The Carolina Panthers were officially established in 1993 and began playing their first NFL season in 1995.

Quick Scoop

  • The franchise was awarded to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1993 as the NFL’s 29th team.
  • The Panthers “started” on the field in the 1995 season, joining the league alongside the Jacksonville Jaguars as expansion teams.
  • Their inaugural 1995 campaign was unusually strong for a new team, finishing with a 7–9 record, which set a record at the time for an expansion team’s first season.

So if you’re asking “when did Carolina Panthers start” in terms of being created as a team: 1993; if you mean when they actually started playing NFL games: 1995.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.