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Could Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras Tour’ Hit A Billion Dollars?
What may be getting lost amidst the Taylor Swift ticketing crash heard ’round the world—i.e. Ticketmaster’s inability to process the demand for her massive “The Eras Tour” with a reported 14 million fans (and possibly some bots) waiting in a virtual queue to buy seats to one her the 52 NFL stadium dates—is that the 2023 trek could very well turn out to be the highest grossing tour of all-time.
If “The Eras Tour” can generate the same revenue as this year’s leading stadium tour, Bad Bunny’s “World’s Hottest Tour,” which averaged more than $10 million a show at 22 U.S. stadiums, Swift should easily surpass that with $520 million—well above the all-time highest yearly gross of $432 million that Ed Sheeran’s “Divide Tour” earned and well ahead of Bunny’s roughly estimated $400 million
Where Bunny had lower grosses at three baseball stadium stops which averaged closer to $8 million, Swift’s only playing NFL stadiums. For six of the NFL stadiums Bad Bunny played, the average gross was $12.3 million per show. So just using a $12 million average for 52 concerts at NFL stadiums would put Swift’s U.S. leg at $624 million.
Additionally, some stops along Bunny’s “Worlds Hottest Tour” were much higher, including SoFi stadium (where Swift is playing five shows) where he grossed of $15.5 million per show and Soldier Field netted $14.1 million. Some sources suggested the average gross at the NFL buildings would be closer to $14 million, depending on pricing and premium offerings, which would put Swift’s “The Eras Tour” at a massive total gross of $728 million – nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars.
And that doesn’t include a presumed second leg in Europe, Asia, South America and/or Oceania, which could still happen after the U.S. run’s final date on Aug. 9, her last SoFi Stadium show. With another 90 days left in Pollstar’s touring year, if she did say another 30 or so dates, staying at $12-$14 million dollars range, “The Eras Tour,” promoted by Messina Touring Group, an AEG partner, would gross a mind-boggling billion dollars. That would easily surpass Ed Sheeran’s all-time touring record of $775.6 million on 8.9 million tickets at 255 performances—but that took over two-and-a-half years to accomplish.
To put it another way: if Taylor Swift was a country and its economy was solely based on ticket sales, it would be the 199th largest economy on earth, equivalent to a small Caribbean nation.
Of course, tickets first have to be sold, which at this juncture, we’re not sure when that will happen with what seems the entire universe and political class focused squarely on the suffering “Swifites,” her massive hardcore fan base anxiously awaiting ducats. Yesterday (Nov. 17), Ticketmaster halted all sales after a verified fan presale crashed the servers on Nov. 15.
Within hours of the Verified Fan onsale, Ticketmaster announced it was delaying onsale for the Pacific time dates. Sales for the dates in Inglewood, Las Vegas, Santa Clara and Seattle were being delayed until 3 p.m. The company also moved the presale for Capital One cardholders to Wednesday at 2 p.m. local. Thursday afternoon Ticketmaster canceled the public onsale altogether.
“Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been canceled,” the ticketing giant tweeted, which followed a TV appearance by Live Nation Entertainment chairman Greg Maffei in which he said the problems Ticketmaster experienced were a function of Swift’s popularity and the fact she hasn’t toured widely since 2019.
While it’s not yet clear when or if the onsale will return, it’s becoming increasingly clear that this is Taylor Swift’s year.
Additional reporting by JR Lind and Bob Allen