by Jon Styf
A central point of the push for a new $2.1 billion domed Tennessee Titans stadium has been the ability to host year-round events at the new facility.
Tax fund projections released Tuesday by Metro Nashville, in fact, indicated that the city is projecting to have the equivalent of 10 sold-out Titans games and 21 other sold-out events at the planned 60,000-seat facility. That’s based on a $3 ticket tax that is estimated to bring in $3.78 million annually for non-Titans events and $1.8 million for Titans games with 600,000 Titans tickets sold and $1.26 million for other events.
Sports economist Victor Matheson has studied major events at NFL stadiums and found that, on average, NFL stadiums host 4.9 non-league events per year between 2000-2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.
That calculation includes Buffalo, at the lower end with less than one event per year, and MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, which is home to the Giants and Jets, at the higher end. It does not include events such as high school football games but would include Tennessee State’s four home games at the stadium.
“The difference between an outdoor stadium and an indoor stadium is essentially zero in terms of events,” Matheson said. “The reason for that is that all the big tours all go out in the summer specifically so they can use all the outdoor stadiums in the country rather than the limited number of domed stadiums.”
Matheson said that acts like Taylor Swift, who can sell out three nights at Nissan Stadium, are incredibly uncommon. He said that Nissan Stadium has hosted 20 international soccer matches in 20 years with an average attendance of 27,000.
When asked about the 21 sold-out events projection, Matheson said that “You’d be lucky to get half of that many events filling the stadium halfway.”
Matheson added that having a domed stadium does not increase the number of non-NFL events such as concerts, soccer matches, comedy shows at a stadium.
He said that, while hosting a Super Bowl and Final Four are great, they are rare.
“That’s a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing for a typical stadium, not an every-year sort of thing,” Matheson said.
Matheson said that there are only a tiny handful of musical acts, soccer matches or shows that could fill a 60,000-seat stadium as opposed to a smaller-capacity facilities such as Bridgestone Arena, Geodis Park or a new fairgrounds speedway.
“The music industry has changed so the way Taylor Swift makes her money is concert tours, not album sales,” Matheson said. “… so we are seeing a few more of these stadium-type tours because it used to be that you would go on tour to sell albums but now you give away albums so people will see you tour.”
Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau CEO Butch Spyridon noted at a recent East Bank Stadium Committee meeting that World Wrestling Entertainment had expressed verbal interest in bringing WrestleMania to a new stadium in 2027.
But Matheson noted there are not enough other events like WrestleMania to bring to a 60,000-seat stadium.
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Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies. Styf is a reporter for The Center Square.
