Super Bowl v. Taylor: Which Kick to Las Vegas Economy Was Swifter?

Taylor Swift may outearn her boyfriend, tight end Travis Kelce. But Super Bowl LVIII, in which Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers at Allegiant Stadium, injected nearly four times more dollars into the Las Vegas economy than Swift’s pair of 2023 concerts at the same venue, at least as measured by heads in Airbnb beds.

According to short-term vacation rental analytics firm AirDNA, NFL fans spent $5.73 million more than Vegas rentals generate on a normal weekend. Swift, meanwhile, brought in an additional $1.6 million from Swifties in town for her pair of 2023 shows at the same stadium.

“The Super Bowl’s revenue is a smash success,” AirDNA economist Bram Gallagher told the Wall Street Journal this week, though he admitted that his company’s data didn’t measure the increased interest that Swift’s presence at the Super Bowl had on Super Bowl vacation bookings.

Hike!

To determine the winner of this competition, AirDNA analyzed the additional nights booked around each event and the average increase in price due to demand.

Additional short-term vacation rental nights booked around the Super Bowl totaled $4.82 million, while the revenue from the price hikes was $908,780. During the Super Bowl, short-term rental rates averaged $365 per night, up 19% from the weekend before.

Las Vegas has 15,500 short-term rental units, according to AirDNA, most of which are in luxury apartments on or around the Strip or houses not too far away. That’s on top of what the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor’s Authority estimates as the region’s 156,100 hotel rooms.