In 2014, the Pro Football Hall of Fame announced Plans for a $500 million development on its campus in Canton, Ohio. Renderings included a senior care facility called Legends Landing. It would serve aging NFL retirees, including those with cognitive disorders that researchers link to the repeated blows to the pinnacle that many football players endure during their careers.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones praised the care facility. Tom Benson, then-owner of the New Orleans Saints, donated $1 million to Legends Landing as a part of an $11 million donation to the Hall of Fame. He also sent his fellow owners a letter asking them to match his donation.
“We can make a real difference in the lives of the greats of our game,” Mr Benson said in a press release on the time. “It’s important that we all play a role here.”
Ten years later, the general development generally known as Hall of Fame Village has progressed, but no care facility was built and the concept appears to have been abandoned. In the place where Legends Landing would have been, there may be as a substitute a Play-Action Plaza amusement park, whose principal attractions are a Ferris wheel and a zipper line.
As the Hall of Fame prepares to induct a brand new class of honorees on Saturday, the tip of Legends Landing is one other example of how the NFL and its partners are struggling to search out ways to assist former players. The league has been criticized for failing to pay adequate pensions to older retirees, making it difficult for them to pursue disability advantages and keeping off claims in concussion-related lawsuits. Legends Landing should help change that perception.
“I think they couldn’t raise enough money,” Gayle Benson, who became owner of the Saints after her husband died in 2018, said in an interview at a league meeting in December. “We thought some of the other owners would join, but they didn’t want to join.”
What has develop into of Legends Landing has raised eyebrows in NFL circles. Michael Crawford, chief executive of Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment Company, the for-profit company overseeing the larger development project, said in an interview last month that he decided not to maneuver forward with the care facility shortly after being hired in late 2018. But that call doesn’t appear to have been clearly communicated even to those related to the project.
According to spokespeople for the Saints and the Hall of Fame, Ms. Benson agreed in 2020 to lift restrictions on the $1 million contribution to Legends Landing, allowing the nonprofit museum to make use of that cash for general operating costs through the Covid-19 pandemic. But she still hoped that Legends Landing – which was inbuilt a 2020 Investor presentation and in a 2022 Notice for a $15.9 million tax credit from the state – may very well be inbuilt the longer term. Warren Moon, a Hall of Fame member and board member, said late last 12 months he believed Legends Landing was still within the works.
Legends Landing was part of a bigger project that David Baker, who was hired as head of the Hall of Fame in 2014 and left in 2021, hoped would end in a year-round Disneyland for football, with a hotel, restaurants, a water park, sports facilities and other amenities. By 2017, plans had expanded to incorporate a $35 million Player Care Center that will also house an orthopedic surgical center and a behavioral and addictions department. While some were skeptical concerning the appeal of a care facility in a small, cold town, a few of the NFL’s biggest names publicly supported the concept.
“It will make a real difference and that is what we want,” Mr. Goodell said of Legends Landing and the Player Care Center in a Interview with The Canton Repository in 2017. Mr. Jones, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame this 12 months, to Sports Illustrated “Providing accommodation to deserving former professional football players in times of need is a great thing for our league.”
Despite their optimistic attitude, there have been signs of problems: the planned completion date was pushed back several times and Baker said in 2017 that he had not yet secured the vital funds to finish Legends Landing, but remained confident that it might succeed.
“There were a lot of people who were committed to the concept,” Baker said in an interview in July. “They just went in a different direction, as far as I can tell.”
Crawford, a former executive at Disney and Four Seasons Hotels, said he tried to streamline the Hall of Fame Village development project, which suffered from rising costs and funding shortfalls. One of the primary items to be eliminated was Legends Landing, he said.
“I don’t know many vacation destinations where you go to retire,” Crawford said, adding that in an early conversation, Goodell asked if he would proceed with constructing the retirement community. “So I took a practical approach and said, ‘Let’s make this a more attractive destination.'”
Mr. Crawford said the business model for operating a senior living facility may need made sense for a nonprofit organization just like the Hall of Fame, but not for a for-profit sports and entertainment company.
Brian McCarthy, an NFL spokesman, referred to the Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment Company for comment on why the concept was not pursued. The league and players’ union, he said, have focused on expanding other advantages and programs. They agreed to extend pensions and added 700 more players to the pension plan within the 2020 collective bargaining agreement. In 2021, a hospital network was established in NFL cities for former players under the age of 65 who played a minimum of three seasons.
Even without Legends Landing, the Hall of Fame Village faced challenges. The Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment Company went public in July 2020 and opened at $204 per share. But the stock price has plummeted and is currently trading for lower than $3 per share. In the primary quarter of this 12 months, the corporate lost $14.6 million and it has $325 million in debt and other liabilities.
To jumpstart construction, Crawford has secured tens of thousands and thousands of dollars in state subsidies and pushed for the creation of a special redevelopment district to offer low-cost loans for energy-efficient buildings. But financing problems and provide chain bottlenecks have caused delays in constructing a hotel and water park next to the Hall of Fame, which are actually scheduled to open next 12 months.
Crawford and his team have made progress elsewhere, too. They have accomplished the $150 million renovation of Tom Benson Stadium, which is adjoining to the museum, and finished constructing a small strip for outlets and restaurants that is nearly fully occupied. An indoor event facility that doubles as an event space attracts sports and entertainment events.The ForeverLawn Sports Complexwith eight playing fields, attracted lots of the greater than 300,000 visitors to the Hall of Fame Village last 12 months. Recently, the four-day NFL national youth flag football championship was held here, with almost 3,000 athletes participating.
This weekend’s Hall of Fame induction is a very powerful event for Canton, and in recent times, as Ms. Benson and other members of the Saints organization watched the festivities at Tom Benson Stadium, they reflected on the concept Mr. Benson supported a decade ago and wondered if it could still be implemented.
“I fully support this vision and remain hopeful that Legends Landing can one day become a reality,” said Ms. Benson.
Alain Delaquérière made a research contribution.
