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Taylor Swift is a self-made billionaire, having generated tremendous wealth almost exclusively off of her music. Other hyper successful pop stars and celebrities have generated lucrative streams income through brand partnerships or product lines that have nothing to do with their art, but have catapulted them to billionaire status.
Swift’s income streams include revenue from her concert tour ticket sales, music catalog, streaming deals and record sales. She also owns numerous pricey properties across the U.S. Both Bloomberg and Forbes pin her net worth at an estimated $1.1 billion on the low end, based on analyses of her fortune.
Swift first achieved billionaire status in October when she released a re-recording of her nine-year-old album “1989,” Bloomberg reported. Her wealth is powered by her legions of loyal fans, whose spending on all things Swift-related make the pop star an economic engine on her own, bringing tourist dollars to the cities in which she performs.
The U.S. Travel Association estimates her Eras Tour generated more than $5 billion for local economies in the U.S. alone. Since she began dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, Swift has even boosted the NFL’s number of fans and Americans’ spending on football.
In addition to being a uniquely talented musical artist, Swift is an exceptionally savvy business person who has expertly managed her brand from the beginning of her career, according to industry analysts.
“At the time of her debut album 2006, musical physicals, meaning CD and vinyl sales, had been wiped out, so the name of game was to create enough music that was worth touring,” labor economist Carolyn Sloane, who teaches a “Rockonomics” course at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, told CBS MoneyWatch.
Sloane added, “She set herself up early on to do that successfully by establishing herself as a great songwriter and storyteller. She had a vision of what it would take to be compelling on the road.”
While her most lucrative revenue stream has been income from her live concert tours, she has also maximized her earnings through other avenues, such as sync licenses, which refer to the deals that are struck when her songs are matched to visuals, like in movies or commercials.
Live performances are the greatest income generator for Swift, who is in the midst of her Eras Tour, the highest grossing music tour of all time and the first to cross the billion dollar mark at the end of 2023, according to Pollstar. Bloomberg estimates she has earned at least $370 million from touring over the course of her career as a musical artist.
Her Eras Tour continues, with Swift slated to perform 151 shows across five continents before it concludes.
Swift has shrewdly priced tickets to her concerts, being careful not to alienate fans but to also not miss out on profits by undercharging for live shows.
“We consistently see other artists underpricing tours and leaving so much money on the table because the secondary market is profitable,” Sloane said. “Taylor is pricing much closer to market demand than her peer artists, and she has an authenticity and level of trust with her fans that allow her to do that.”
In other words, Swift is capitalizing on every moment she spend in the public eye “to make it count for her business and try to bring money back for herself and the people who work for her,” Sloane said.
Swift is estimated to have earned $175 million through her contracts with music streamers including Spotify, Apple Music and others, according to Bloomberg’s estimate. The deals make her array of original songs available to the services’ subscribers.
In 2019, Swift feuded with Scooter Braun, owner of her former label, Big Machine Records, over the ownership of the masters of her first six albums. She subsequently re-recorded and released new versions of her earlier work to reclaim ownership of her songs. Her music catalog is worth an estimated $400 million, according to Bloomberg.
Swift has earned an estimated $80 million in royalties form record sales, according to Bloomberg.
While physical album sales have diminished as a moneymaker for artists, Swift hasn’t discounted or overlooked the category as a means of bringing in cash.
In 2022, she released her 10th album, “Midnights,” in vinyl with different colors and at different price points. Diehard fans could collect all four, which could be placed together to form a wall clock.
Swift owns both a condo and estate in Nashville, Tennessee, plus second, third and fourth homes. She has an estate in Los Angeles, an apartment in New York City’s TriBeCa neighborhood and a seaside summer home in Watch Hill, Rhode Island.
Combined, the real estate adds an estimated $110 million to the singer’s net worth, after taking taxes and property management costs into consideration.
Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News Streaming to discuss her reporting.
First published on February 8, 2024 / 4:27 PM EST
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