to send a message to David Tepper and the rest of the organization, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see if that ends up being the case.