Nissan Stadium (Nashville)

• 1. Introduction

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  Nissan Stadium wasn't always called Nissan Stadium. On the 16th of April 1998, a tornado tore through its construction site in downtown Nashville. It destroyed several cranes before the building even carried that name. The project still opened in time for its first scheduled event. Within a few years the venue would cycle through corporate sponsors and survive a flood that reached its own locker rooms. It would also host a trick play so unlikely that it earned a permanent nickname in NFL history. The same building would become a stage for international soccer matches, sold-out country tours, and a professional wrestling pay-per-view. All of that happened before Nashville and the Tennessee Titans committed to tearing the building down for a replacement next door. How did a stadium built for one football team end up hosting so many different crowds, and why is it already scheduled to disappear?

• 2. Building The Stadium

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  During the NFL preseason in mid-August, the Houston Oilers played the Washington Redskins at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville. There, Oilers owner Bud Adams met Nashville Mayor Phil Bredesen and began discussing a possible move to Middle Tennessee. Adams was unhappy with the team's lease at the Astrodome, and Houston would not build a new football-only stadium. Later that year, Adams and Bredesen announced the team's intent to relocate to Nashville. The city and team picked a site on the eastern bank of the Cumberland River, across from downtown. The area had previously been a declining industrial and warehousing district.

  On the 7th of May 1996, voters in Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County approved partial public funding for the stadium in a special referendum. The vote allocated $144 million of public money and passed with a 59 percent majority. The pro-stadium group, known as "NFL Yes!", outspent opponents by a ratio of sixteen to one during the campaign.

  The initial funds came from an increase in the Metro water tax. Most of the remaining construction costs were covered by sales of personal seat licenses. Some money from the State of Tennessee came with two conditions. Tennessee State University's football team had to move its home games there, and the incoming NFL team had to be named Tennessee rather than Nashville.

  The finished stadium has three levels of seating, with the lower bowl surrounding the field itself. Club and upper levels form the stadium's dual towers, rising along each sideline above the lower bowl. The eastern tower holds three levels of luxury suites, one between the lower and club levels and two between the club and upper levels. The western tower has two suite levels between its club and upper levels, and the press box sits between its lower and club levels. Dual video boards stand behind the lower bowl in each end zone, and the Titans Pro Shop sits on the stadium's eastern side. Seating capacity totals 69,143, making Nissan Stadium the largest stadium in the Football Championship Subdivision because Tennessee State plays its home games there.

  The finished building still needed an official name, and that search would prove far from permanent.

• 3. Three Names, One Stadium

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  During construction, the stadium had no official name and was generally called The East Bank Stadium, a nod to its riverside site. Upon completion it became Adelphia Coliseum, under a 15-year, $30 million naming rights deal with Adelphia Business Solutions. Adelphia Business Solutions was a subsidiary of the larger Adelphia telecommunications company. Adelphia missed a required payment and filed for bankruptcy in 2002, so the deal was abandoned. The building became known simply as The Coliseum for four years, until Adelphia itself was dissolved in 2006.

  Nashville-based Louisiana-Pacific signed a new naming rights deal on the 6th of June 2006, paying $30 million over 10 years. The company marketed itself as LP Building Products, and the stadium became LP Field. LP's presence led to the creation of LP Building Zones in 2007, tucked beneath the giant scoreboards from Daktronics at the north and south ends. Concession stands and restrooms in those zones were decorated to look like suburban homes using LP products.

  On the 24th of June 2015, Nissan bought the naming rights in a 20-year contract, and the building became Nissan Stadium. Nissan's North American headquarters sit just south of Nashville in Franklin, and the company runs a manufacturing plant nearby in Smyrna. The parent company is headquartered in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. As part of the sponsorship, a 2016 Nissan Titan pickup truck was placed beside the stadium scoreboard.

  The Titans themselves had already given the building its most famous moment, on the field rather than in its name.

• 4. Thirteen Straight And A Miracle

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  The Tennessee Titans opened their stadium tenure on the 12th of September 1999, beating the Cincinnati Bengals 36-35. That win launched a 13-game winning streak that lasted until a loss to the Baltimore Ravens on the 12th of November 2000.

  On the 8th of January 2000, one of the most debated plays in NFL history unfolded at the stadium. Known as the Music City Miracle, it was a last-minute trick play on a kickoff return that produced a touchdown against the Buffalo Bills. The play sent the Titans past Buffalo into the Divisional Playoffs. It also kept the team undefeated at home in its first season in the new stadium. A franchise-record crowd watched the win.

