A new stadium gets you one WrestleMania.
There is a series of public hearings taking place in Nashville, Tennessee where the National Football League’s Tennessee Titans ownership and Nashville elected officials have hatched a plan to build a football facility that would open in 2026 and cost $2.1 billion. The stadium, which will be domed, would replace the present Titans home stadium that was opened in 1999 on adjacent property. It would cost $1.8 billion to bring the 23-year-old stadium up to 2026 NFL state-of-the-art standards. Politicians are already sounding the” hey this is going to create jobs” line and as a sweetener Nashville would get WrestleMania in 2027. It will bring money into the area. The flaw in that argument, people are already spending money in the present stadium. Nashville officials want to develop the area around the stadium but the football team ownership will have no part in the development of a stadium-village.
Who is paying the $2.1 billion? The project could end up costing local taxpayers more than $760 million. The deal needs government approval which is why there are public hearings. Titans ownership will kick in $840 million with that money coming from personal seat licensing sales and National Football League funding. The other $1.3 billion will come from the pockets of taxpayers, many of whom will never set foot in the stadium. Tennessee legislators have approved the allocation of $500 million in bonds to the project. The $760 million needed to complete the stadium would be funded by Metro Sports Authority revenue bonds backed by a new 1% countywide hotel occupancy tax, in-stadium sales taxes and half of the state and local sales tax revenues from a planned 130-acre stadium-village with the stadium as the anchor. Is it worthwhile for less than a dozen set events a year? Nashville politicians think so.
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