Two of country music’s biggest stars helping Music City land one of the biggest sporting events in the country.
The NFL announced yesterday that Nashville will host Super Bowl LXIV in 2030, the first time the city and state of Tennessee will host the big game.
The game will, of course, be held at the new Nissan Stadium, which is expected to be completed prior to the 2027 season.
And it’s not exactly a surprise that the league wasted no time in awarding the new stadium a Super Bowl: NFL executive vice president of events, Peter O’Reilly, and NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, have both openly talked about how excited they are that the Tennessee Titans are getting an upgraded stadium, with Goodell previously describing Nashville as a “Super Bowl ready city” following the success of the 2019 NFL Draft in Music City.
In announcing Nashville as the 2030 host, Goodell even called the 2019 Draft “one of the greatest events” in league history:
“The 2019 NFL Draft in Nashville was one of the greatest fan events in our history. Super Bowl LXIV at the new stadium is the next step in this remarkable football journey. The vision of Amy Adams Strunk and the Tennessee Titans helped make this moment possible. With great partners at the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. and Tennessee Titans, we can’t wait to put on an unforgettable show in 2030.”
It’s been widely expected for a while now that Nashville would get the Super Bowl once it had a venue capable of hosting the event. In fact, just a couple weeks ago Eric Church was on the the Tennessee Titans’ Hometown Titans podcast, and expressed his confidence that Nashville would be awarded a Super Bowl:
“A lot of that comes down to – if you look at what makes great Super Bowls and great Super Bowl cities, Nashville checks every box.
What they’ve been waiting on is enough of the growth that you had the hotels and you had the infrastructure to support it, right? It’s just that getting the Super Bowl or the Final Four or the College Football Playoff or Nashville, that’s a big, big thing for a city.
And Nashville has proven over the last few years with their growth and with how they handle just a weekend. I mean, it’s it’s lit when the Predators are playing out there, right? So they’ve shown that there’s a big appetite for it and they’ve shown there’s infrastructure for it.”
Well as it turns out, Church wasn’t just speculating when he predicted a Super Bowl in Nashville’s future: He was actually involved with the process of bringing it here.
A press conference was held today in Nashville celebrating the city being awarded the big game, and seated in the front row beside Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk was the Chief himself – who, it was revealed, was a member of the committee responsible for putting the bid together to bring the Super Bowl to Nashville.
The committee was headed by legendary broadcaster and Nashville resident Jim Nantz along with former Tennessee governor and owner of the Nashville Predators, Bill Haslam. And joining Church in the group was not only his business partner and friend Ben Weprin, co-owner of Church’s Nashville bar Chief’s, but fellow country superstar Tim McGraw, along with comedian and Nashville native Nate Bargatze, ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit, and many others.
With a powerhouse group like that, it’s no wonder Nashville got the Super Bowl so quick.
Hopefully the fact that two of the biggest names in country music were involved in the process means that the NFL will decide to go with a country music halftime show in 2030. And hey, if they need a headliner, there are two guys on the committee who would be more than capable of getting the job done.
