NASHVILLE, Tenn. – While the Titans are responsible for cost overruns on the new Nissan Stadium, a mechanism built in their contract with their construction manager sets a maximum price on a substantial piece of the $2.2 billion.
This guaranteed maximum price (GMP)means if things like product availability, site conditions, or the price of materials change substantially, construction manager Tennessee Builders Alliance will be responsible.
Titans President and CEO Burke Nihill said it covers about two-thirds total cost.
Such deals are not an uncommon practice in the construction business.
Marc Ganis is president and founder of Sportscorp Ltd. The sports business consulting firm has worked on more than two dozen sports facility projects. He said he’s familiar with the new Nissan Stadium project and he believes the Titans have been especially smart about their GMP.
“What really happens, it’s how it is managed after you get the GMP and a lot of people do poorly at the management, they enter the process thinking they’ve gotten effectively a fixed price contract,” Ganis said. “It is not a fixed-price contract. Guaranteed maximum price on stadiums and sports facilities, and I’ve done more than two dozen of them, is not the same as a fixed price contract.
“You can make it close to a fixed price when you’re done, but it takes a great deal of very strong management of the project. And that is something the Titans have done very well.”
He cited three smart things the team has done:
1) They brought a lot of the construction management in-house and have full-timers there.
Kellen DeCoursey is the Titans’ "new stadium project executive" and was on staff in the fall of 2021. The teams’ administrative log also includes James Arel (stadium operations senior manager), George Sargent (engineering manager), Wray Gabelmann (stadium operations senior coordinator), an electrician and five technicians.
2) They are not completely a union job.
“That makes it, frankly, easier to manage a construction project compared to say Buffalo, which is all union,” Ganis said. “When you are doing a union construction job you can be confident in the quality of the work. So you have to manage better to be confident in the quality of the work on non-union job, often. Well, stadiums often get the best people on it anyway, because they want to be involved. In jobs like this, there is a pride factor. If you manage it well, and the word is that they have, you get the better contractors and workers even if it’s not union.”
My understanding is in Tennessee, the marketplace allows for lower and more predictable costs of labor than in New York, where the Bills are a year ahead of the Titans with on new venue, or California, where Sofi Stadium was completed in 2020. Some trades have a significant union presence in Tennessee, and others do not.
3) They were very thorough and efficient on the front end.
“What is the state of the drawings and specifications when you go out and have the bidding for the GNP?” Ganis asked. “The Titans were very far along. That gets you tighter pricing. Buffalo was not very far along.”
New @NissanStadium #Titans. pic.twitter.com/jObFgOx8l2
— Paul Kuharsky (@PaulKuharskyNFL) March 3, 2025
The Titans learned a lot about what questions to ask and how deep to go when they looked at the current stadium while considering a renovation, which became cost-prohibitive based on how outdated it was. They brought in DeCoursey at some stage of that and he revealed just how deep some of those questions needed to go, which in turn showed the franchise how detailed it needed to be in the planning of the new building to get ahead of its guaranteed maximum price deal.
Ganis jokes that in the industry GMP is often referred to as guaranteed minimum price.
But he said the Titans project, which started out in the $2.1 billion range and now is projected at $2.2 billion, is expected to land between $2.2 and $2.3 billion.
“That’s actually quite good,” he said.
I asked Kevin McGrath, vice president of CAA Icon, the biggest threats to cost overruns on the construction side. He led the tour group I was part of at the construction site Monday.
"I guess if there are unforeseen changes in building materials for instance, or tariffs that were not suspected when we went through the GNP process a year ago," he said. "That's really the biggest thing that we are hoping not to have effects on us."
The Titans' only responsibilities for overruns now pertain to substantial changes to the stadium that would increase the cost. If they wanted to change something or build something because it would enhance the fan experience in an area, they would pay for any increases in the project due to the change.
Many owners of teams that build the newest stadiums in the league came up with new ideas on the fly during the building process.
"We as an organization are just trying really hard to just stay committed to this design that we spent years and years and years thinking through we're really proud of and making sure that we're not just making arbitrary changes," Titans President and CEO Burke Nihill said.
"There is always the possibility of things that could happen that raise the cost. But we feel like we've done the work on the front end to reduce that as much as possible and the GMP really gives us a lot of comfort as well."
Most projects wind up costing more than originally planned.
In November, AP reported the projected cost of the Buffalo Bills’ new outdoor stadium “ballooned” to what team officials told it was “north of $2.1 billion,” with owners Terry and Kim Pegula responsible for picking up the more than $560 million in overruns. The stadium is due to open June 2026.
Here is how the financing for the four most recently completed NFL stadiums worked out:
Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas opened in 2020 and came in in $25 million under budget, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal in Dec. 2020.
The original budget was $1.8 billion, increased to $2.02 billion but then costs were controlled better than expected.
But by the end of 2022, $7.5 million of upgrades were scheduled.
Burke Nihill on Nashville as Super Bowl host, host of other big events. #Titans. pic.twitter.com/2nGYfM1oVa
— Paul Kuharsky (@PaulKuharskyNFL) March 3, 2025
SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles also opened in 2020 and is perhaps the prime example of expanding costs. The initial price tag was around $2 billion and the final cost was about $5.5 billion. No taxpayer money was involved as Rams owner Stan Kroenke financed the deal.
In Minneapolis, US Bank Stadium came in at least $16 million over budget. It opened in 2016.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta (2016) began with a budget of $1 billion but reports suggest the total wound 
up at $1.6 billion. Falcons owner Arthur Blank was responsible for the overruns.
Ganis pointed out that in many of these cases, unforeseen developments were part of overruns: Los Angeles had a flood and dealt with resulting water issues. It also had to dig deeper than initially planned to accommodate FAA issues near LAX; Atlanta and Minneapolis both had roof issues. All that was outside of the scope of the original designs.
He said the Titans are beyond the point of such things arising.
“They are so far along that they are in very good shape,” he said.
