Despite economic volatility, Bill Haslam, Disney's Bob Iger remain bullish on sports future: 'Nashville's got this secret sauce'

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Nashville Predators owner and former Gov. Bill Haslam told hundreds of sports business leaders gathered in Downtown Nashville's Grand Hyatt April 22 for the World Congress of Sports conference that he is bullish on Nashville's future, despite nationwide economic volatility.

Music City benefits from a generally predictable business environment, low taxes, reasonable regulations and its effervescent charisma, Haslam said. The leading industry event draws team owners, corporate sponsors, commissioners and media partners.

Haslam spoke at the conference along with his brother and Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro and headline speaker The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger.

"Nashville's got this secret sauce of history of entertainment, a music business which is way more than country music now, and it brings a certain kind of creative person here, a real entrepreneurial spirit," Haslam said. "All that's coming together."

But as insulated as the city of Nashville, the state of Tennessee and the American sports industry typically are to broader economic influences, they're not completely immune. With shifting economic policy at the federal level, like President Donald Trump's trade war and disagreements with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, many Tennessee businesses are feeling uncertain about the future.

Haslam estimates an economic downturn will roll in over the next six months to two years.

"A slower economy means for folks going to buy those $40 and $50 tickets, it gets a little harder to do," he said. "Sports have been a little bit of an exception in terms of its valuation, but it can't live outside of that forever. That would be my biggest worry is if we, like others, will suffer."

Haslam said targeted investments will bolster Tennessee's prospects, as discussions about introducing new sports teams to the region continue.

During the conference's featured event, Iger shared advice on withstanding a challenging media landscape and discussed Disney's focus on meeting young audiences on digital platforms.

Investing downtown with an expanded Bridgestone Arena

Haslam announced plans for a gargantuan $650 million expansion the Preds have in store for Bridgestone Arena in the coming years. The investment is one of many that will help position Middle Tennessee well, he said, emphasizing the numerous hospitality jobs it would create.

"What we understand in Tennessee is growth happens, jobs get created when people put capital at risk," Haslam said. "We understood that, and let those business owners know that we respect your decision. If you come here, we'll do everything we can to make that decision to put your own capital at risk a good one."

Nashville MLB, WNBA teams still a possibility

Currently, Nashville has its own football, hockey and minor league baseball teams. The obvious next steps, Haslam said, are professional baseball and basketball.

He's already taking steps toward the latter.

"We believe in the power of pro sports. We believe in the business model, and as I said, I'm a strong believer in Nashville," Haslam said. "We obviously made an offer to the WNBA, and we'll have to see how that ends up. I think it kind of maybe surprised everybody how competitive the franchise competition was there, and we'll see MLB is obviously going to expand at some point."

MLB Commissioner Manfred said at the conference that he believes expanding the league would be a good thing, but didn't specifically name Nashville as in the running for a team.

Young sports fans want multi-screen, bite-sized entertainment, Disney says

Long before becoming CEO of The Walt Disney Company, Iger told conference attendees how he snagged a job at ABC Sports, where he covered the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Now, he runs the company that owns the network and shapes exactly how that kind of coverage gets delivered.

"It was very, very clear to me from the start that sports and Disney were in so many ways perfect for one another because the mission is to entertain," Iger said.

Fifteen years ago, Iger said major sports franchises needed to be more in touch with young audiences. Now, he feels proven right.

"I was actually thinking at the time about the pace of games and that young audiences wouldn't be as tolerant about length and slowness, and some leagues have done a pretty good job of addressing that," Iger said. "I think that dynamic is even more acute today."

Based on Walt Disney Company findings, Iger said Generation Alpha looks for three things in its media: bite-sized videos, multi-screen options and customizable experiences or some control over what they're watching.

Disney CEO Iger: 'Disrupt yourself'

After a brief hiatus from the company, Iger returned to the CEO position in 2022 with a mandate to shape Disney's streaming platforms and "return creativity" to the core of its operations.

He's led the company through the launch of its streaming platforms ESPN+ and Disney+, each time learning from the growing pains of what content to put where and how to lure audiences in.

Addressing the crowd in Downtown Nashville, Iger said the upside to being in the legacy media industry is the swaths of ad revenue it can bring in. But he added the problem is that younger audiences are seeking cable television less and less.

"The difficulty when you're in a legacy business and you have to innovate because that's the way the world is going, is to figure out how to balance both," he said. "On one hand, you're competing with yourself when you do that, but on the other hand, if you don't do it, it's going to be done to you. I've always been a proponent of this: Be disruptive. Disrupt yourself."

Hadley Hitson covers business news for The Tennessean. She can be reached at hhitson@gannett.com. To support her work, subscribe to The Tennessean.