{"id":3414,"date":"2026-04-29T16:54:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T23:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/?p=3414"},"modified":"2026-05-06T18:56:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T01:56:46","slug":"just-how-big-is-the-culture-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2026\/04\/just-how-big-is-the-culture-economy.html","title":{"rendered":"Just How Big is the Culture Economy?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Vegas Sphere. Image: Nigel Hoult<\/a> on Wikimedia<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

[see Part II of this – comparing the audience for culture.<\/a>] <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week we picked a story from the Wall Street Journal about the Vegas Sphere<\/a>, which by all accounts delivers a spectacular experience. The project was built for $2.3 billion, about a billion dollars over budget, and completed in 2023. The Sphere has been a remarkable success, now the highest-grossing arena in the world \u2014”$379 million on 1.7 million tickets sold last year, according to Pollstar.” And a smaller version is now planned for Washington DC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That got me to thinking: just what are the various culture industries worth and how do they compare? Every year we hear about debates to cut or raise the budgets of the NEA NEH ($207 million each this year). So how does this funding compare not just in the non-profit arts world, but in the larger creative economy? So I decided to do some digging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most arts policy debates happen at one scale. Most cultural activity happens at another. It turns out the gap between those two scales \u2014 between the world that the arts, funding fights, and nonprofit board meetings live in, and the world where most people actually encounter culture \u2014 is so large that it’s worth pondering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What follows is a set of tables. The premise is simple: if you put the budgets of the largest US nonprofit arts institutions next to the revenues of the companies that produce most of the culture Americans consume, you start to see why debates inside arts circles often feel disconnected from the broader culture. They are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three things worth pointing out before the numbers and then I’ll get out of the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The largest US nonprofit arts institution is the Smithsonian, with about a $1.1 billion total budget \u2014 roughly 70 percent of which is federal appropriation. That figure is only about 3 percent of what the Disney Parks division earned in revenue last year. Disney Parks alone \u2014 not Disney’s whole company, just the parks \u2014 pulls in more revenue than the entire global recorded music industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The European model is different in scale and structure. State subsidy is not a top-up to ticket sales there; it’s the foundation. The Vienna State Opera covers about 55 percent of its budget from public money. London’s Tate Museum’s most recent annual report shows public grants falling, deficit budgets, and “self-generated income not increasing post-pandemic at the same pace as the cost base.” The story is the same across the continent, with the dial turned to different points on the public\/private spectrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So something to consider: A lot of what we call “culture policy” in the US is policy for less than 0.5 percent of the cultural economy by revenue. Americans for the Arts puts the nonprofit arts and culture sector at $151.7 billion in total economic activity and 2.6 million jobs. Disney alone employs 233,000 people. The NFL did $23 billion in revenue last year, by itself larger than the operational spending of every US nonprofit arts organization combined. None of this means the nonprofit arts don’t matter. It means that when we argue about $207 million in NEA appropriations, we are arguing about a rounding error in the broader cultural economy. Perhaps the conversation should grow up to the size of the field it’s trying to describe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn’t a complaint, it’s an attempt at a map, and my arbitrary version at that. I think you make different decisions about where to put energy when you can see where things actually are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1. The 10 largest US nonprofit arts\/cultural institutions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Most recent fiscal year available (FY2023 or FY2024). Operating expenses unless noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Notes<\/strong> The Smithsonian is technically a federal trust instrumentality, not a 501(c)(3); about 70% of its budget is federal appropriation. The Getty Trust runs almost entirely off endowment draw \u2014 it’s a different financial creature than peers funded primarily by tickets, philanthropy, and government. Lincoln Center, the campus organization, is separate from the Met Opera, NY Philharmonic, NY City Ballet, and Lincoln Center Theater, which are independent constituent tenants with their own budgets. The Met Opera’s FY24 audited statements were not fully released at the time of writing; so the figure here is an estimate based on prior years and reported deficit. Also: I omitted the Kennedy Center, which in prior years most certainly would have made the list. But who knows really what the numbers are now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Combined top-10 operating spend: roughly $3.5\u20133.8 billion.<\/strong> That is approximately 11% of Disney Parks’ annual revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources: <\/strong>Smithsonian FY2024<\/a>; Met Museum 990 (ProPublica)<\/a>; Getty Financials<\/a>; Met Opera Annual Reports<\/a>; MoMA FY24<\/a>; AMNH Financial Statements<\/a>; Lincoln Center 990 (ProPublica)<\/a>; BSO Annual Reports<\/a>; Carnegie Hall Financials<\/a>; SF Opera Finances<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2. The largest European arts institutions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

European data is harder to assemble cleanly than US data. Different countries report on different fiscal calendars, in different currencies, and many institutions are units of larger municipal or state cultural enterprises rather than freestanding entities. This is a partial list \u2014 institutions where current-year figures are publicly reported. The point is the order of magnitude and the funding mix, not a strict ranking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Notes.<\/strong> Currency conversion uses approximate 2024 averages. German state opera houses (Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden) typically don’t publish freestanding budgets \u2014 their funding is woven into state cultural appropriations, which can be substantial but aren’t directly comparable. La Scala, the Prado, and the Reina Sofia were not included due to data quality issues for 2024. Russian institutions excluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The headline pattern:<\/strong> the largest European institutions are smaller in absolute terms than their US peers, but they receive significantly higher direct public support. The Louvre’s budget is roughly 60 percent of the Met Museum’s; the difference is that the Met has to raise nearly all of its operating revenue from ticket revenue, philanthropy, endowment, and city support, while the Louvre’s salaries, security, and maintenance are paid by the French state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources:<\/strong> Tate ARA 2023\u201324<\/a>; British Museum ARA 2023\u201324<\/a>; Royal Ballet & Opera Annual Report<\/a>; Vienna State Opera reporting<\/a>; Op\u00e9ra National de Paris<\/a>; Louvre<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3. The size of culture industries (global revenue, 2024)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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What the list reveals.<\/strong> Video games alone are larger than recorded music, global theatrical film, and live music combined. Book publishing \u2014 which we routinely talk about as a sector “in trouble” \u2014 is roughly three times the size of recorded music. The entire US nonprofit arts and culture sector’s organizational spending ($73.3B) is in the same range as global recorded music revenue, and smaller than US theme park spending. The Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account<\/a>‘s $1.17 trillion figure includes everything cultural \u2014 commercial film studios, streaming platforms, publishers, museums, performers \u2014 which is why it dwarfs every line item above it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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4. The 10 largest commercial culture companies (most recent FY)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Notes.<\/strong> Pure-play comparison is hard because most of these companies are conglomerates with mixed segments. Comcast is mostly broadband, not media. Sony is mostly electronics and finance. Tencent is mostly games and a Chinese super-app. Where possible, we’ve separated out the culture-relevant segment revenue with the conglomerate total flagged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disney alone \u2014 at $91.7B \u2014 produces more annual revenue than every US nonprofit arts and culture organization combined ($73.3B in organizational spending per AEP6).<\/strong> And that’s one company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources: <\/strong>company 10-Ks, 20-Fs, and annual reports; Disney FY2024 Earnings<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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5. The 10 highest-revenue sports teams (most recent reported)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This list mixes North American leagues and European football because they operate on different revenue models \u2014 the NFL’s revenue-sharing produces a tight cluster of teams in the $600M\u2013$1.2B range, while European football’s commercial-first model creates a wider spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Note.<\/strong> The Cowboys had an estimated $629M operating profit on $1.22B revenue last year \u2014 meaning the Cowboys’ profit alone was larger than the operating budget of every US nonprofit arts institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

League-wide totals:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n