Nashville is over the moon about being given the opportunity to host the 2030 Super Bowl… but the residents? They are a little worried about Music City’s traffic problem.
It was earlier this week that NFL owners voted during the league’s spring meeting to award Super Bowl LXIV in 2030 to Nashville, which will be the first time Music City has hosted the big game.
Undoubtedly an exciting confirmation for Nashville, and a no brainer by the NFL. The 2019 NFL Draft that was hosted on Broadway (and famously ruined a lot of bachelorette parties) arguably forever changed how the league conducts drafts.
When it was announced that Nashville would be 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 also perfect timing in terms of showing off the new Nissan Stadium. It’s projected to be completed and ready for the 2027 season, and typically, a Super Bowl won’t be hosted in a brand new venue. The NFL likes to wait around three years for a new stadium to be open before choosing it to host the “Big Game.” Super Bowl LXIV would be played in February of 2030, around three years after the new Nissan Stadium is set to open.
All in all, it’s a very exciting opportunity for Nashville to show the world what it’s made of. The city built the new and improved stadium for this very purpose: bringing large events like the NCAA Final Four and, of course, the Super Bowl. The only problem? 2030 isn’t really that far away, when you really think about it, and Nashville residents are worried about the infrastructure of Music City being able to handle an influx of that many people.
Recently, the city was ranked as one of the worst 30 places in the entire world when it comes to traffic. Something called the INRIX 2025 Traffic Scorecard took a look at congestion over 900 cities across 36 countries, and Nashville fell among the worst 30 on the globe, and one of top 15 traffic-congested cities in the United States.
As you’ll see in the post below, city leaders are already hard at work on traffic management plans. State and local leaders are apparently looking into improving I-24, which runs right by the stadium, and addressing construction projects that are located near the stadium.
City officials are apparently going to tackle the traffic management just as they do with Titans home games and CMA Fest. But if you dive into the comments of that post, there are a lot of Nashvillians that aren’t exactly hopeful about traffic and infrastructure being improved enough in three years time:
“How about fixing the roads?”
“What’s the plan for the one way in and out of the airport? Gotta be a traffic plan for after the game.”
“There will only be total grid lock!”
“NOW they are looking at ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE? Where have they been all this time while we were screaming that they were building too much with NO ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE?”
“To be clear, it’s some of the worst traffic in the country on its best day with no events.”
“This is absolutely a slap in the face to every Nashvillian. Traffic management is horrendous in this city. City leaders have failed tremendously to provide what the city needs. Instead we’ve gotten fewer lanes and more bike lanes… horrible road conditions.”
“Cant even manage traffic at this point in time… wonder how those ‘super intelligent’ Waymos will handle it.”
“Nashville can’t handle more traffic. Not enough infrastructure.”
“Have not figured traffic out in 35 years, what makes you think they can do it in 3?”
I guess they got some time to figure it out…
