by Jon Styf
A bill intending to cap increases on the cost of personal seat licenses at the new Nissan Stadium in Nashville would now put a 20 percent cap on those price increases for 10-year seat license holders at the Tennessee Titans’ current stadium.
The bill initially was written to block any increase in those prices but Rep. Larry Miller, D-Memphis, said he was planning to amend the bill to be more reasonable to the Titans.
The amended House Bill 2646 is scheduled to be heard in the House Business and Utilities Subcommittee on Tuesday.
The bill notes it applies to stadiums with a seating capacity of at least 65,000 in any county with a metropolitan government with a population of more than 500,000, which currently only applies to Nashville.
PSLs for the current Titans stadium range in price from $250 to $64,000 per seat.
The new Nissan Stadium is set to open in fall 2027 and the seating capacity could ultimately fall below 65,000. In April 2023, the Titans said the stadium was estimated at 1.75 million square feet, with a capacity of approximately 60,000.
A fiscal note on the bill says that “it can be reasonably assumed that any decrease in revenue would be offset by increased prices for season tickets or regular tickets such that the net impact to business revenue will be not significant.”
New Nissan Stadium is funded with a $500 million subsidy from the state of Tennessee along with a $3.1 billion tax capture setup to pay of Metro Nashville Sports Authority bonds on the project.
The Titans have not revealed how much new stadium PSLs will cost but the team is planning to fund a large portion of its $840 million toward the stadium project from those sales along with undisclosed naming rights payments from Nissan.
Titans revenue from PSL sales was projected at $270 million at one point during a sports authority work session.
Miller said the Titans told him they will have new PSL prices available in six months.
The team’s Tennessee Football Inc. arm currently has 12 registered lobbyists at the Tennessee Capitol.
The Titans previously said that it will offer a credit for current PSL holders toward the purchase price of new PSLs but Miller’s bill could change the amount of increase for some PSL holders.
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Jon Styf is a staff reporter for The Center Square.
Image “Proposed Titans Stadium” by Tennessee Titans.