Nashville Makes Up 25 Percent of ‘Billboard’ Money Makers

Pictured (L-R): Luke Bryan, George Strait, Jason Aldean.

Billboard has released a list of the top 40 Money Makers of 2014. Twenty-five percent of artists were Nashville-based (listed below).

The all-genre estimates are based off the Nielsen and Boxscore 2014 U.S. earnings, conveniently displayed by sales, streaming, publishing and touring. Merchandising, sync and sponsorship revenue is not included. A four percent producer’s fee and 10 percent manager fee were deducted.

Interesting to note Taylor Swift and Jason Aldean grossed a near $900k combined, after a highly-publicized withdraw from free streaming music sites. Also for sales, Swift had the highest on the list, ahead of labelmates Florida Georgia Line. Swift also boasted the highest publishing quadrant of anyone else.

Speaking of BMLG, Motley Crue’s (No. 25) tribute album was noted to boost the band’s publishing revenue, which totaled over $500k.

British boy band One Direction, which visited Nashville’s LP Field in 2014, topped out the list with $46m in gross revenue.

Methodology: royalty rates used were 22 percent of retail revenue for album and track sales; 22 percent for streaming revenue for current acts and 50 percent for heritage acts. Statutory mechanical rates for album and track sales and the Copyright Royalty Board streaming formula; for labels’ direct deals with interactive services, blended audio and video rates of, respectively, $0.0075 and $0.0045. Touring revenue equals 34 percent of an act’s Boxscore.

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No. 6 – Luke Bryan, $25m ($3.8m sales, $397k streaming, $641k publishing, $20.2m touring)

No. 8 – George Strait, $22.5m ($2.3m sales, $238k streaming, $308.1k publishing, $19.7m touring)

No. 10 – Jason Aldean, $20.2m ($3m sales, $287k streaming, $81.3k publishing, $16.8m touring)

No. 15 – Taylor Swift, 13.6m ($9.4m sales, $608.1k streaming, $3.5m publishing, $0 touring)

No. 19 – Zac Brown Band, $12.6m ($1.5m sales, $145.8k streaming, $645.3k publishing, $10.3m touring)

No. 22 – Eric Church, $10.2m ($2.6m sales, $160k streaming, $1.1m publishing, $6.4m touring)

No. 27 – Blake Shelton, $9m ($3m sales, $228.6k streaming, $26.1k publishing, $5.8m touring)

No. 31 – Florida Georgia Line, $8.4m ($4.3m sales, $354.4k streaming, $464.5k publishing, $3.3m touring)

No. 33 – Brad Paisley, $7.4m ($1m sales, $125.2k streaming, $608.9k publishing, $5.7m touring)

No. 39 – Rascal Flatts, $6.9m ($1.2m sales, $117.7k streaming, $53.1k publishing, $5.5m touring)