I saw an ad on TV for a new upcoming series called “Cities of Success,” hosted by Carl Quintanilla. My understanding is that they would profile a different city each week whose economy is doing well.
Season One, Episode One aired on Wednesday, December 6th featuring one hour in Nashville, Tennessee aka “The Music City!” I figured it would include interesting information about different cities both financially and as a vacation destination.
It turns out that the Nashville economy is booming with cranes everywhere! Nashville is home to 2 million people and 52,000 businesses. Dozens of publicly traded companies (such as Sony, Amazon, Mitsubishi Motors, and Oracle) have offices there and more are moving in. In 2006, Nissan moved their corporate headquarters from Los Angeles to Nashville. In 2018, investment firm Alliance Bernstein moved theirs from New York City to Nashville.
Nashville is known as the center of the global country music scene. It has the largest concentration of music-related jobs in the USA! Companies like Nissan, Oracle, and Amazon are spending millions to build campuses with many jobs to feed Nashville’s tremendous growth. Nashville has gone from the Mecca of Country Music to becoming a powerhouse in culture, innovation, and business!
Music is a magnet for tourism where, according to CNBC and the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, visitors are spending $27 million per day! Two music superstars, Taylor Swift (as a 14-year-old) and Garth Brooks, launched their careers, both discovered while playing at the tiny “Bluebird Café” in downtown Nashville. Nashville’s music industry brings in a whopping $10.3 billion dollars of revenue per year!
This got me thinking about New York City and our State’s struggling economy. While we have 2 newer arenas in the UBS and Barclays Centers, so many small clubs such as CBGB’s, Studio 54, Copacabana, and Rockaway are long gone.
In the past four years, the money in the music industry has skyrocketed like never before! In my opinion, the reason for this is that investors, including private equity firms, have poured billions into the music market. This started when interest rates were very low, and firms were looking for alternative investments. Now, music royalties are considered a safe type of commodity, meaning an investment with a predictable return and low risk, somewhat like real estate.
Since 2020, music artists have sold all or a majority stake of their catalog rights for mega dollars. As per BuzzFeed, see below:
Musician Year Sold Price
Bruce Springsteen 2021 $550 million
Bob Dylan 2020 $300+million
Sting 2022 $300 million
Phil Collins plus Genesis 2022 $300 million
David Bowie 2022 $250 million
Dr. Dre 2023 $225 million
Justin Bieber 2023 $200+million
Motley Crue 2021 $150 million
Music has never been monetized to this level in history. Nobody epitomizes this more than Taylor Swift, whose “Eras Tour” has just surpassed $1 billion in revenue. Taylor Swift as an economy would have a higher output than the gross national product (GNP) of 50 of the world’s roughly 195 countries!
Perhaps New York should start to open or reopen more music venues!