New Titans Stadium Plans Moving Forward After Needed Approvals

The Tennessee Titans will spend $2.1 billion to construct a new fully enclosed stadium next door to the site of the current facility. But it won’t be the Titans shelling out all the cash for the new venue. In an agreement reached with the city and state, the Titans will handle $840 million of the funding, while public money pays for $1.26 billion of the project in lieu of paying to update Nissan Stadium.

The Titans plan to break ground on a domed 60,000-seat stadium in 2024, making it ready for use in 2027. Not only will it replace the 1999-opened Nissan Stadium next door, but the team and city officials say that the new building will better attract major events, such as the Super Bowl and college athletics’ largest events, such as football championships and the Final Four.

Nashville officials agreed with a financing structure that uses taxes from in and around the venue to pay for a large portion of the price tag. In the deal, the state of Tennessee plans $500 million toward the stadium, while $760 million comes from revenue bonds issued by the Metro Sports Authority to be repaid via a 1% Davidson County hotel occupancy tax, in-stadium sales tax, 50% of sales tax from future development of the stadium’s campus and ticket taxes and fees.

The stadium agreement includes a 30-year lease and promise that the team won’t move during that time. The team will pay for any cost overruns on the construction project, pay the remaining $30 million in bonds owed on Nissan Stadium and waive $32 million in outstanding bills owed by the city for Nissan Stadium maintenance performed over the past four years.

The team also takes responsibility for future maintenance of the new building, a key selling point in the agreement.

In the current contractual makeup, signed in 1996 before the Titans first played a game in the venue in 1999, the city of Nashville is legally required to provide a first-class stadium until 2039. The independent Venue Solutions Group says needed renovations to Nissan Stadium could run from $1.75 billion to $1.95 billion over the next 17 years of the current stadium lease. Under the new agreement, the existing lease agreement will become void, and a new agreement leaves the city largely outside of the cost structure, saving them the maintenance and renovation costs on Nissan Stadium.

“We’ve eliminated a billion-dollar liability created by an aging stadium lease and created a platform for the city to thrive for decades,” says John Cooper, Nashville mayor. “This was always about more than football. This vote unlocks the East Bank Vision for Nashville’s next generation. It enables a true smart growth plan for the decades ahead.”

The 1.7-million-square-foot building is planned for the east bank of the Cumberland River, tucked between the current venue and Interstate 24. Burke Nihill, Titans president and CEO, has said the team plans to design a building that accommodates a wide range of experiences, but to expect an interior experience like Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas while a translucent roof and glass on the sides of the building remain a key point in a design that will be “uniquely Nashville.”

“For more than 25 years, Nashville, Tennessee, has been the Titans’ home, and with the approval of the new stadium agreement, we are grateful to know the Titans will be a part of this great city for decades to come,” says Titans controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk.

Once the new venue opens, the demolition of Nissan Stadium, now 24 years old, will make way for the return of 66 acres to include a park, affordable housing, a boulevard and revenue-generating development.

Putting public funding into stadium projects has long been a common practice, although the past decade saw a shift away from using public money for sports venues in some parts of the country. The two most recent NFL builds, though, offered a contrast. SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, a reported $5.5 billion project that opened in 2020, was privately funded. Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, however, opened in 2020 with as much as a $2 billion budget and $750 million of that was from public money.

With more than half the cost of the new stadium for the Titans coming from public funds, that pushes this project to one of the most expensive publicly funded stadiums in the country. The planned new stadium in Buffalo for the Bills has a current budget of $1.5 billion, with $850 million of that coming from public financing.