Music City Rodeo brings ‘festival-like’ fun to Nashville

Country superstar Tim McGraw discusses why he’s brought Music City Rodeo, Western culture’s boom, to Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on May 29-31.

This isn’t Tim McGraw’s first rodeo.

But McGraw’s concert at the Music City Rodeo on May 31 will take place during Nashville’s first run with the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA).

“I’ve been riding in rodeos since childhood and high school and probably performed at 20 or 30 over my career,” said the Louisiana native country music superstar, actor and entrepreneur.

Music City Rodeo will take over Bridgestone Arena on May 29, 30 and 31.

By day, the arena will feature bull riding, barrel racing, team roping and broncs, with cowboys and cowgirls competing for over $200,000 in prizes. Music City Rodeo founding members will headline a concert at the venue each night — Reba McEntire on May 29, Jelly Roll on May 30 and McGraw on May 31.

Tickets for the Music City Rodeo are still available via http://musiccityrodeo.com.

Rodeo in Nashville builds on Music City nightlife scene

PRCA events are major economic wins for their host cities. In Nashville, global investors have flocked to the thriving tourism industry amid country music’s growing global popularity. Tourism industry leaders hope to continue that momentum with new attractions.

PRCA’s month-long National Finals Rodeo each December in Las Vegas provides $264 million in payments to contestants and stock contractors, according to a contract through 2035.

The iconic Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show generated a total economic impact of $326 million and total economic activity worth $597 million in Greater Houston, according to the Rodeo’s 2024 Economic Impact Study, conducted by Economics Analytics Consulting, LLC.

“The country music and rodeo industries have an 80-year history and it’s finally time that Nashville hosts a larger PRCA event,” said McGraw. “Country music’s boom in Nashville allows PRCA to increase its presence east of the Mississippi River.”

The new major summer entertainment attraction will build on the roughly $100 million in added economic activity in downtown Nashville from CMA Fest on June 5-8 and July 4th events.

“Out of the gate, from the $200,000 in prize money offered, to having Jelly Roll, Tim McGraw and Reba McEntire performing, Nashville’s staking a claim to win Rodeo of the Year in its debut year,” said three-time world champion bareback horseman and PRCA pro Tim O’Connell.

McGraw’s interests grow in business, multimedia realms

McGraw collaborated on Music City Rodeo with Bryan Kaplan, co-founder and chief strategy officer of his Down Home social media development venture, and Nashville-based commercial real estate developer Patrick Humes. Humes has served as the Rodeo’s president during the past two years during its development.

Down Home, founded in 2023, is McGraw’s country-meets-Hollywood media development venture created alongside Skydance Media CEO David Ellison to focus on what the performer said in a press statement are “honest vignettes of life and family and community.”

McGraw, 59, is still recording material and touring top-five country radio hits, with his last No. 1, the four-time platinum-selling hit “Humble and Kind” occurring in 2016. As an actor, he has roughly two dozen critically acclaimed credits to his name, bookended by his 2004 role in “Friday Night Lights” and work on Taylor Sheridan’s “Yellowstone” and “1883.”

However, 35 years into his multiple careers, diversifying interests is essential.

“Being able to attract and develop projects for myself and other actors and artists allows me to extend my love of storytelling to others,” McGraw said, noting that his film and television acumen matching his music industry success makes him a unique, important player moving forward in his work in other forms of media.

Music City Rodeo could expand to new Nissan Stadium

“The Music City Rodeo has the potential to be as successful as the Calgary Stampede or Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show,” said McGraw.

At present, both legendary rodeos are considerably more profitable than Nashville’s emerging event. However, given their century-long histories, McGraw sees explosive potential in Nashville’s upstart rodeo.

By comparison, when CMA Fest moved from the Nashville Fairgrounds to Lower Broadway stages and the Adelphia Coliseum (now Nissan Stadium) in 2001, the festival generated $15.5 million in direct visitor spending. In 2024, CMA Fest generated an estimated $77.3 million in direct visitor spending.

“We’d love to grow the Music City Rodeo into a country music and rodeo festival event at the new Titans stadium,” McGraw said.

“Bringing a fun, yet intense, top-tier and world-class athletic spectacle like any baseball or football game to an arena or stadium is exciting. Then, add artists like Reba McEntire and Jelly Roll, who are equally excited and jumped on board as Music City Rodeo cofounders and representatives immediately. We’ve dug in our spurs and are coming out of the chute with a great event with a festival-like atmosphere.”

“Western culture’s explosion is meeting the back-in-the-day ‘Urban Cowboy’ boom when everyone went country for a while,” McGraw said. “But the rodeo is going to build that out in a huge way that grows into a pinnacle of (country music and rodeo culture) in North America.”

Tim McGraw’s busy touring schedule

Regardless of how intertwined his artistry now feels with other entertainment realms, live performance is still at the heart of McGraw’s appeal.

His last appearance at Bridgestone Arena was over a year ago.

On August 2, he’ll perform before the MLB Speedway Classic Atlanta Braves game at a specially constructed baseball diamond across from Bristol Motor Speedway, marking the first regular-season MLB game in Tennessee.

Additionally, on August 30, his late father Tug’s birthday, he’ll headline an all-day concert at the iconic Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa, the site of the 1989 baseball classic starring Kevin Costner.

Though he’s healing from recent surgeries, the performer is excited to perform at the Music City Rodeo. He offers that the stage will not be set in the round, like typical rodeo events in Houston and Las Vegas. Instead, he said that a more intimate set allowing fans to be “on the dirt, closer to the stage” will create a more concert-friendly atmosphere.

‘I Like I, I Love It’

Just like at Nashville Predators’ games for the past decade, it’s entirely possible that McGraw’s three-decade-old hit “I Like I, I Love It” could become a celebratory song played after an eight-second ride on a bull, 95-point bareback horse ride, or when a steer is quickly and successfully roped at the Music City Rodeo.

McGraw recalls almost not recording the anthem, believing it too much of “a fun novelty ditty” to be attributed to him as a defining song early in his career. However, upon working with producers Byron Gallimore and James Stroud, he crafted something at the iconic Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama “with a bit more heft to it” that became “a whole other animal.”

Similar to the song, McGraw said he is equally passionate about how Nashville will relate to rodeo’s desire to be entrenched within Music City’s growth.

“More than anything, just like country music and rodeo, the city wants to be where good people share family values, faith and hard work.”

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