When last we left off with the Tennessee Titans‘ proposed stadium deal, Gov. Bill Lee had just proposed $500 million in state funding toward a (maybe) $2 billion stadium, with the team owners covering another $700 million, leaving around $800 million to be paid for by, uh, we’ll get back to you on that. And now apparently state legislators are getting back to us on that:
Rep. Bill Beck, D-Nashville, submitted an amendment to a bill in the House finance subcommittee Wednesday opening the door for the Metro Council to consider raising the city’s hotel-motel tax to put additional revenue toward a new Tennessee Titans stadium.…
The current Nashville hotel-motel tax is 6% and the bill would allow local officials to raise the tax up to 7%. A 1% increase is likely to generate $10 million in additional revenue, according the Tennessee General Assembly Fiscal Review Committee.
But Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp. CEO Butch Spyridon said the amount will likely be closer to $20 million per year.
A 100% difference is a pretty big gray area, but let’s accept that $10-20 million a year range and see what it means in total value: Bond rates are rising right now, but if we guesstimate, say, a 4% a year interest rate over 30 years, that would be enough to cover between $173 million and $346 million in stadium costs.
If Spyridon is right, then the hotel-tax hike bill, if approved by the state legislature (which has jurisdiction over whether Nashville raises its taxes), would take the public cost for replacing the Titans’ 23-year-old stadium to $846 million, which a month ago would have been a record, but now can be sold as Hey, at least it’s better than what New York state got stuck with for the Bills. Of course, there’s nothing stopping Tennessee officials from throwing even more money on the fire — that remaining half a billion or so isn’t going to spontaneously generate from thin air, and the Titans can’t be expected to live with a mere $1.4 billion stadium, that’s for cities like Buffalo, Nashville needs something high-class, doncha know.
Nashville’s situation is very different from Buffalo’s. The Bills were gone without a new stadium; the economics of the Buffalo area can’t compare with Austin’s (let alone London’s), thus making the move threat viable. There is no move threat here; zero chance the NFL would abandon a city like Nashville.
The Nashville stadium deal appears to be all about tourism. Looks like Nashville saw what the Raiders stadium has meant to Las Vegas, and they want to replicate that in “NashVegas”.
Separate from the economics and motivation of these recent NFL stadium deals, the engineering perspective is interesting. All of these teams want steel stadiums now. It makes sense, I suppose; steel is a lot more sturdy than concrete. What I wonder is, does the need for steel have anything to do with the growing heights of stadiums? I wouldn’t be surprised if the steep pitch of so many seating bowls is creating structures that are untenable for concrete.
Nashville had tourism before the pro football team came to town. I daresay that a football stadium isn’t a big draw for tourism; probably the opposite. I know I stay away from downtown when there’s a football game going on.
Maybe steel will make them last more than 23 years.
What has the Raiders stadium meant to Vegas?
The Beacon Center has a good article about why we don’t need another stadium. https://www.beacontn.org/5-reasons-why-a-new-titans-stadium-would-be-a-rip-off-for-taxpayers/
For the millionth time, no one in Austin is talking about getting an NFL franchise, forget funding a stadium!
The place is already too crowded, please stay away!
The people of Nashville are so superficial that they would sacrifice schools and regular city services to build this stadium, so they can say, look what we have over here.
The only thing those that want this stadium are saying, we can host the Superbowl, the World Cup, and large concerts. They don’t realize that we would need to host every Superbowl for the next 30 years, just to break even.
It’s getting so that people can’t afford this city. The city was selling assets to balance the budget, but they want to pour billions into a stadium that we don’t need. Make it make sense.
Pretty sure it’s not “the people of Nashville” proposing this.