A few months ago, a domed superstadium was a wish-list item for the Tennessee Titans and Nashville’s tourist-industrial complex. Now, $2 billion for a first-in-class facility seems inevitable, as multiple stakeholders have recently outlined massive commitments. About $1.3 billion will be publicly funded, including a $500 million chunk from the state. According to a report from Axios on Wednesday, state lawmakers might consider a 1 percentage-point hotel-motel tax increase, the second state funding mechanism for backing stadium debt.
The first, legislation passed last year, dedicates half of all state taxes in a 130-acre zone “contiguous to the sports facility and surrounding parking area” of any “major league professional football franchise” to service stadium debt. The governor’s $500 million proposal is already getting pushback within the GOP, and both tax mechanisms need complementary legislation through Metro Council.
The city has avoided giving details about its role in the deal, but we can see a silhouette as more pieces fall into place. Mayor John Cooper has already indicated a preference for major sports events, telling The Tennessean in February that a “stadium-solve” would include something Super Bowl-worthy. The influential Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp, headed by CEO Butch Spyridon, issued a since-discredited study about the rosy economic impact of a World Cup, of which a new stadium is a key component. Spyridon has beat the drum for a new stadium over the past couple months, including in Axios’ new report.
The Titans, a privately owned corporation, have indicated a contribution of $700 million, per a recent statement made by state House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville). The Titans are not owned by a billionaire’s billionaire like Stan Kroenke, who owns the Rams and built SoFi stadium a couple years ago, but rather the Adams-Strunk family. They cannot credibly threaten an expensive move out of Nashville, and they aren’t doing so.
Historically, stadiums offer very low returns on public investment when compared to education, transportation and infrastructure. A new Titans stadium would require a massive city investment in the East Bank. Cooper and the Titans have pitched it as the city’s next great neighborhood, though it is in one of the city’s worst floodplains, currently ill-equipped for residential infrastructure. Backing bonds with the East Bank and hotel-motels would further hitch Metro’s financial viability to tourism and downtown development, concentrating the county’s money in that part of the city. No one knows the city’s minimum obligations under its current lease, the key number against which further investment should be evaluated.
A domed stadium would position Nashville for a few more busy weekends in tourism’s dead season, like a college football playoff or the NCAA Final Four. Maybe an Olympics. While vendors and ride-share drivers could benefit from high-demand moments, a stadium this grand would primarily enrich the tourism industry’s owners and the Titans themselves. If the team somehow gets enough resources to clone Derrick Henry, this could be worth it. Until then, more tax carve-outs are creative ways to funnel public money to one of the world’s most lucrative monopolies.
