By Ramishah Maruf, CNN
Taylor Swift at the 67th Annual GRAMMY Awards. Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for The Recording Academy/AFP
There are plenty of billionaires and pop stars, but there is only one Taylor Swift.
Swift is not just selling albums - her team has created an entire economic ecosystem that extends from cassette sales to hotel room bookings.
Swift herself wears many hats. She's a global entertainer, movie producer and - thanks to her engagement to Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce - an NFL fixture.
Since 2023, she's also a billionaire.
On Friday, Swift released her 12th studio album - The Life of a Showgirl - along with a concert film, both of which are expected to pull in even further millions - if not more.
Bloomberg Billionaire's Index estimated her wealth grew another billion dollars over the past two years, now putting her worth at US$2.1 billion (NZ$3.6b), due to changes in the markets, cash from the recordbreaking Eras Tour and its own concert movie, as well as her purchase of the rights to all her early albums.
Unlike most celebrities, Swift has made lucrative business dealings a part of her persona, positioning herself at the vanguard of the long narrative in the music business that unseen executives received much of the money actually generated by artists.
"Taylor came out and said, 'I'm not going to let that 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."
Movie releases
Swift's last concert movie - Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour - was an unprecedented boon for the sluggish post-Covid box office, grossing US$261.7 million (NZ$448.68m) worldwide, IMDB data shows.
AMC, the movie's distributor, said that the film "shattered records for single-day advance ticket sales revenue", crushing the previous record held by Spider-Man: No Way Home less than three hours after tickets became available.
Swift also decided to work with movie theatre chain AMC directly, cutting out traditional movie studios and allowing her to take a greater cut 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 movie framed as a release party for her latest album playing over one weekend. Deadline reports it's expected to rake in anywhere between $30-35 million domestically.
Swift redefined "how the movie theatre can be used to promote her music, her career and her public persona", Comscore marketplace trends head Paul Dergarabedian told CNN.
Boosting local businesses
Swift's massive Eras Tour famously spilled over into the 51 cities she toured in. It became the highest-grossing tour of all time, with an estimated windfall of US$2.2b (NZ$3.77b) in North American ticket sales alone.
Swifties spent roughly US$5b (NZ$.57b) in the United States in relation to the Eras tour, according to survey company Question Pro. The US Travel Association found that Eras Tour attendees spent an average of $1300 on travel, hotels, food and merchandise - about as much as Super Bowl-goers.
Taylor Swift and NFL player Travis Kelce announced their engagement in August. Photo: Supplied / Instagram / Taylor Swift
Downtown areas in the cities she attended reported spikes in traffic and hotel occupancies, breaking records in cities like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
While the album release certainly won't impact GDP numbers like the Eras Tour did, American University economics professor Kara Reynolds noted that Swift's albums tend to spend money more locally than other artists. That translates into business at bars hosting release parties, customers buying new outfits for those parties and ticket sales at the movie theatre.
Owning her music catalogue
Bloomberg Billionaire's Index estimated the value of the music Swift has made since 2019 to be US$400m (NZ$685.8m). With Swift buying back the rights of the master recordings of her earliest albums from a private equity firm, that number will certainly increase, now that she has control over her entire music catalogue, as well as the 'Taylor's Version' re-records.
Now, Swift can ride on the historical success of her early work and also on any new projects since the Eras Tour launched her into even more stardom.
Reynolds said, when Swift releases an album, streaming of her previous work also spikes and that will surely bring in even more money.
Swift has been Spotify's top 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. That doesn't include her singles and non-album releases.
The rise of streaming services means we're long past the days of album sales being the primary business model for artists. Swift has been a pioneer of the new method - viewing a new album as a gateway to fuel 'cottage industries', like merchandise, collectible vinyl and cassette editions, tours and films.
"It's not just album sales anymore or just tickets," Nobile said. "It's a whole economic apparatus."
- CNN
