Nashville is our nation's best Big Event City that rarely gets big events.
Sure, there was the 2019 NFL draft -- attended by a record 600,000 people, which will get it back in 2024 or '25. There's the SEC men's basketball tournament, in town through the end of the decade. And there are countless bachelorette parties and country music events, but it's never hosted a Super Bowl, a college football national title game, or a Final Four.
There's no reason for Houston and Tampa to host three Super Bowls apiece and Nashville none, other than the stadium. And the stadium issue is about to be fixed.
On Tuesday, the Titans released renderings of a domed stadium that would take the place of Nissan Stadium, built way, way back in 1999.
"We envision a potential new stadium that makes our community proud and enhances the reputation of our great city and state," said Titans president and CEO Burke Nihill. "We're focused on designing a stadium capable of hosting a prestigious international event on a Sunday and a steady flow of impactful community programming later that same week. This is a building that would serve Nashville and Tennessee for generations."
The "circular-shaped, high-tech ETFE translucent roof" will bring to mind US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, SoFi Stadium in LA, and the Bears' proposed new stadium in suburban Chicago. (There's also this disclaimer: "The Titans have not yet selected an architect of record for the building. A full architectural design process would begin at a later date.")
“We envision a potential new stadium that makes our community proud and enhances the reputation of our great city and state.” pic.twitter.com/cCPuPYTy4o
— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) October 25, 2022
Now, publicly-funded stadiums have never been a heavier p.r. lift as study after study has shown that such deals don't typically work out for tax payers. The Titans and the city of Nashville are aware of this, so they've structured the finances -- or at least the public announcement of the finances -- such that the city would be doing its taxpayers a disservice not to build this stadium.
There's also this, from Tuesday's announcement:
Other features of the building not pictured include a 12,000 sq. ft. dedicated community space that could be utilized year-round for educational opportunities, non-profit events and other community-minded purposes.
However, the most curious piece of Tuesday's announcement is this: the stated capacity for a Titans game would be 60,000. This makes rational sense. The at-home experience has never been better, so best to build a smaller stadium with an exceptional in-person experience than a bigger stadium that's big for the sake of being big.
"Rather than start with an arbitrary capacity number and work backwards, we are focused on designing a building where there literally isn't a bad seat in the house. When we're thinking about a 60,000-capacity building, we envision 60,000 great experiences in the building," the team said. This makes rational sense, especially in a town where live events are so integral to the culture.
Still, at 60,000, the new Titans' stadium would be the smallest in the NFL, and the smallest to ever host a Super Bowl. Currently, that distinction goes to the Cardinals' State Farm Stadium, which has a game day capacity of 63,400 (yet managed to fit 70,000+ for both Super Bowls it's hosted to date.) No stadium has ever hosted a Super Bowl.
In the modern era, only the Dolphins renovated Hard Rock Stadium has hosted a Super Bowl with less than 67,000 in the building. Las Vegas's Allegiant Stadium, host of the 2024 Super Bowl, holds 65,000.
There's also never been a more competitive time to win a Super Bowl bid. With the Bears joining the Titans in leaving their open-air facility for a domed one, 12 markets now or will soon have domed stadiums: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, and Phoenix. And this doesn't include open-air stadiums in Miami and Tampa that regularly host the Super Bowl as well.
Even if the NFL somehow decides that New Nashville Dome To Be Named Later is below its arbitrary Super Bowl capacity line (and I don't think it will), Music City should move to the front of the line to host a College Football Playoff title game and a Final Four. In fact, Nashville is the most logical place to host an Ohio State-Georgia/Alabama title game.
The Titans and Nashville are targeting to open the dome in 2026.