I have been debunking BTS' longer career theory, floated by mostly Korean male netizens to justify their enlistments.
It would have been better for BTS to make $4 billion - $10 billion in 2022-2025 and ditching Korea, than having long, increasingly thinning tail end of their career, which is unlikely to continue the re-signing period since Taehyung will probably leave Hybe by that point of time, never seeing $1 billion.
https://www.billboard.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Bulletin_2024_Year-In-Touring.pdf
Billboard published a list of the top concert tours of 2024.
Taylor Swift gets her own section. Since she never bothered to report her numbers to Billboard she is not ranked , but like The Singer who Never Charted in Billboard Hot 100 (TSWNCIBH1), even though Tay is not ranked everyone knows she is #1 with $1 billion concert sales.
The also rans, from 1 to 100, are listed in the above PDF. I am not going to copy everything.
#100 is Billy Joel and Sting, $31.6M. His own ranking is #26, $103.1M.
#86. Post Malone, $37.2M
#83 Ateez $37.6M
TSWNCIBH1 had a world tour. She went to 31 stops for a total of around 500,000 audience, and made an income north of $40m,
but there is a catch - for the purposes of Billboard only the portion in USA and some selected venues in Europe count, so according to Billboard and Touring Data, TSWNCIBH1 only made about $8 million from concerts, since they don't count the numbers in Asian venues (and in her case the dates at london and berlin).
So TSWNCIBH1 is not going to be found in this list.
#67 The Weeknd $42.5M
#52 txt $58.1M
#50 Enhypen $63M
It seems txt is falling behind to Enhypen which will make it more emboldened against BTS.
#31 Seventeen 98.1M, Highest grossing act from Korea.
#17 Bruno Mars 156.5M. He , by a single finger, ended KPop.
#14 Olivia Rodrigo. 116.8M. She gets to laugh last.
10 Metallica 176.2M Legacy act.
9 Bad Bunny 211.4M Latin
8 Madonna
7 U2
6 The Rolling Stones
5 Bruce Springsteen
4 Luis Miguel - all ancient history.
3 Zack Bryan, 28 years old. Interesting that his tours are much bigger than that of Morgan Wallen. 321.3M
2 P!nk, 45 years old, can be called legacy, 387.2m
1 (actually 2) Coldplay, Members 46-47 years old and so can be called legacy. 400.9M.
Can BTS do that when they become legacy acts? I seriously doubt it, especially when, as seen in the case of TSWNCIBH1, Billboard and Touring Data do not count the Asian portion of tour.
It will not be possible to dance their numbers when they are past 40 for hours, for many days. None of the top 20 are what we would call as dance acts. Usher, who invited Jungkook to the Super Bowl but the Korean military refusing to release him for that, is #35 at 89.5M. I watched some clips of his 2024 concerts; they are short, about 2 hrs long unlike most BTS concerts which are about 3 hrs, and he dances much, much less than when he was younger. Can BTS do that when they reach Usher's age? I doubt it . Seokjin is already 34 so he will be in his 40s in 6 years.
The longer career argument has been thoroughly debunked. For a dancing act like BTS the shelf life is a lot shorter. in fact it is possible that when they reach Madonna's age TSWNCIBH1, who is likely to be singing until her last days, might have a larger 'world tour' than BTS, a horror which I have been fearing for years.
