TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 The public agency that manages Tampa\u2019s Raymond James Stadium made an estimated $3.44 million from two Ye concerts in June, despite fierce pushback from residents, Jewish leaders and Florida politicians.<\/p>\n
Tens of thousands crowded the stadium for the shows. Every cent they spent on food, drinks and parking \u2014 and a chunk of the money from merchandise and ticket sales \u2014 went to the Tampa Sports Authority, according to documents shared at a board meeting on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the June 26 and June 28 concerts, a coalition including Holocaust survivors<\/a> and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott<\/a>, R-Fla., urged the Sports Authority to sever its contract with Ye, who earlier this year apologized for past antisemitic comments and actions.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy on Earth would we use tax dollars to fund someone who has called himself a Nazi and praised Adolf Hitler?\u201d Scott asked at a news conference at the Florida Holocaust Museum that month. \u201cThere\u2019s countries all over the world that have banned him<\/a>, and we\u2019re going to allow him to come to our state and our city?\u201d<\/p>\n But the Sports Authority said no taxpayer money would go toward the shows, and that cancellation could lead to legal troubles.<\/p>\n A clause in Ye\u2019s contract said the Sports Authority could not cancel or interfere with the events \u201cbased upon artist identity, prior or past public statements, public perception, political viewpoints, or the anticipated or actual content of the performance,\u201d as long as Ye\u2019s concerts did not run afoul of any laws or venue rules.<\/p>\n More than 63,200 people attended the first show, generating a more than $2 million profit for the Sports Authority. The second night, which drew 56,391 attendees, brought in more than $1.37 million.<\/p>\n Sports Authority spokesperson Bobby Silvest told the Tampa Bay Times in June that the agency expected a $1 million profit per show. Raymond James has a capacity of more than 72,200 seats.<\/p>\n When Taylor Swift came to Tampa<\/a> in 2023, each of her three sold-out shows netted a roughly $1.5 million profit for the Sports Authority. A recent three-show run of the K-pop band BTS<\/a> brought in $3.3 million total.<\/p>\n At the board meeting on Tuesday, Tampa City Council chairperson Alan Clendenin joked about the controversy that swirled around Ye\u2019s Tampa concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a Kanye West show?\u201d he quipped. \u201cI missed that. Didn\u2019t get any phone calls about that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 The public agency that manages Tampa\u2019s Raymond James Stadium made an estimated $3.44 million from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[48963,28,3445,110,135,137,136,4571],"class_list":["post-365421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-americas","tag-florida","tag-north-america","tag-sports","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}