So it all started, as things so often do, with an open letter from Garth Brooks about how his recent Nashville concert getting rained out proves the Tennessee Titans need a domed stadium:
Country music icon, Garth Brooks, wrote Metro Council a letter in favor of building a new domed stadium. Brooks says a domed stadium is a must in an entertainment city. @FOXNashville @garthbrooks pic.twitter.com/cquvli1APK
— Kaitlin Miller (@kmillerreports) December 1, 2022
That’s right: “Domed stadiums are revenue generating machines because they can be kept busy 365 days a year.” (Incredulous emphasis added.) That would seem to be rather a lot, given how Garth Brooks can’t be everywhere playing at every domed stadium every night. But what do the actual numbers say?
Fortunately, Jon Styf of The Center Square was at work looking into this — less because of Brooks’ claims, it appears, than because Nashville’s freshly released tax revenue projections for a new $2.1 billion domed stadium assume 21 non-football events per year thanks to that roof. Styf asked College of the Holy Cross economist Victor Matheson, who’s actually done the calculations, and he brought receipts:
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…
“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.”
“Essentially zero” is, if my math is correct, somewhat less than “every day of the year.” Brooks has not yet replied to Styf’s article, though you better believe J.C. Bradbury has.
While we’re beating up on Brooks, what’s the deal with his line about “The amount of revenue lost during that storm on top of what it cost to present the make-up show resulted in heavy losses for not just me, but also for the stadium and the city”? Did the city have to absorb a ton of costs for each show that it didn’t make up by having everyone come back to see him again a few months later? Wouldn’t standard stadiums-boost-economies marketing claims mean that Nashville got twice the economic impact by having people book hotel stays twice for the same concert? Maybe thunderstorms are the real economic drivers here?
Thankfully, nobody pays attention to what Garth Brooks thinks about economics, so we can all just laugh at this without worrying that it will lead to articles where the Nashville metro council is asked to seriously respond to his claims wait what
“I was glad that he sent it. One of the most notable recent events at Nissan Stadium was the infamous rain out of his concert and I had a great many East Nashville neighbors there and got rained out,” Metro Councilman Brett Withers said…
“I think he offers a unique perspective as a world-renowned artist that performs all over the world to say there would be a benefit to having an enclosed arena,” Metro Council’s Courtney Johnston adds.
I eagerly await WZTV’s followup article where they ask the council’s reaction to what an actual economist says about a domed stadium’s likely impact. Otherwise one would be forced to conclude that our nation’s journalists are basing their coverage decisions on how to get a famous person’s name into a headline in order to attract more eyeballs — something this site would surely never resort to.