There are many billionaires and pop stars, but there is only one Taylor Swift. Swift isn't just selling albums: Her team has created an entire economic ecosystem that extends from selling cassette tapes to booking hotel rooms.
Swift itself performs several functions. She's a global artist, film producer and, thanks to her engagement to Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, an NFL fixture.
As of 2023, she has also become a billionaire.
Swift released her 12th studio album on Friday, “The Life of a Showgirl,” along with a concert film, and both are expected to gross even more millions — if not more.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated that his fortune has grown by another $1 billion in the past two years, taking his net worth to $2.1 billion due to changes in markets, revenue from the record-breaking Eras Tour and the concert film, and the purchase of the rights to all of his previous albums.
And unlike most celebrities, Swift has made lucrative business deals part of her persona, positioning herself at the forefront of the long-running narrative in the music business that invisible executives receive much of the money actually generated by artists.
“Taylor spoke up and said, 'I'm not going to let this happen, I'm going to change the industry,'” University of Oregon music professor Drew Nobile told CNN.
“That’s why the whole idea of Swiftonomics took hold.”
Swift's latest concert film, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” was an unprecedented success for the post-Covid box office, grossing $261.7 million worldwide, according to IMDB data.
AMC, the film's distributor, said the film “broke single-day advance ticket sales revenue records,” surpassing the previous record held by “Spider-Man: No Way Home” less than three hours after tickets became available.
Swift also made the decision to work directly with the AMC movie theater chain, bypassing traditional studios, which allowed her to get a bigger slice of the gross profits.
Now, Swift is embarking on another AMC-distributed film with “Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” a concert film framed as a weekend-long release party for her latest album.
Deadline reports that the film is expected to gross between $30 million and $35 million domestically.
Swift redefined “how film can be used to promote your music, your career and your public image,” Paul Dergarabedian, head of market trends at Comscore, told CNN.
Taylor Swift's massive Eras Tour spread across the 51 cities she visited. It became the highest-grossing tour of all time, with an estimated revenue of US$2.2 billion from ticket sales in North America alone.
Swift fans spent an estimated $5 billion in the United States in connection with her Eras tour, according to research firm Question Pro.
The US Travel Association found that Eras tour participants spent an average of $1,300 on travel, hotels, food and promotional products — almost as much as Super Bowl goers.
The downtown areas of the cities where she performed saw spikes in traffic and hotel occupancy, breaking records set in cities like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
While the album release certainly won't have an impact on GDP numbers like the Eras Tour did, American University economics professor Kara Reynolds noted that Swift's albums tend to generate more local spending than those of other artists.
That translates into business for bars holding launch parties, customers buying new clothes for those parties, and ticket sales at movie theaters.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated the value of music produced by Swift since 2019 at $400 million.
With Swift repurchasing the rights to the original recordings of her early albums from a private equity firm, that number is sure to increase now that she has control over her entire music catalog as well as the “Taylor's Version” re-recordings.
Now, Swift can build on the historic success of her early work as well as any new projects, as the Eras tour launched her to even greater stardom.
Reynolds said that when Swift releases an album, streaming of her previous work also increases, and that will certainly bring in even more money.
Swift has been Spotify's most popular global artist for the past two years, and her albums have gone platinum — meaning they've sold more than a million copies — more than 100 times over. And that's not even counting their singles and non-album releases.
The emergence of streaming services means that we are long past the days when album sales were the main business model for artists.
Swift pioneered the new method: seeing a new album as a gateway to boosting “cottage industries” such as promotional products, collectible vinyl and cassette editions, tours and films.
“It’s no longer just about album or ticket sales (...) It’s an entire economic apparatus,” said Professor Nobile.
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