  Football wasn't the only game the building would make room for.

• 5. Soccer Comes To Nashville

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  The venue hosted its first soccer match on the 20th of April 2004. It was an exhibition between the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer and Tecos UAG of Mexico's Primera División. Friendlies followed: the U.S. women against Canada in 2004, and a Tecos rematch against rival F.C. Atlas in 2005. The U.S. men played Morocco there in 2006. The stadium also hosted CONCACAF men's Olympic qualifying tournaments in 2008 and 2012, feeding both the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics.

  On the 1st of April 2009, the U.S. men's national team beat Trinidad and Tobago 3-0 in a World Cup qualifier. In that match, Jozy Altidore became the youngest American to score a hat trick for the national team. The U.S. men returned on the 29th of March 2011 and lost to Paraguay in a friendly. A record crowd of 29,059, the largest to watch a soccer game in Tennessee, saw that loss. Nissan Stadium later hosted two Group Stage games of the 2017 CONCACAF Gold Cup. That Tennessee attendance record was broken on the 29th of July 2017, when Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur played an exhibition before 56,232 fans.

  Major League Soccer club Nashville SC began playing at the stadium temporarily in 2020. Their first game, on the 29th of February that year, was a 1-2 loss to Atlanta United in front of 59,069 fans. Their final game there came on the 23rd of November 2021, a 3-1 win over Orlando City SC in the playoffs. A crowd of 26,043 saw that win before the club moved to Geodis Park at the Nashville Fairgrounds.

  Soccer crowds were only part of the building's life outside football season.

• 6. The Stadium's Other Stage

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  Every June, the stadium's field becomes the main stage for CMA Fest, Nashville's country music festival. The first concert held there was on the 30th of April 2000, headlined by George Strait. Tim McGraw, Martina McBride, Kenny Chesney, Mark Chestnutt, and Asleep at the Wheel all opened that show.

  Beyoncé became the first woman to headline the stadium, on the 2nd of October 2016. Garth Brooks billed his the 15th of April 2022 concert as "A brand-new opening night" and became the first artist to perform two consecutive shows there. Taylor Swift's Eras Tour took over the stadium for three consecutive nights in May 2023. It was the first run of three straight shows by one artist there, and the combined ticket total for the first two nights reached 211,924. Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks then delivered the highest-grossing show in the stadium's history, on the 19th of May 2023, taking in $11,281,469. Ed Sheeran set the venue's single-day attendance record on the 22nd of July 2023, playing before 73,874 fans.

  Nissan Stadium hosted the Nashville Kickoff Game, a college football matchup between major NCAA teams, in 2014 and 2015. From 2021 to 2023, IndyCar's Music City Grand Prix used a street circuit through downtown Nashville and around the stadium. The stadium's own facilities served as club seating for race spectators. The stadium hosted the 2022 NHL Stadium Series, a game between the Nashville Predators and the Tampa Bay Lightning. On the 1st of July 2023, it hosted the Monster Jam World Finals 22. Professional wrestling arrived too, when Nissan Stadium hosted WWE's SummerSlam in 2022.

  All of that traffic, on top of an NFL schedule nearly every weekend, would take its own toll on the field beneath the cleats.

• 7. The Stadium's Last Seasons

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  As of the 2023 season, the playing surface is Matrix Helix Turf with an organic infill. Before that switch, the field was Tifsport Bermuda sod, a natural grass. Nashville's climate, combined with hosting a game nearly every weekend, often required resodding the area between the hashes each November. Between the 2018 and 2021 seasons, the stadium recorded among the highest rates of lower-body injuries of any venue in the NFL.

  On the 3rd of May 2010, heavy rain and flooding from the Cumberland River left the playing surface under six feet of water. The flood reached all the way down to the stadium's locker rooms. Mid-2012 brought upgrades instead: a new sound system, high-speed elevators to the upper levels, and LED ribbon boards on the upper mezzanines. Two new HD Lighthouse video displays, each 157 feet by 54 feet, replaced the entire end zone scoreboard setup. At the time, those two boards were the second-largest video displays in the NFL, trailing only AT&T Stadium.

  In February 2022, the Titans paused ongoing renovations, citing rising costs and the stadium's aging structure. Later that year the team committed to a full replacement, releasing renderings for a new indoor Nissan Stadium. That new venue, under construction on an adjacent lot, is set to open in 2027. The final Titans regular-season home game at the current stadium is scheduled for the 3rd of January 2027, against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Whatever the Steelers do that day, it will be the last regular-season snap the current building ever sees.