SANTA CLARA — As Levi’s Stadium enters its10th season, a new report released Monday from the San Francisco 49ers says the venue has generated more than $2 billion to the local economy in Santa Clara County since it opened.
The city-owned stadium, which is managed by the NFL team, attracted more than 8.7 million attendees for approximately 155 major events and nearly 1,000 special or corporate events from July 2014 through July 2023.
“We have always seen Levi’s Stadium as a powerful economic engine for this community and the region, and we’re proud this report shows that over nearly a decade we have lived up to that potential and promise,” 49ers President Al Guido said in a news release Monday morning.
The 81-page report, which was commissioned by the team and compiled by marketing and research firm SportsEconomic, LLC, said $350 million went to the city of Santa Clara and the Stadium Authority through hotel and sales taxes, ticket surcharges, city parking fees and stadium rent.
In a news release announcing the report, the 49ers said this past fiscal year was one of the most successful in stadium history. Between April 2022 and March 2023, the team said the stadium generated $251 million in economic impact through 12 NFL games and seven concerts including Coldplay, Elton John and The Weeknd. However, at a Santa Clara City Council meeting last month, city officials said that while the stadium raked in $8.8 million in profits for non-NFL events last year, no money from that tranche will go to the general fund because of litigation costs associated with the 49ers.
This summer, Levi’s Stadium saw some of the biggest musical acts in the world make a stop in Santa Clara, including Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Ed Sheeran, who smashed the attendance record by drawing in roughly 80,000 fans for his Mathematics Tour.
The report analyzed 19 major events held at Levi’s Stadium from Dec. 9, 2018 through July 2023. The 2019 College Football Playoff National Championship game between the Clemson Tigers and the Alabama Crimson Tide on Jan. 7, 2019 was the stadium’s biggest revenue generating event of the 19 — bringing in $90.2 million in economic impact to the local economy with $64.1 million of that in direct spending. Researchers defined direct spending as dollars spent in the region relating to the event that would have been spent elsewhere. That includes lodging, rental cars, food and shopping.
Of the six concerts included in the report, Swift’s Eras Tour on July 28-29, 2023 was the biggest local money maker with a $33.5 million economic impact, including $23.2 million in direct spending.
The report used surveys and data gathering during events, as well as previous public research and government data to compile the information.
“The economic impact report shows that Levi’s Stadium has been extremely successful in driving local economic impact in the surrounding community, far eclipsing the investment needed to build the stadium and operate it,” SportsEconomics, LLC President Dan Rascher said in the release. “Our study shows that events and operations of the stadium equate to over 1,000 local full time equivalent jobs each year, over 1 million spectators per year and millions of dollars in revenues to various public entities, all of which wouldn’t happen without the presence of the stadium.”
In the release, the 49ers also said that the Stadium Authority has paid off the majority of construction related debts more than 15 years ahead of schedule, saving the governing body that is made up of Santa Clara officials and councilmembers approximately $100 million in interest costs.
During the last fiscal year, Santa Clara paid off about $35 million of its debt on the stadium, leaving $245.2 million remaining. The stadium hit its debt peak in March 2014 at $653.4 million.
In a statement, Santa Clara Councilmember Karen Hardy called the stadium an “integral part of the Santa Clara Community — as an employer, a tax and revenue driver for the city and as a dynamic cultural attraction.”
“We have worked hard to ensure that Santa Clarans are benefiting from the Stadium, and this report is an encouraging sign that for the past decade we’ve been able to accomplish that,” she said.
In the coming years, Levi’s Stadium is expected to host several more large scale events including the 2026 FIFA World Cup and Super Bowl LX. In 2016, the stadium hosted Super Bowl 50, which had an economic impact on the region of $240 million, according to the Super Bowl 50 Host Committee.
