From a relationship with NFL star Travis Kelce to record-setting concert sales, Taylor Swift frequently captured headlines and also sent shockwaves through the US economy in 2023.
Yahoo Finance’s Josh Schafer analyzes the musician’s timeline of financial news mentions and impact, spanning her appearance in the Fed’s Beige Book to being named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. He provides a balanced examination of Swift’s cultural dominance and contributions to invigorating consumer spending throughout the year.
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.
Video Transcript
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- We're counting down the Top Stories of 2023 here at Yahoo Finance. And breaking news here coming in at number eight, the one and only Taylor Swift and the Taylor-made economy.
Taylor Swift making music history today, announcing she's going back on tour after a five-year break--
- --to pre-sales for her upcoming tour kicked off yesterday. But a surge in demand caused Ticketmaster's website to freeze or even crash altogether.
- There's so much fanfare around the summer that has been Taylor Swift.
- Jersey sales for Travis Kelce up 400%. His podcast hitting number one on the Apple charts all because of Taylor.
- Taylor Swift's--
- Taylor Swift's--
- Taylor Swift.
- Taylor Swift.
- Taylor Swift.
- Taylor Swift is breaking the internet again.
- Obviously, a huge year for Taylor Swift and her fans. So joining us with a snapshot of the year in review for Taylor, our very own on the Taylor Swift beat here for us, Yahoo Finance's Josh Schafer. Josh.
JOSH SCHAFER: Hey, Matty. Yeah, so as we know, it was a big year for Taylor Swift and that Taylor-made economy, but Finance News really also got in there Taylor Swift era this year as well. And that's what we have next to me here. So as Taylor Swift was making billions, estimated by couple outlets on this tour, she was getting a lot of mentions for what she was doing in the economy in boosting consumer spending.
So we got a little timeline for you here. The first real mention, one of the bigger mentions came in July 12th. It was a Fed Beige Book release, and the Philadelphia Fed actually highlighted that Taylor Swift, when she had a tour there, boosted hotel sales and boosted the overall economy.
Moody's highlighted something similar two months later, pointing out all the local economies that Taylor Swift was in were actually growing more than some of the other economies, seeing a boost specifically on that week that the Eras Tour came to town.
Now, this all culminated a little bit in July, a big month for Taylor, when she was mentioned in a question about consumer spending. Taylor Swift and Barbie both got a mention in that question sort of laying out the resilient consumer narrative that Fed Chair Powell ended up answering toward. You should note, he didn't actually give Taylor a shout out himself, unfortunately.
But the timeline goes on because it was a big year for Taylor Swift. Morgan Stanley came out in August actually highlighting they thought consumer spending was going to fall during the fall because of the end of the Eras Tour. They noted that Taylor Swift and Beyonce's concerts combined over the summer had added several billions of dollars to consumer spending. And they were actually a little bit concerned about the fall back from that.
And then moving into the latter part of the fall, we're still seeing Taylor Swift mentions in Wall Street strategy notes, which is relatively rare. Not a normal thing to see a pop star come up from a Wall Street strategist that's talking about the S&P 500, but that's exactly what David Costin's team at Goldman Sachs did. They named their outlook, "All you had to do was Stay," that's a Taylor Swift song, and they're telling investors to stay in the market.
And then just last week, she was named "Time Person of the Year," culminating the big year that was for Taylor Swift. And I have also with us-- I didn't even mention the movie. The movie wasn't in the timeline because it wasn't financed news, but $123 million for the "Taylor Swift, Eras Tour" when that concert film premiered in theaters, sort of changing the game when it comes to bringing a live concert to theaters in a final graph here because this is what the Taylor Swift story meant to me this year, thinking about what it meant for the economy.
It was really a story of the resilient consumer, a way for us to understand that these GDP numbers, a lot of people thought they were going to go negative in 2023. And instead, they stayed positive. Taylor Swift, Barbie, that entire summer of spending was one way that we sort of understood what this graph was really telling us because we all get T Swift, and we couldn't get enough of her this year. And we probably won't get enough of her next year either. I don't think the Taylor Swift economy is really going to be going anywhere, Jared.
- You know, really interesting. I think with all the demand pulled forward in 2023, we might be looking at increased delinquency rates as a theme in 2024. And I think the Taylor-made economy would take a little bit of a different twist, though, but not casting aspersions on Taylor Swift. Thank you for that report, Josh Schafer.
