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Original article: BTS en Chile ¿El Pasto vale más?

Opinion: BTS in Chile: Is the Grass Worth More?

By Dana Davis

When a nation rejects international investment, the first question should not be how much it costs to protect the public asset involved, but rather how much economic value is being lost. This lens is essential for analyzing the decision by the National Sports Institute (IND) to prevent the BTS World Tour Arirang from taking place in Chile.

This situation is not simply about three concerts or a youth cultural phenomenon; it involves one of the most profitable entertainment assets globally. Since the start of the Arirang tour, it has generated over $204 million in ticket sales. In May 2026 alone, the tour earned $127.8 million from twelve concerts, drawing more than 641,000 attendees with an average of over $10.6 million per show. These figures only account for ticket sales and exclude revenue from merchandise, licensing, audiovisual production, sponsorships, digital platforms, and particularly the tourist spending that each host city attracts.

The economic impact of BTS has been widely documented. The Hyundai Research Institute estimated the group contributed approximately $3.6 billion annually to South Korea’s economy, equating to about 0.2% of the national GDP, similar to the percentage Chile invests in R&D each year. Subsequent studies by the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute project that a single concert in Seoul could generate economic impacts close to $800 million when considering direct, indirect, and induced effects on tourism, hospitality, commerce, transportation, and services. In essence, BTS has transcended being just a musical phenomenon and has become a global platform for cultural export and economic value generation.

While South Korea has developed public policy aimed at leveraging its cultural industry as a competitive global advantage, Chile has voluntarily excluded itself from this value chain. Just yesterday, Kast stated that «Chile must open doors and provide all logistical and infrastructural support so that other countries can connect with Asia.» South Korea is not only a significant trading partner for Chile but also one of the world’s most sophisticated economies in terms of value-added generation.

The IND’s decision was based on the potential damage to the hybrid grass at the National Stadium due to the setup of a central 360° stage, prioritizing the temporary preservation of a sports surface over executing an international investment that could inject tens of millions of dollars into the Chilean economy, which is currently in an unacceptable state of fragility, according to this government’s promises.

From a cost-benefit analysis perspective, the issue lies not in protecting the turf but in the failure of authorities to demonstrate that the protected economic value is greater than the destroyed economic value.

Chile is currently facing one of its least dynamic economic periods in the last decade. The Central Bank has revised down its growth projection for 2026 from a range of 1.5%-2.5% to just 1.0%-1.75%; the Imacec has recorded five consecutive months of contraction and unemployment has risen to 9.4%, its highest since 2021. In this context, large international events represent an extraordinary source of aggregate demand for labor-intensive sectors such as tourism, hospitality, gastronomy, commerce, and transportation.

The most significant loss may not even be the direct revenue; it will likely be the tourism impact.

International evidence shows that BTS concerts generate destination tourism. Thousands of fans plan international trips solely to attend these events, staying several days in the city, utilizing hotels, restaurants, transportation, commerce, and tourist services. This spending is irrecoverable afterward, as it stems from extraordinary demand associated with a unique event. In a slowing economy, deliberately giving up such visitor flows means forfeiting one of the few mechanisms capable of injecting private consumption without fiscal spending.

Additionally, there is a more persistent effect: national reputation. It is somewhat offensive coming from those who claim to uphold patriotism. The global entertainment industry operates on the basis of institutional trust. International producers invest hundreds of millions of dollars considering regulatory certainty, coordination among public agencies, and available infrastructure. When a fully sold-out event is rejected for administrative reasons related to the venue, the message received by the international market is that Chile is a destination with high operational risk.

Moreover, there exists a difficult-to-ignore political contradiction. In the national debate, restrictions aimed at protecting natural ecosystems have been trivialized, including statements by José Antonio Kast questioning the extent of wetlands legislation arguing it hampers economic development. Yet in this case, the state prioritized the temporary protection of sports turf over an investment of enormous magnitude. It is not about comparing the ecological value of a wetland to that of football pitch grass; this very comparison highlights the inconsistency in the criteria used to weigh public interest.

The real public policy error does not lie in protecting state infrastructure, but in reducing a strategic decision involving investment, tourism, and international reputation to a mere issue of grass maintenance. In economics, public decisions are evaluated based on the value they create or destroy. By that standard, the economic, tourism, and reputational cost of preventing the BTS World Tour Arirang far exceeds the benefit obtained from the temporary preservation of the National Stadium’s playing field.

La entrada BTS in Chile: Is the Grass Worth More? se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.