From Bill Freeman

Nashville has a great deal to offer as a city. In addition to our status as Music City, we’re also becoming known as a sports city, a fine-dining city, a high-tech hub and more. According to the site World Population Review, Nashville’s population is growing at an annual rate of 0.56 percent, and Nashville is the largest city in Tennessee, and the 23rd-largest in the nation. 

Which Nashville organization is driving our burgeoning reputation and growth? 

We have two significant organizations that focus on bringing people and business to Nashville — the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. Generally, the chamber is charged with attracting and recruiting new businesses, and the NCVC brings commerce to businesses already here. Both organizations work to keep our city in the spotlight — but one does a far better job.

Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce

The chamber is led by Ralph Schulz, president and CEO. The organization’s website lists 24 companies in 2021-2022 that it takes credit for recruiting. Of the 24, only five appear to actually be located in Nashville — the “area” part of the group’s moniker is seemingly more important than the “Nashville” part. Among those five, Amazon’s expansion in Nashville is providing only 70 jobs, whereas the Amazon expansion in Clarksville is creating 500 new jobs. Further, only two are newly added: Capgemini, a global IT consulting firm that will offer 500 jobs; and Smart Pension, a London-based company that will offer 128 jobs. Three of the five are expansions, and of those, one is simply maintaining its presence here. That’s 754 jobs being created in 2021-2022.

On the chamber’s listings for the 2020-2021 year, there were 57 companies listed, but only 16 were actually located in or maintained their business in Nashville.

The chamber, under Schulz’s leadership, shows little to no growth when it comes to membership. Their website shows a membership of 2,000, but just a few years back I remember it being around 3,000. I suppose there’s little wonder why Mayor John Cooper cut the chamber’s budget by 50 percent in 2020.

Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp

The NCVC is led by Butch Spyridon, CEO, who seems to have a magic touch in bringing significant events to Nashville. The 2019 NFL Draft reportedly attracted more than 600,000 people to the downtown area, and according to the Titans, it resulted in $133 million in direct spending and a TV audience of 47.5 million. Visitors were treated to Nashville’s great nightclubs and honky-tonks, Bridgestone Arena, the Music City Center, the Country Music Hall of Fame and other amenities that have flourished in our city over the past 20-plus years.

According to the NCVC, in 2019 (let’s use a pre-pandemic measure), 16.1 million visitors came to Nashville. No doubt many left thinking about the possibilities of moving their companies or their families here.

Spyridon is vying to host the NFL Draft again sometime between 2024 and 2026. The NCVC is also working toward hosting the FIFA World Cup. If that happens, it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in economic impact for Nashville, not to mention thousands of jobs. Spyridon has also been involved in working to bring NASCAR back to the Fairgrounds Nashville.

There was also Nashville’s Fourth of July celebration last year, which brought thousands of attendees for the Let Freedom Sing event headlined by Brad Paisley, as well as the city’s New Year’s Eve show. Spyridon helped line up multiple television broadcasts from Music City this year, saying, “It came from hard work, collaboration and cooperation.” 

When companies make the decision to move here, they of course want their employees to believe they would love living in Nashville. They can say Nashville is a huge sports town, with an NFL team, an NHL team and now soccer. We host a variety of musicians from an array of different genres. We have a district downtown that nearly never sleeps. The list goes on when it comes to what the NCVC has had a hand in bringing to our city. Well done, Butch.

Bill Freeman

Bill Freeman is the owner of FW Publishing, the publishing company that produces the Nashville Scene, Nfocus, the Nashville Post and Home Page Media Group in Williamson County.