Construction on the new Nissan Stadium, the future home of the Tennessee Titans, was brought to a halt this week after a noose was reportedly found on the site.
The city of Nashville announced back in 2023 that instead of upgrading the current home of the Tennessee Titans, which sits on the east bank of the Cumberland River, the city and Titans would be building a new $2.1 billion domed stadium, which will sit directly adjacent to the current stadium.
The new stadium is expected to hold 60,000 fans, which is a smaller capacity than the current Nissan Stadium, and will allow the city to compete for events like the Super Bowl, the World Cup, and Wrestlemania, which has already announced plans to hold their 2027 event in the new stadium. It will also allow for more major concerts, which in the past have been affected by weather due to a lack of a roof on the current outdoor stadium.
Construction began on the “New Nissan Stadium” in 2024, and is expected to be complete in early 2027.
But this week, work was suspended on the project after a noose was reportedly discovered on the property.
According to WKRN, the Metro Nashville Police Department confirmed that they are investigating the incident to determine whether a hate crime was committed, and the Tennessee Builders Alliance, which is overseeing the project, announced that they have stopped all work on the new stadium while workers undergo additional training:
“This week, a racist and hateful symbol was discovered on our site. There is no place for hate or racism in our workplace. We reported the incident to law enforcement, suspended work, and launched an investigation. A reward has been offered for information leading to the identification of the individual responsible.
Counseling services are available to all workers. We are requiring additional anti-bias training for every person on site, and work will resume only after a site-wide standdown focused on inclusion and respect.
We are outraged and deeply saddened by this act. We are working in close partnership with our client, trade partners, and unions to ensure every worker understands that racism and hate have no place here. Everyone deserves to feel safe, welcomed, and treated with respect and dignity.”
Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell also issued a statement on the incident:
“Obviously, this is an environment where we want to try as hard as we can to prevent scenarios that might be fear or hate-based. We’ve taken some steps, both with local policies, state policy, and partnership with them to try, again, to keep temperatures low and prevent hate incidents like this. It is very concerning, there is an open investigation. I know the Titans are cooperating with Metro Nashville Police and we’ll see what that investigation turns up.”
Obviously we haven’t seen the noose in question, and if it was in fact put there as a racist symbol then they should do whatever they can to punish whoever was involved.
But we’ve also seen situations where it was reported that a noose was found, only for it to turn out to be one big misunderstanding.
Back in 2020, it was widely reported that a noose was found in the garage stall of Bubba Wallace, the only black driver in the NASCAR Cup Series. After further investigation, though, it was determined that it was just a garage door pull, and that the “noose” had actually been there during previous races when the stall was used by other drivers.
I really hope that the situation at Nissan Stadium is just another misunderstanding, because if someone did actually leave a noose there as a racist or threatening symbol, there’s absolutely no place for that kind of behavior, in Nashville or anywhere else.
